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Help Battery Best Practices- Plugged or Unplugged?

A

argent7

Newbie
In general I'm getting solid life out of my battery- 9-15 hours wifi, 7-10 3/4G.

What is the proper best practice for a Battery?

Is it better to charge, unplug, and use down to 20% and then recharge and repeat?

Let it run down all the way and then recharge?

Have it plugged in as much as possible, even when charged?

Never leaving it docked?

I've looked around for this advice and I'm amazed with all the rechargeable devices out there that there is a clearer recommendation on the best practice.
 
seidioonline.com

"In order to obtain the full capacity of your Seidio battery, we highly recommend that you leave the battery/your phone on the charger for an additional 2-3 hours after the charging indicator turns green or the battery status shows full. Continue for 5-6 charging cycles for optimal performance. "


Seidio is a fairly well respected third party battery mfg., and I've personally used their extended batteries in a few of my phones. No issues, and following their recommended "break-in" process (with all my new batteries), I've been able to see at least 24 hours of "my normal use" with all (4-5 days on OEM Motorola Defy battery).
 
Thanks colnago - solid starting point. I'm so amazed at a lack of info from the phone manufacturers.

Another caveat- which provides longer lifetime battery life- regular Trickle charging over USB, or AC full power charging.

This is common electrical theory- there has got to be some guidelines.

Why does it matter? Over time we all know these batteries become less effective and this was no big deal when you could buy a new battery for 10-15 bucks or less and just pop it in. No such option with the RAZR. I'm hoping to find a few basic good habits on charging so I can get at least 2 years of solid battery life out of this beast.

Thanks!
 
I have always had consistent success by fully draining the battery, then leaving it on the charger overnight, for the first 4-5 power cycles, for both OEM, and third party extended batteries. I also noticed increased operating time after the 5-6 charge for all as well. All of my various phones' batteries last at least 24hrs. "of my normal usage", with the Defy lasting several days. However I believe this is solely due to the recent Android 2.2 update.

Once "broken-in", I'll re-charge via AC overnight, or mid-day, at any given charge level, with no discernible difference in performance. FWIW, with all my phones, is that the largest draw on battery life is having the screen on, and the mobile network connection. So I tend to dim the screen as low as possible.
 
So I've been really really happy with my battery life on the Razr- 8hrs heavy usage- up to 24 hours low usage. The smart actions seem to be a big reason for this.

I'm trying to baby the battery a bit and I'm wondering if there is any negative effect to plugging it in when I get to work and just leaving it plugged till I leave at night?

My old OG Droid wouldn't last more than 3-6 hours, which got even worse over time- I plugged that in and left it regularly and may have beaten the battery to death.
 
argent7 said:
So I've been really really happy with my battery life on the Razr- 8hrs heavy usage- up to 24 hours low usage. The smart actions seem to be a big reason for this.

I'm trying to baby the battery a bit and I'm wondering if there is any negative effect to plugging it in when I get to work and just leaving it plugged till I leave at night?

My old OG Droid wouldn't last more than 3-6 hours, which got even worse over time- I plugged that in and left it regularly and may have beaten the battery to death.
Click to expand...

Do not leave it on charger for a long time. Does not help your battery.
 
FWIW, I'll leave my Moto Defy to re-charge overnight, and if I'm home the next day, it will stay connected to the charger for the majority of the following day...still getting 3-5 days "my normal use" on the OEM 1500mAh battery.
 
I just talked to a Samsung support guy to get specific answers for my phone, and thought they would be helpful to post here. Basically:

-Don't let the charge run down all the way. Samsung recommends that you charge the phone when the battery gets down to 40%.
-Never let the battery fully discharge. This will affect the life of the battery.
-Unplug the phone as soon as the charge reaches 100%.
-It doesn't help to charge the phone to less than 100%.

Note: It's a Li-ion battery.
 
You don't have to unplug it right when it gets to 100. It isn't going to hurt anything. And its okay to run the battery to zero, it's impossible to completely discharge your battery as when it says zero it really has about 5 percent left. It does this that way it shuts down safe and doesnt mess anything up when your battery dies
 
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