8 replies to this topic

[lruggier]

So this is my first smartphone. I was told that with my laptop since its a lithium ion battery to keep it charged as much as possible, if its at 100% to keep it plugged in as long as you can until you dont have the option of keeping it plugged in and have no outlet. You are supposed to do this because with lithium ion batteries the more often they get below 30% they use one cycle of the battery and the battery only has so many cycles until it is dead, so by keeping it plugged in as often as possible it will prevent the battery form dying. And i was told that keeping it in while it is at 100% is ok, and actually good for the phone so its not using battery if you have an outlet where you can charge it.

Is it the same with smartphones since they also have lithium ion batteries? Someone just told me its bad to keep your phone charging all the time and it can just overheat it. is this true?? Ive had this phone for a couple weeks and i charge it whenever i can if i have an outlet around me because i dont want the battery to get too low and use a cycle.

[Sikh]

You dont want to keep your computer plugged in ALL THE TIME.

This was kind of true with Lithium Polymer batteries because cells would die and you would loose a percentage of charge capacity. But with Lithium Ion, the Cycle's will happen rather you like it or not. Keeping it plugged in will actually overcharge the battery. Yes devices do have overcharge protection, but you dont EVER want to keep anything plugged in ALL the time.

The goal of your laptop and your smartphone is to be portable. I dont care to check what the samsung batteries are rated for cycles, but
usually laptops are 250-300. Even if your the type of person to deplete your laptops battery every day, youll be able to pull 1 year out of that battery.
I personally have never fell for the "Keep it plugged in all the time" BS because i've had an iPhone 3GS since launch day and i upgraded in october of last year. The day I upgraded my 3GS was at 658 Cycles. It went from giving me roughly 9 hours of battery life to 6. After 2 1/2 years thats perfectly fine with me.

I recommend not keeping it plugged in all the time. You WANT to use cycles.


EDIT: Read this. http://www.techrepub...n-batteries/124

This is what I show everyone that freaks out about their battery. Its a battery and its meant to be used. Not using it will cause you more issues in the long run.

[nekkidtruth]

Best practice is to drain it completely once, leave the phone off and plug in the charger. Let it charge to 100% while off, then take it off and turn it on. After that (which in essence is a battery calibration), you can charge it whenever you want. However a note, it is not necessary to drain it completely unless you're calibrating it again. In fact, the way that cell phone batteries currently work, you can cause some issues if draining it constantly. If you absolutely need to have a number to go by, I'd shoot for 10%. If your battery is at 10%, plug it in.

Personally, I plug my phone in before bed, awake to a 100% charged phone and use it all day until I go to bed again. Sometimes I have 30% left, sometimes 60%, other times 5%. Depends on my daily usage.

[Shadrack]

lruggier, on 13 December 2012 - 02:00, said:

So this is my first smartphone. I was told that with my laptop since its a lithium ion battery to keep it charged as much as possible, if its at 100% to keep it plugged in as long as you can until you dont have the option of keeping it plugged in and have no outlet. You are supposed to do this because with lithium ion batteries the more often they get below 30% they use one cycle of the battery and the battery only has so many cycles until it is dead, so by keeping it plugged in as often as possible it will prevent the battery form dying. And i was told that keeping it in while it is at 100% is ok, and actually good for the phone so its not using battery if you have an outlet where you can charge it.

Is it the same with smartphones since they also have lithium ion batteries? Someone just told me its bad to keep your phone charging all the time and it can just overheat it. is this true?? Ive had this phone for a couple weeks and i charge it whenever i can if i have an outlet around me because i dont want the battery to get too low and use a cycle.

I don't think any of that is correct but only because I've heard different stuff. I'm certainly no battery expert, but, my understanding is that it isn't a discreet number of charges and then your battery self-destructs. Instead they just do laboratory tests where they drain and fill probably a sample of batteries coming off the line and give some statistics on how many cycles until they found the battery unusable.

I would think that what you are doing would actually be worse for the battery than letting it drain down. I always try to drain my battery down really low periodically so that it gets a "full charge". But...like I said, I'm not an expert. Most lithium ion makers and self-proclaimed "experts" will say that it really doesn't matter when you charge your battery and a lot of things that people think about NiMH batteries doesn't apply to Lithium ion batteries. The most important things are:
(1) Never let the battery drain fully. Once it has drained completely it may never come back.
(2) Do not charge if the device is hot or in a warm to hot environment. Leaving your phone charging in your vehicle on a hot summer day would do bad things.
(3) If you are going to store it I think it is something like 60-80% full is ideal for longer life. Just don't let it drop to 0 and realize that it will slowly drain to 0 so you actually have to periodically recharge batteries that are in storage (think, old phones) or else they will die out completely. I haven't been so good with my iPhone 3GS but it is still working fine.

[Dushmany]

Well, all of my ion batteries are still in great condition, my tip is, fully charge the battery once the device no longer powers on, don't 'top up' charge too often, and if you're like me, you can alternate between laptop or pc charging and mains charging, (in my case, I am doing this with my s3 and haven't noticed any problems, also did this with my old n95, n86, and n8)
three pc charges to every 1 mains charge.
I would recomment that you buy a new battery for your phone, and keep and label the one currently in your phone as a spare (something I used to do with my old nokias that had removable batteries)

[Nightwind Hawk]

You don't have to worry about the battery that much. Charge it when you need to... for example, every night let it charge until you wake up and charge it in the day if you are running low. Yes, the battery only has a certain number of cycles but it doesn't matter a whole lot of how often you charge it.

Bottom line, you can just buy a new battery for a few bucks each year. Your battery should last more than a year with no problem, so then you'll have two batteries to use! (one as a spare)

[Marshall]

Moved Here

[Beyond Godlike]

I have an S3 and i just say use it as you please. THe joy of most androids is you can replace the battery. If youre able to go the whole day just use it and dont worry about it, batteries are 40 bucks at most. If you cant, get an aftermarket battery and use that(like Mugen Power or Anker).

I end up with <20 by the end of the day and i consider myself a heaver user, and if you have a charger which it seems you do, if youre worried you wont make it, charge it for a bit during the day to add those hours. Just dont worry over it, learn to just use the phone rather than maintain it, youll eventually find a groove as you leave it off the charger of how your usage effects it.

Im at 17 hrs on battery, sittig at 16% atm

[Gotenks98]

Just root your phone there are tons of battery apps and scripts that can get you days of battery life out there.