The Phone Battery Thread

Basically I've started this thread to try and get a final answer on the best practices for preserving the life of your mobile phone's battery.
I hear lots of different things about phone batteries, what is, and what isn't good for them.

- Charging only from flat to full with prolonge the life
- Charging in small bits whenever will not harm the battery
- Charging in small bits whenever will kill your battery

You name it, somebody has probably said it. So what I'm looking for is for any answers on the best way to make my battery live the longest, prferably with a good source backing it, as I'm sure this is something we would all like to know!

Li-ion have a limited shelf life no matter what you do with them. They're a lot more resilient to top up charging unlike the old Ni-MH batteries were.

well my phone keeps 3-4 days if i charge it from flat to full.. i have an old phone k750i at the moment because my other one was stolen and im sure it never did hold its battery for so long... :/ something to do with not being able to power it on after 4-6moths keeping in the box with empty battery... had to charge for all night.. but the battery holds very well now... and im using it a lot ... texting, music, camera etc...

Lithium technology batteries must never be fully discharged. Ever. The battery protection circuitry will ensure the device switches itself off before the battery voltage gets dangerously low. Even so, stick the phone/laptop etc on charge when the battery hits 40% or if not, 20%, to maximise battery life.

When charging for the first time, it is best to give it the full 16 hours as you used to with Nickel batteries, but not for the same reason. Near the beginning of its life, the battery's internal resistance is slightly lower than normal whilst it is "settling in". As the charging control circuits use internal resistance and dV/dt (rate of change of voltage) to determine when the battery is charged, the circuit will think the battery is charged (and therefore stop charging) before it really is. After a few minutes, the battery voltage will drop again, and the circuitry will begin charging again. Leaving for the full 16 hours ensures that the battery is actually, properly charged.

If they're being stored for lengthy periods, they should be left with around 40% charge.

The capacity should stay around the same for the life of the battery and will start to drop noticeably as the battery reaches the end of its life.

Lithium batteries require careful charging and should only ever be charged with specially designed charging circuitry, which is the provided charger in most cases. If overcharged they tend to catch fire and/or explode fairly violently.

The battery level detection circuitry shouldn't really need calibrating, but doing it once every few months will keep the meter accurate. This is done by a full discharge until the device switches off. I know I said this was a bad thing to do, and it is, and thus should only be done very sparingly and when you actually notice that the meter is significantly wrong. If you do this, begin charging as soon as the device switches off, and do NOT try and turn it back on again to get the last little bits of charge out of the battery before charging.

Hope that helps a bit.

J

Thanks GeForce, some good information there!