T420s New Battery never gets to 100%?

Hi all,
I've had my new Lenovo i5 T420s for about a week now and love it for the most part. But one thing has me wondering... the battery has not been at 100% since the first couple days. After fully charging, it only hits 98%. Is this normal? I am concerned because we know they go down, but this quickly?? TIA for any experiences to share.

 

That's probably Power Manager capping it because you don't use it. And deterioration doesn't show up like that, it still shows 100%, but of a lower max capacity.

 

So, should I regularly use it on battery til it dies, then fully charge again? Appreciate your help!

 

The default configuration of power manager doesn't charge the battery until it drops below 98%. Don't use it until it dies, this is hard on the batteries. If you want to keep things simple leave power manager alone and it'll automatically manage the battery for you. If you want to take control there are advanced settings and many people lower the charge thresholds (ie: don't charge until the battery drops below 70% as an example).

 

No, don't use the battery until it dies. Your battery will literally die on you if you do that often. Like infinus said, if you want to keep things simple, just leave Power Manager alone. Don't drain the battery under like 10% unless you have to. Li-ion batteries are happy around 40 ~ 50% from my internet research.

 

Thank you both. Guess I was really surprised to see anything less than 100% being only used a week! Love this keyboard, though.

Next project: creating a recovery disk and making a back-up plan

 

That just means that the battery is discharging. Li-ion batteries discharge slowly over time due to the self protection circuit. You should see it charge back up once it's down to like 96% or so, I believe.