Is it faster to recharge a laptop battery while not using it?
 

Intuitively, I think yes, but don't really know. My battery went dead DEN-IAD. I'm at the RCC, and decided to charge and surf a little. Is my recharging time being increased by computer usage?

Not sure what sort of laptop you have, but it takes longer for my MacBook Pro to charge when I'm using it...

It's usually twice as long (or longer) if the computer is on unless you have one with express charge or something like that built in.

My Toshibas have always taken longer to recharge when using them.

Also takes longer to charge when the computer is in use for my Thinkpad T42.

My Toshiba Satellite Tablet takes a lot longer if I use it while recharging...

My Tosh satellite takes about twice as long to charge if I'm using it...

If it's on when charging, most of the incoming power goes to running the laptop with a bit left over for charging the battery. If you turn off your laptop and leave it plugged in, all the incoming power can be used to charge the battery.

-David

Logical.

This may be a reason that a range is posted on charging times, like sometimes @ costco, 4/12 hours... so yes, I keep off if I am in a hurry to "juice it up".

Yes, it does. How much longer depends on how much juice the computer is using to run. You have some control over this with your power management settings. Specifics vary with OS and release, but the default is generally to run everything full bore while plugged in. If you turn down the screen a bit, turn off wi-fi if you're not using it, slow down the processor if that's an option with your computer and it still performs acceptably, set the disk to spin down after use (depending on what you're doing; this can be counterproductive) and fiddle with whatever other parameters your software lets you modify, it will charge faster.

Of course.

If it were to charge as fast while being used it would have to have a power supply that could power the laptop and supply the charging current it would have to be a bigger--and therefore heavier--power supply. Who would buy a heavier unit just for this?

I drained my battery SJU-IAD, and only had 20 minutes to recharge. I managed to get about 1 hour of use after that.