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Topics: Cell Phones & PDAs |
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| Can Charging Less Often Prolong Cell Phone Battery Life? |
Submitted by:
Tip Hero 08/29/2008 9:27 AM
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It’s getting late. You’re tired. It's time for bed. You turn off your cell phone, and plug it into the charger for the night. You wake up the next day, turn on the phone, and make a few calls on your way to work. And then you get that annoying beeping noise in your ear telling you that the battery is low and the phone is about to die on you. You’ve only had the phone turned on for about an hour, and your phone calls lasted a total of less than 30 minutes. Frustrating.
Has this happened to you? Well, as you can probably tell, it has happened to us. Many times. So we decided to stop procrastinating and address the issue.
 The phone that has been giving us the most problems lately is the Motorola KRZR. We really like the phone and haven’t had any major problems with it – except for the battery life issue. We have a Verizon service plan, and the range of coverage has been decent throughout the U.S., so no major complaints there either.
We headed off to the mall to talk to the nice folks at Verizon about our phone battery. We explained the issue and, immediately, the customer service rep popped the battery out of the back of the phone and asked us if we tend to charge the phone frequently. We had to think about our charging behavior for a few seconds, then stammered a bit, and finally explained that we charge it when we feel like it needs to be charged, and that there’s no real pattern that we follow.
How to Tell You’re Over-Charging It
 The customer service rep held up the battery and said, “You see how this battery is swollen in the middle? That’s a sign that you’re over-charging it.” We couldn’t really see what he was talking about, so he handed the battery to us. It was quite obvious what he was talking about as soon as the battery was in our hands. It was definitely swollen in the middle, like a little mound and much higher than around the edges of the battery.
Apparently, if you charge your battery often when it’s not low on juice, this swelling occurs. The Verizon rep told us that new batteries, as well as batteries that have been properly charged over time, are completely flat (no mound in the middle).
When to Charge Your Cell Phone
We also learned that batteries have a certain lifespan, and that there are only a certain number of “charges” in any given battery. Thus, you don’t want to use up these charges by charging it every chance you get – even if it’s three-quarters or halfway charged already. The advice we were given was to make sure that you only charge the phone when it has 25% or less of its charge left. That means that for us, owners of the Motorola KRZR, we should only think about charging the phone when it has one bar showing in the top right corner.
 We did a little research online to see what others had to say about this. While some websites noted the same thing that the Verizon rep told us, others said that the lithium ion batteries don't have so-called "battery memory" that you find with nickel batteries, and that you can charge lithium ion batteries whenever. But even some of the same websites that said this about lithium ion batteries also suggested charging it only when it has less than a third of its charge left. So who knows? We also read that you shouldn't let your battery run down completely, as this can harm the lithium ion batteries (so as a precaution, turn your phone off when it starts telling you its low on battery power).
While it's hard to know what to believe, we're going to stick with the advice from the seemingly knowledgeable Verizon customer service rep. After all, we didn't read anywhere that charging the battery only when it's low will hurt it, and we'd rather not take the chance of over-charging it! And what else could have caused the battery to change shape over time?
Leaving Your Cell Phone Plugged in for Hours
We asked if there are any downsides to leaving a cellphone plugged in to the charger over night, wondering if it could somehow get over-charged. The Verizon rep told us that leaving it plugged in after it has fully charged is okay, as the charging will stop and no harm will be done (except, of course, there are the issues of vampire energy to contend with: “Reclaim Energy from Vampire Electronics”).
New Battery
So we broke down and got a new battery right then and there. The battery cost us $30 (with a Verizon “discount” that we were able to use). We felt a little dirty buying it without shopping around, but we have been so frustrated with the batteries dying on us so quickly that we just wanted to be able to use our phone like normal again.
Comparison Shop
A quick Internet search after we got home from the store returned a few options for purchasing the battery online. We found some prices that were cheaper than Verizon, even with shipping (standard, 5-7 days), by between $5 and $10. We also found the battery for sale on eBay, which would get us even more savings, but there wasn’t much information about the battery available (e.g., was it really new?), so we probably would have passed on that one. It certainly does pay to shop around if you really want to find the lowest price.
Cell Phone Battery Life
The new battery, we were told by Verizon, should allow us to keep our phone on for a few days before having to recharge it, and it should give us about 6 hours of talk time before needing a re-charge.
A Brief Summary of What We Learned
Cell phone batteries have a finite number of charges in their lifetime
Don’t charge your phone unless it has 25% or less of its charge left
Your battery will be swollen in the middle if you over-charge it
Leaving your cell phone plugged in after it is fully charged does not over-charge it
A new/good cell phone battery should provide a few days of continuous “on time”, and roughly 6 hours of talk time, before needing to be re-charged
Shop around, as you may find cheaper prices outside of your service provider’s store
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