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Duckit

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 24, 2011
158
1
NJ, USA
I pretty much charge it every night. Is it ok to do this, or will I drain the battery life span down?
 

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,250
2,576
Western US
I've always plugged my iPhones in at night (since the original in 2007), haven't had a problem with it. Batteries are always going to deteriorate over time, but mine didn't seem to get that much worse (usually kept my phones for 2+ years). I don't know about the 4S, but I don't see why it would be any different. If you're going to actually use your iPhone instead of having it on standby all the time, you probably need to charge it every day anyway, plugging it in at night while you sleep is the most logical way to do it, and the easiest to remember.
 

sweetbrat

macrumors 65816
Jun 17, 2009
1,443
1
Redford, MI
Mine usually gets charged 3 times per day: in the morning (I put it on a speaker dock to listen to while I'm getting ready for work), and in the car both on the way to work and the way from work. I ran my 3GS on pretty much this same charging schedule for 2.5 years and it still has great battery life, so I'm not worried about my 4S.
 

wordoflife

macrumors 604
Jul 6, 2009
7,564
37
It's best to think of this in terms of cycles.
I pretty much charge it every night. Is it ok to do this, or will I drain the battery life span down?

Nah, it's fine. You are still using battery cycles anyways, so you might as well leave home with a full 100%.


Every 5 hours of use :(

This, on the other hand, will drain the battery life span down quickly. (about 3 full cycles a day compared to the less than 1 cycle the OP is doing per day)

I generally do 1 cycle between 2 days. (but I recharge it every day)
 

Duckit

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 24, 2011
158
1
NJ, USA
Thanks Guys! I was also wondering if you guys actually turn your phones off to save battery life? I usually charge my phone around 8pm and then i turn the phone off when its done charging and go to sleep. Is that a good idea?
 

sgrrsh26

macrumors 6502
Jul 19, 2009
269
0
I pretty much have mine plugged in while im working. But if I get up and go to the bathroom, go to lunch, etc, It gets unplugged. Is this bad? If it is it makes sense that my old 3g held a half hour charge. then again it IS 3 years old.
 

blockburner28

macrumors 6502
Jun 27, 2009
361
0
New Orleans
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

You are under warranty for a year or 2 anyway, so charge away.
 

sweetbrat

macrumors 65816
Jun 17, 2009
1,443
1
Redford, MI
I never turn my phone off. Then again, it's the only phone I have at home, so people need to be able to reach me in case of emergency. I've never felt the need to turn it off to conserve battery life.
 

EmbraceTheOne

macrumors 6502a
Aug 26, 2011
688
16
I've only charged my Phone twice since Friday. When I didn't even have too. (Half-ish battery.)

Im currently working on depleting it 100% right now. Then fully charging. To calibrate it better. Then I will charge it normally :)
 

Don Kosak

macrumors 6502a
Mar 12, 2010
860
4
Hilo, Hawaii
Every 5 hours of use :(

You have something wrong with your phone. Even playing high end games with Wifi and Bluetooth running shouldn't be able to drain your phone that quickly.

You probably:

A) Have an old phone that needs a new battery. Apple will replace it for a fee that varies depending on if it's in warranty and what type of phone it is. Call or visit your Apple store.

B) You have a new phone that has a bad battery. Call or visit Apple and have it replaced under warranty.

C) You have a new phone, and your upgrade or restore did funky things to it and you're using a lot more battery than you should. Plug the phone into iTunes, make a backup (by right clicking on the phone name and selecting "Backup") and then once it's backed up, restore it. Most of the times that will fix any quirky radio or software issue that's sucking the juice out of your battery.

In any event, most people charge their phones either nightly (just to top it off for the next day), or every other day. Even with heavy use you should be able to make it through a typical work day.
 

Duckit

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 24, 2011
158
1
NJ, USA
I never turn my phone off. Then again, it's the only phone I have at home, so people need to be able to reach me in case of emergency. I've never felt the need to turn it off to conserve battery life.

Yeah, I actually think that sometimes when I turn the phone off and then turn it back on it uses more power than if i just left the phone on.
 

Savor

Suspended
Jun 18, 2010
3,742
918
I used to drain it all the way down. Now I only try to do that once per month.

I keep it topped off. That is healthier for it in the longer run. Once it gets under 20%-30%, I will start to charge it. I no longer wait to charge it below 20% unless I am out somewhere and don't have my charger around.

Now that I have other smartphones around and still use my laptop alot for web browsing, my current 4 probably gets charged every 2-3 days at most. I keep it charged sometimes just by syncing it to iTunes for it to get those mild recharges. It longer deals with anymore heavy duty browsing. It would be rare to see me get the 20% warning sign at least once per week when I used to see that warning almost every day just to test out how far I can go with it. I keep the % usually off too as that gets me all OCD.
 

Nikefn2

macrumors regular
Oct 7, 2011
174
25
I charge my phone every. Did the same withthe 3GS and it didnt matter if it had 20% left or 80% left, it was going on the charger before I went to bed and stay on all night into the morning. I did this with my 3GS and it never messed up my battery. I've depleted my 3GS battery twice since having it since Friday. I plan on continuing to do the same thing I did with my 3GS .
 

mavis

macrumors 601
Jul 30, 2007
4,734
1,452
Tokyo, Japan
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4 (32GB, JB): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

When I'm home, it's almost always plugged in. I got in the habit of doing this after the big earthquake in March and the subsequent blackouts. Just seemed prudent to always be fully charged, just in case.

With my iPhone 4S I pretty much do the same thing. I charge it whenever possible so that when I'm out, it doesn't run out of juice.
 

vitzr

macrumors 68030
Jul 28, 2011
2,765
3
California
Overnight & once during the day, every day.

I use my smartphones (Android & Apple) a lot.

They are both good in their own ways.
 
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