Is It Good To Use Laptop While Charging? Ultimate Guide 2024

Last Updated/Fact Checked on December 12, 2023 by Irslan

Electricity is the fuel of the new world order and gone are the days when heavy machinery was being run on steam and coal in order to operate.

Now everything is simply run on electricity because it is a far cleaner option and doesn’t produce as much carbon footprints as former methods of fuel sources.

It also enabled us to discover new innovations that have changed our lives substantially for both us and the upcoming generation, so that we can live with comfort without any hassle.

Such innovations include computers which are further refined to become far more portable and convenient in order to cater to the consumers, which are now known as laptops.

In simple terms, laptops are easy to carry devices that are made from complex components and powered by a battery source rather than a direct current coming from an electrical outlet.

However, you must also be familiar with the fact that a laptop also requires its battery cells to replenish its reserves through a process known as charging.

Despite being well aware of all the facts mentioned above, questions and confusion might still arise like is it good to use a laptop while charging? Will it damage my battery? Will my laptop performance be affected?

To say the very least, the answer to this question “is it good to use laptop while charging” is significantly far-fetched because it depends on the variant of laptop you might be using, want me to elaborate? Keep on reading!

Laptops And Their Battery Types

Keeping the history of laptops in mind, older variants of laptops used to have different types of battery cells, which were quite different from what we use nowadays.

And in total, there are three types of batteries that are used in laptops commercially.

  • Nickel Cadmium
  • Nickel Metal Hydride
  • Lithium-Ion 

1. Charging Nickel Cadmium Batteries

If you own a laptop, which must be pretty ancient considering the technology is quite obsolete, but by any chance, if you do own a laptop that has Nickel Cadmium batteries, charging them while using your laptop can have a negative impact on the performance of the battery runtime.

Because Nickel Cadmium batteries tend to have a memory effect which works by having a limited number of life cycles.

Each cycle required you to completely discharge your laptop battery from 100% to 0% in order to deplete the life cycle, which is 1500 in number approximately.

NiCad batteries are quite volatile and lose 20% of charging capacity even while kept at idle state at room temperatures, which means they are in the worst state of batteries that had significant depreciation issues.

2. Charging Metal Hydride Batteries

Although being the lighter version of batteries, Metal Hydride batteries also struggle to produce serviceable runtimes which is why they aren’t used commercially to meet today’s standard.

Moreover, they only have 500 life cycles which means they have a higher chance of dying on you and a replacement is soon to be expected if you own a laptop with Metal Hydride batteries.

Their Idle discharge rate is around 30% when kept at room temperature, however, these types of batteries require you to charge them even if they aren’t fully depleted.

3. Charging Lithium Ion Batteries

The latest and the most widely used form of energy storage source, lithium Ion batteries are known to be the safest form if compared to their predecessor.

Not only are they lightweight and safe to use, they also don’t have a memory effect in them which means you can charge them from almost any level without any repercussions.

Moreover, they have a massive life cycle which is roughly around 1500-2000 cycles, depending on the size of battery cells used in your laptop.

 Their discharge rate is considerably finer and only loses a proportion of its health over longer periods of time when kept at room temperature.

Is It Good To Use Laptop While Charging

So now that you have a general understanding of the types of batteries and how they work, understanding my answer will be quite simpler and straightforward for you.

Since lithium Ion or Li-Polymer-based batteries are widely used nowadays in laptops, charging them while using them doesn’t strain the battery that much if the battery percentage is at least 50%-60%.

However, if your battery level reaches around 90%, unplugging your laptop might be a great idea because keeping your laptop plugged in especially while doing the power-intensive tasks will inevitably generate heat that will kill your laptop internals sooner than expected.

If your battery fully charges to 100%, keep in mind that your laptop power source changes to an A/C adapter rather than through the battery that is connected to the power-providing terminals.

In such a situation, using your laptop while performing tasks wouldnt strain your battery health because it is not actively used.

But as a word of advice, to prolong your battery health, keeping it anywhere between 20% to 80% will ensure you get maximum output out of your battery levels, so you can use it a little longer than anticipated.

Final word

Our portable devices function quite well owing to batteries, which provide us with the greatest convenience. Which is why taking care of your electronics is so crucial, because if by any chance the batteries aren’t recharged properly, you may damage them or cause them to malfunction.

And if you are wondering if it is good to use laptop while charging then reading this article might enlighten you and shed some light on any confusion you might have.

The comment section is always open to feedback, queries, and suggestions, feel free to ping me.