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Help Galaxy S3 battery charging advice

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Duasmiths

Lurker
Is it necessary to completely drain the battery before charging? Or is it fine to charge every day even if the battery is at, say, 50% ?
 
I charge without following a particular pattern, but every so often I completely drain and charge it. This apparently calibrates the battery, although there are differing opinions on the subject.
 
Actually, for lithium battery it's a lot better if you do brief charging more often, rather than draining it all, which actually ruins the battery. It is advised to to a complete full discharging and then a full recharging once every 3/4 months. That's for what I read throughout the Internet. Lithium battery do not have memory, so it doesn't matter if you charge it when it's at 60% or 10%.
 
Draining the battery to empty will only decrease it life. Just use it and charge when you sleep. The average user will find that the battery will last a good day or more. If not you might need to top off your charge if you can keep your hand off of it.

Main thing is to not worry. Just use you phone and enjoy it.
 
You can ask 10 people this question & you will get 10 different answers. I got a tip sheet from Verizon in my last bill & it said only charge your battery when it gets down to 10%. You never know who to believe on this topic.
 
With every new phone i discharge the baterry and then recharge it whenever i have time. My opinion is not to completely discharge the baterry every time you haveto charge.
 
Here is my understanding of modern lithium-ion battery care: Don't worry about it.

I believe that as a general rule they do need to be discharged fully in order to calibrate the fuel gauge IC in the phone. I also believe that this is done at the factory and periodically by the phone if it is necessary. Your laptop wil behave the same way. With moderne li-ion batteries the need for this is few and far between as manufacturers have gotten very good at guessing the charge state of the battery by monitoring current usage, battery temp and voltage (not actually that useful an indicator with li-ion batteries)

I understand that li-ion batteries are good for a number of charge-cycles but I believe that it is also true that a charge from say 50% to 100% only constitutes one half of a charge cycle. I think this along with old practices held over from older battery technologies has led to the misunderstanding around this.

Furthermore, a quick search reveals that replacement batteries are $10-$20 for the S3. Not bad at all and I expect that to drop a bit in the next few months. If my experience with the Droid X is anything to go by, I expect to get 1.5 to 2 years of decent battery life-cycle out of my S3's li-ion before needing a replacement.

Source: My own experience using li-ion and li-po batteries in many an amateur EE projects including using them with TI's BQ series fuel-gauge ICs.
 
greggebhardt said:
Draining the battery to empty will only decrease it life. Just use it and charge when you sleep. The average user will find that the battery will last a good day or more. If not you might need to top off your charge if you can keep your hand off of it.

Main thing is to not worry. Just use you phone and enjoy it.
Click to expand...

You're right but you can't drain these batteries empty. They have about 15% that can't be used.

But yes, just do what you want. Charge it when you think it needs charging. Don't if you don't. Just don't worry
 
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