Maximizing Li-Ion battery life

I found the type of battery my camera has. It's a BP210e which points to being Lithium Ion http://www.samsung.com/us/photography/camcorders-accessories/IA-BP210E/EPP (From the makers official website). How do I maximize life? Allowing it to die completely then fully charging or keeping it constantly topped up?

 

As for every kind of battery, you need to charge it only when fully discharghed (or when the camera says "low battery").
If not, in a long time although, it will shorten its life and then it will be almost useless...

http://www.mpoweruk.com/life.htm

 

That will kill Li-Po batteries VERY fast. Good for Ni batteries though.

 

This is wrong, as stated above. This is "old advice" from older technology batteries.

The current advice is not depleting the battery completely, but charging at around 50% or so last I read for Lithium batteries.

 

That's what I read somewhere. Ars technica has a good recent article on the subject if you search their archives. But tbh, I just use them in the way that is convenient for me. That's their purpose after all, surely. As long as you don't routinely kill it flat and subject it to extreme temperatures, and charge regularly, you'll be okay I'm sure.

 

same here, ill take convenience and the possibility of paying £30 for a new battery over micromanaging my usage and charging.

 

Yup- it's not worth the effort to extend the life by a handful of cycles =]

 

ni-cad batteries have the "memory" issue, lithium based ones do not (pretty much anything you will use these days). Thats why the "you should discharge fully" is old advice

 

One other useful tip for laptops, notebooks and netbooks is if you do have a constant power connection and you will use it via mains power for a long time, then remove the battery once charged as the heat from the computer will shorten the battery life over a period of time and having the battery at 100% also shortens it life. It is better also not to fully charge Li ion and Li Pol batteries 100% all the time as they do tend to lose capacity of about 15 to 30% a year, having the batteries at 80% will increase the overall life of the battery but about 20%.

 

So it seems charging when about 25-50% depleted is best?

 

Yeah, but I believe the firmware generally will never let modern batteries over-drain. Just use it generally until your camera has been on one bar for a bit or states battery depleted.

 

As a Macbook owner then I'm fucked. Although I've been told the power management system is pretty smart in these over-priced wonder machines.