There should be no difference in charger/power adapter lifetime between using the laptop with or without the battery connected as long as external power is connected continuously, as this will keep the battery fully charged (or in the case of some laptops with "battery preservation" modes, at a fixed lower charge level) continuously with at best a trivial level of power being supplied to the battery. A fully charged laptop connected to external power will draw all the power needed to operate from the external source (unless it's some sort of monstrous gaming/workststion laptop that draws more power than the adapter can supply).
The main reason for laptop power adapter failures is capacitor degradation due to heat, as the adapter is enclosed in a plastic shell with no airflow and poor thermal conductivity. Of course, the choice of capacitors from the manufacturer also plays a part here, but regardless, there are ways to potentially mitigate this:
- Have a fan blow directly onto the adapter while in use. This alone should be enough to noticeably lower operating temperatures for the power adapter.
- Modify the adapter so that you can cool its internal components directly. This is not recommended unless you really know what you're doing.
- Get an overpowered power adapter (at the same efficiency). Operating at a lower percentage of its capacity will in itself lead to lower operating temperatures, as the adapter must then be built to dissipate a higher total heat output to begin with (or have more heat-tolerant components). If your laptop comes with a 45W adapter and draws 20-30W while in use, look for a compatible 65W or 90W adapter, and so on.
The biggest fundamental difference between desktop and laptop power supplies is that a desktop PSU generates all necessary voltages internally (either directly from AC or through DC-to-DC converters), while laptop power adapters mostly output a single DC voltage (usually ~20V) that is then further converted to the laptop's needed voltages by DC-to-DC converters inside the laptop itself. Otherwise, they work in more or less the same way. As such, the main difference in their lifespan is cooling, as pretty much no laptop power adapters have any kind of active cooling.
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