Help Question about batteries

[CrimsonToker]

I was talking to a person recently who told me a few things about phone batteries, and i wanted to find out if what he told me was true.

1) The first time you charge the battery is the most important and sets the life of the battery.

2) Batteries can only be charged to 100% x number of times.

3) Charging to 100% can potentially damage the battery, as well as NOT draining the battery all the way (meaning, charging when you are still at 50% is harmful)

Is this all true? If it is, ive been using my phones wrong all these years. Thankfully, i have a phone with a removable battery, never going non-removable again. So many problems.. Thanks for any advice!

 

[Hadron]

Sounds like this person learned their battery lore back in the days of NiCd and has never updated their information.

So 30 years ago all of that would have been true. Now, none of it is.

 

[Slug]

2) Batteries can only be charged to 100% x number of times.

Modern lithium-ion or li-poly batteries, as found in modern smartphones, have a finite lifetime based on charge/discharge cycles. So to some extent the above is true, but... charging from 50% to 100% is a half-cycle, so the average battery will remain usable longer if part-charged more frequently.

3) Charging to 100% can potentially damage the battery, as well as NOT draining the battery all the way (meaning, charging when you are still at 50% is harmful)

Modern smartphones stop providing current to the battery when it approaches max capacity, and don't resume charging until that capacity drops a few %age points. IOW it's impossible, barring faulty hardware, to overcharge a li-ion battery.

As for draining a li-ion cell completely... that's positively dangerous. Doing so will, at best, trip in-built safety circuits and require a long time on charge to "reawaken" the cell, and at worst (if the battery is sub-standard) cause a nasty chemical reaction resulting in a fire or explosion.

 

[Bg260]

X 2

 

[svim]

Battery technology has advanced over the years, there are plenty of good, valid, and as applies to your query, current, sources on smartphone batteries. I like wirecutter:
http://thewirecutter.com/blog/why-your-phone-dies-when-it-claims-to-have-battery-left/
and there have been several posts here in AF referring to the info-packed Battery University:
http://batteryuniversity.com/

 

[Brian706]

View attachment 112303
X 2

Why did I read this in Morgan Freeman's voice?

 

[CrimsonToker]

Alright, cool. Thank you all for the advice!

 

[Bg260]

Why did I read this in Morgan Freeman's voice?

I think that was the intent.

Alright, cool. Thank you all for the advice!

Anytime