Having the charger on all the time - will it damage the battery?

Just wondered if the Vaios battery will damage if the charger was on all the time when using the vaio?

Lets say that im gonna use the computer for 10 hours today. is it better to have the charger on the entire 10 hours or should i charge the battery full, then disconnect the charger until ill get low battery and then charge it?

 

The best is to charge the battery to 50-60% (you can use battery cap for this) and remove it if you really don't need to move your Z.

Perpetual charging may damage the battery, but repeated cycles will too.
If you don't need the battery for a while, remove it.

 

Use Sony's battery care feature (Vaio Control Center - Power Management) have set mine to 80% Charge. Battery is approx 15 months old, been used for numerous trips and plugged in as my desktop normally - 1% wear level as shown in HWMonitor. Appears to help it much more than previous times when would just let it charge & stay @ 100%.

 

As far as I've read and experienced...constant charging will degrade the battery...but as mentioned before, if the laptop will be always connected, its just better to partially charge the battery and remove it, this will extend its life.

 

oh, didnt knew that such app existed
why is it important to only charge the battery to 80% and not 100%?

 

Kinda a chemistry lesson.
But Lithium batteries experience degradation when charged at high levels (100%) or when fully discharged (near 0%).

The battery care setting on the VAIOs pretty much prevent the former, preventing the batteries from reaching and staying at the higher charge levels.

Batteries experience wear when they are being CHARGED, or when they stay at too high or too low a charge. So I too would suggest you recommend charging to around 60% (I use 80%), and when it reaches that level, disconnect the battery off the laptop. My machine is now 20 months old and battery wear is on 3%, the entire 3% occuring last month after I was forced to use my Z till the battery reached near 6% (did this for a week or so).

 

There's nothing wrong with charging your battery to 100%. It's only kinda bad to charge it to 100% and keep it there for a long long time (i.e. many days, weeks).

 

are there any limits on how long i should wait until charging the batteries? i have set the full charge to 80% in the vaio battery app. but are there any limits on when i should charge it or can i let it go down to 5% as usual?

 

is there still the problem with battery discharging while the notebook is off?

 

Not that I've seen in using it for the last 15 months at 80% - just use it. I use mine for quick notes/emial updates, meetings and moving from rooms in the house- combinations of battery power followed with plugging it in. Have not bothered with battery care concerns after using the battery care function - also did it on my Sony Netbook - same deal - it gets used on battery far more frequently. Sometimes down to 20% sometimes just a few percent.
Use the laptop like what you bought it for - the battery won't last forever regardless of what you do, eventually it will deteriorate.