having it always charged will kill the battery. These batteries have memory’s and they remember it… not a good idea to have this…
#1, there’s very little evidence the “memory effect” even existed in consumer electronics at all. Nobody can actually trace it to anything scientific, other than anecdotal stuff.
#2, if it did exist, it was in NiCd batteries, not in Lithium ion ones. These newer kinds of batteries have a limit to the number of times they can be charged, so it’s actually best to leave them plugged in when you can, but use the battery once in awhile too.
See: tinyurl.com/6mcq7 for a bunch of links.
This explains it pretty nicely:
repairfaq.org/ELE/F_NiCd_Memory.html
Apple itself has a battery site that explains some of the characteristics of Lithium ion batteries:
You talk big, but I’d like to see you prove it.
Ah don’t make me do another video.
Let’s see you prove a memory effect exists, when all these experts say it doesn’t.
Who you going to believe? Physics PhDs or the Radio Shack guys?
Seriously, it’s an urban legend. Get over it. And like I said, even if it were true, it was with NiCad batteries. Who uses those anymore?
Click and scroll:
You know, I was sure there was a Snopes article about this, but careful scrutiny has failed to turn it up.
Yeah, I thought so too. That’s where I first read about it, or maybe it was on The Straight Dope, or Myth Busters. Some show or site that challenged widely-believed things, anyway.
Just googling around for “battery memory effect urban legend,” “debunk battery memory effect” and “batter memory effect myth” and stuff like that, I find a lot of references to an early NASA thing.
Apparently, this is the source of the urban legend: the “memory effect” was noticed on batteries on satellites orbiting Earth. They would start to charge with every orbit (solar panels), but never discharge all the way. The batteries “remembered” this as their limit, or something like that.
NASA asked Gates and GE (two of the manufacturers of the batteries) to figure out a way to counteract the “memory effect.” To everybody’s surprise, neither could duplicate the memory effect at all, no matter what they tried.
When salespeople tell you that a battery might have a memory effect, they’re basically telling you the battery is just a piece of shit. The memory effect has nothing to do with it.