Battery life
Battery life is a crucial part of any laptop in order to stay portable.
Battery Lifespan[edit]
There are three ways in which battery lifespan decreases. One is heat, another is regular degradation over time, and the last is charge/discharge cycles. Computers are smart enough to simply stop charging once it's full, so you don't need to worry about over charging. Here is more information by Battery University.
Heat[edit]
If your battery gets hot, it degrades more. Simple.
Also, using a battery while its too hot can result in internal venting in the battery, causing it to expand and degrade more rapidly. This can occur as low as 50C, which is plenty achievable inside of many laptops. Not all laptop manufacturers address this concern in their designs, so if your laptop is getting very, very hot near the battery while the battery isn't in use, that particular laptop might not fair too well too long. Just keep an eye out.
Degradation[edit]
Over time, the battery degrades. However, how fast it degrades depends on how much charge it's holding. It is around 40% that is ideal for storage, meaning that is the percentage at which the battery degrades the least.
Charge/discharge cycles[edit]
As you charge and discharge while using the laptop as... well, a laptop, the battery degrades. How much you charge and discharge also determines how fast the battery degrades. For longest lifespan, you usually don't want it to go below 20 and above 80.
So what does this mean?[edit]
Some people say "unplug at certain percentage and plug in at certain percentage" but that creates cycles, degrading their battery anyway. Since that's also a pain to do, it is recommended to simply leave one's device plugged in. Unplug it if you are not going to use the laptop for a few days when you go on a trip or something. Lastly, check in your bios or your laptop's software for options on limiting battery charge. Many Dell laptops for example have an option to choose a specific charge limit such as up to 80%, this allowing for minimized degradation while also not cycling the battery.
Laptop Battery Life Resources[edit]
A list of laptops and their tested battery life by the TechTuber Jarrod'sTech.
A list of Ryzen 4000 laptops and their tested battery life by the reviewer zenlaptops
- https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDLaptops/comments/kgxcmy/battery_life_of_ryzen_4000_laptops_table/
- Related: All tested AMD laptop battery life by zenlaptops https://zenlaptops.com/data/batterylife
A guide to try to improve the battery runtime of your laptop. This is done at your own risk.