Charge your battery as often as possible-revolutionary, comparative, numeric results!
I’ve, in all Windows Mobile forums, very often posted on the fact that Lithium-Ion / Polymer batteries should always be recharged whenever possible. That is, you should put your handheld / handset on the charger whenever possible. NEVER EVER wait before the handheld shuts down because even after only 4 months, your battery will only hold about a third (!) of its original charge holding capacity and, as opposed to what several people say, putting the device on the charger only once a day (or two-three days with devices with better battery life – mostly, TI OMAP-based handsets) on a regular basis (not waiting for the battery to completely deplete) will also have an adverse effect on the battery life.
Now, Groucho's pretty cool Nokia N95 blog has published a remarkable article, which is of extreme interest to anyone having a device with a Lithium Ion or Polymer-based rechargeable battery (not only Nokia N95 users – again, this info applies to ALL current Windows Mobile handsets, and a lot more other gadgets like digital cameras etc.). The figures he shows certainly prove I’ve been right when I recommended recharging your device whenever possible.
Groucho has purchased three N95’s (again and again, don’t think this discussion only applies to the N95 – it does apply to ANY device out there!) at the same time and used them in a pretty similar way. He, however, made absolutely sure he charged the device in three consistent (not mixing up the devices) and radically different ways: the first was charged only once a day (every night), not during the day; the second was charged when it has completely shut down because of the battery’s going flat and the third was almost always on charger whenever possible. The difference in the battery capacity, based on the different ways of recharging, turned out to be astonishing: the second battery (which was always let go flat, and only after that was it put on a charger) could only hold slightly more than a third of the battery that was always on charger whenever possible. The latter battery, in addition, fared considerably (about 16%) better than the battery only regularly (every night) recharged.
Note that the blog post has a mistake (which has no effect on the credibility of the results): it states they will have exactly the same charge holding capabilities throughout their life, and, suddenly, they die (“They have a finite shelf life which starts from the day they are manufactured and their condition from then degrades to the point where they fail! This is not to be confused with their charge holding abilities which are very good for their full life! When they go they just go!”). This is, of course, incorrect: their capacity will degrade over time. Just an example: my HP iPAQ 2210, which I bought right after it was released in Europe, at first, shut down at 2-3% battery level. After about two years, this raised to about 20% and, after three years, this was already around 35-38%. This also shows – along with a multitude of other examples – that these batteries do lose capacity over time. Also note that, as I’ve also recommended several times, Battery University has a decent article on all these questions – except for, of course, real-world results like the above.
Verdict: ignore if somebody says the opposite. Recharge your handheld whenever possible.
Good post thanks. I've often wondered about this. Some manuals say "batteries perform best after several full charge/discharge cycles while my Treo manual says (verbatim) "The battery in your smartphone has a much longer useful life if you charge it frequently instead of waiting until it's fully drained."
This has always been a little ambiguous and I never know which to follow...
Good post. I've always said the same thing, but it's nice that someone has actually done an experiment for it. I try to keep my devices topped off whenever I get the chance. Yet there's a lot of people that still believe they should fully discharge it first.
i am always plugged in when im not away from the desk or home. reason being is i like to have a full charge. but i also know theres a life cycle. worse is the laptops which put kill chips in the batts.
affect change and churn baby churn
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but when you charge it whenever possible during the day, it has to be charged all the way to full capacity right? my problem is that I can charge it throughtout the day (driving from one location to another) but it is not long enough to fully charge the batt. So does it make a difference?
but when you charge it whenever possible during the day, it has to be charged all the way to full capacity right? my problem is that I can charge it throughtout the day (driving from one location to another) but it is not long enough to fully charge the batt. So does it make a difference?
Nope, it doesn't. That is, you don't need to top the battery - it doesn't matter on the long term if you remove the phone from the charger before it's at 100%.
There is, but it only applies to full recharges, not partial ones. That is, for example, ten partial recharge equals to one full recharge. The net effect is the same on the battery life - that is, partial recharges don't have an adversive effect on the life expectancy of the battery (actually, just the opposite).
I have known this for quite a while now as I have done quite a bit of research and experimenting on this subject. It is unfortunate that many user manuals and more often sales people and even technical support will tell people otherwise!!! This also comes from the previous knowledge about handling NiCd and NiMH batteries, which all have different characteristics but people think batteries are batteries.
On the other hand, I also have known friends who do not charge their phones until it's drained and they don't know why their batteries don't last. This is mainly because of laziness.
20 years ago, the opposite was true on cordless phone. In those days, many cheaper brands of cordless phones do not have the proper charging termination control and they slightly overcharge the NiCd, and overtime damage it little by little as it was docked most of the time. So the proper to extend the life on those cheaper brands of cordless phones was to leave it off dock after it's been charged, so it wont' get overcharged. Things have changed over the years, as we have microprocessor controlled charging termination on cellphones, and also battery chemistry has changed.
Battery University is a great source.
I still hear sales people telling customer when they buy a new cellphone to "charge it 24 hours before use", and shake my head every time I hear it. It only takes 2 hours to fully charge the brand new Li-ion or Li-Po battery, and it can be used right out of the box also, as it should have 50% charge in it from factory. Even customer service from carriers tell people to do the same as if it's gospel.
I applaud Palm for telling it correctly, good for them!
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Cool, this is great research. I usually do this anyways. Cuz the cost of a new battery was always less to me than the possibility of being somewhere "remote" and my battery running out on me. So, I like to keep my batteries as close to full charge as possible at all times.
The third is exactly the method hybrid car batteries stay alive for years and years. Never let the charge go below 40% (hold it at 60%) if possible. Best way to use it is between 60% and 80% because this avoids deep discharge cycles that increase capacitance in the battery, which increases heat, which increased the inability to hold a charge.
It's amazing how many people treat their cellphone/laptop batteries like crap (max out all power draining settings such as GPS, backlight, volume, etc etc) and then are "surprised" the batteries starts dying and does not hold a charge. Then they expect every other battery using device to act in the same way with premature battery death.
Exactly, lithium is at lot less hardy than NiMH with about only 500 available charge cycles (lithium) vs the king @ 1000, NiCd.
Precisely why it's been avoided for any long-term guaranteed use, such as in cars.
Until now with the advent of new battery technologies (well, old technology but implemented in a novel way), which allows for the stringing of thousands of small, Li-ion batteries in parallel. This allows for the use of Li-ion batteries in cars where their superior ability to obtain and hold a charge (over NiMH) can be utilized. The fact that they are in parallel means that as the car ages and batteries get near the end of their lifespan, individual batteries die, but the system still works seamlessly; albeit without 1/5000 (or however many batteries it has) of the original carrying capacity. This is in contrast to the current hybrids using one or several very large NiMH batteries, where if one cell dies, the car won't run and you need to replace the battery.
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Originally Posted by Ride79
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