SZ6 Battery Questions

1. I was surprised to find that my battery went from 100% to 80% while the SZ650 was in sleep mode overnight. Since everything is powered down, I am surprised it dropped this much. Is this normal and is there any way to minimize this?

2. Sony includes extra power-related features: Vaio Power Management and Battery Care Function. What exactly are these? Do they add anything above and beyond Vista power management (which seems comprehensive)?

 

I've left my TZ in sleep mode overnight a few times, and the power drain is comparable to yours. I am assuming there is not much you can do about it, other than to use Hibernate.

Vaio Power Management and Battery Care Function won't exactly help you to retain more charge. As their name suggests, they help you to both manage the power drain and care for your battery.

I don't have much use for the Power Management utility, considering the perfectionist in me micromanages everything anyway. I do, however, use the Battery Care utility to stop my battery from charging to 100%, unless I know that I will need a full charge (which I have not needed yet).

 

What is the advantage to not fully (100%) charging your battery?

 

If you use your laptop much like your desktop and always have it connected to an AC source, it's almost like storing your notebook battery under not ideal conditions. It breaks a few rules of good battery care, it's always 100% charge level which adds unnecessary strain on the battery, and the temperature is usually 110-120F or higher depending on your notebook. This combination of high temperature and max charge will lead to a drop of half battery capacity over one year of use.

I wrote a full article on the subject of lithium battery care here, you may find it useful.

http://spicygadget.com/2006/12/24/guide-getting-the-most-out-of-your-lithium-battery/

Forgot to provide solutions, you'll want to have your battery care function set to super so the battery is at 50% charge level at all times and a notebook cooler would be a good idea to keep the temps near room temperature. The one downside to taking good care of your battery is the extra cost of a notebook cooler, and having to anticipate when you will be needing your notebook outside of your home. Usually I try to plan ahead and charge the battery to max before i go out, sometimes I get caught with my pants down and have to leave the house with only 50% battery charge, in which case I bring my AC adapter with me.

 

What ironcook said; it basically prolongs the life of your battery.

I don't go to the extremes of keeping it at 50%. I set mine to 80%.