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iPhone X Is my battery faulty?

BigDO

BigDO

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 9, 2012
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I bought my iPhone X in December last year, so it's about 9 months old.

My battery health is sitting on 93%.

I am a heavy user, but I make sure to treat the battery as well as I can - never discharge past 20%, most of the time remove from charge around 85%, top up often so the battery is between 40-70% during the day.
 
BigDO said:
I bought my iPhone X in December last year, so it's about 9 months old.

My battery health is sitting on 93%.

I am a heavy user, but I make sure to treat the battery as well as I can - never discharge past 20%, most of the time remove from charge around 85%, top up often so the battery is between 40-70% during the day.
Click to expand...

You battery charging habits prove that the battery will age no matter what. 93% is a bit below average. Mine is still at 100% and I just toss it on the wireless charger every night and give no other consideration to my battery.

There are several threads on this that might give you more information.
 
My battery health is at 95% and I preordered and received my iPhone X on day 1. I use my phone all day for music while working and use a wireless charger each day and get a full day of use. Considering that Apple says the battery should last two years before hitting 80% capacity, I don't think I'd be too concerned.

However, I would let your phone charge to 100 percent, and run it to 20-30%. If you are constantly "topping it off" between 40-70 percent all day, that is subjecting the battery to excessive heat from charging, and that is more damaging than just charging once a day for one long charge period.
 
BigDO said:
I bought my iPhone X in December last year, so it's about 9 months old.

My battery health is sitting on 93%.

I am a heavy user, but I make sure to treat the battery as well as I can - never discharge past 20%, most of the time remove from charge around 85%, top up often so the battery is between 40-70% during the day.
Click to expand...
If you’re concerned about it and keeping the phone longer than a year, pay Apple $29 to have it replaced before the end of this December. Apple will only replace it under warranty if it’s 80% or under within a year or two years if you have AppleCare+
 
BigDO said:
I bought my iPhone X in December last year, so it's about 9 months old.

My battery health is sitting on 93%.

I am a heavy user, but I make sure to treat the battery as well as I can - never discharge past 20%, most of the time remove from charge around 85%, top up often so the battery is between 40-70% during the day.
Click to expand...
What exactly is a "heavy user"? What's the cycle count on your phone's battery? I also bought my iPhone X in December. Still at 100%. Thrown on a cheap wireless charger every night. Cycle count is 166.
 
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By heavy user I mean about 10-11h screen time a day, meaning that I have to top up multiple times.

I definitely think that 93% is low - I'll see if the $29 battery replacement is applicable to iPhone X - I thought it was just 6, 6S and 7.
 
I managed to find an app called imazing which allowed me to check the battery cycles. Currently sitting on 241.
 
93% with 241 cycles isn’t that bad. Not all iPhones are the same. This isn’t ideal but not out of the norm either.
 
aakshey said:
93% with 241 cycles isn’t that bad. Not all iPhones are the same. This isn’t ideal but not out of the norm either.
Click to expand...

I agree, I was also a little surprised to see that the number of cycles is that high.
 
Painter2002 said:
If you are constantly "topping it off" between 40-70 percent all day, that is subjecting the battery to excessive heat from charging, and that is more damaging than just charging once a day for one long charge period.
Click to expand...

That's completely wrong information.
Educate yourself at batteryuniversity.com
 
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now i see it said:
That's completely wrong information.
Educate yourself at batteryuniversity.com
Click to expand...
Alrighty then, I am sorry. Didn’t know I was in the realm of experts :)

I am saying that from personal experience of watching friends do the charging method OP mentioned and their batteries were way off in performance compared to what they should be. But excuse me for offering completely wrong and invalid personal experience.
 
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Painter2002 said:
Alrighty then, I am sorry. Didn’t know I was in the realm of experts :)

I am saying that from personal experience of watching friends do the charging method OP mentioned and their batteries were way off in performance compared to what they should be. But excuse me for offering completely wrong and invalid personal experience.
Click to expand...

Plain wrong as above, despite your anecdotal evidence.

Had I known that the number of cycles is this high I wouldn’t have even asked the question, as it makes perfect sense.
 
OP take it from me. Charge it however you want to. I used to obsess over this stuff but realized life is too short and a new battery is dirt cheap.
 
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BigDO said:
Plain wrong as above, despite your anecdotal evidence.

Had I known that the number of cycles is this high I wouldn’t have even asked the question, as it makes perfect sense.
Click to expand...
See and part of the argument against the charge method you are using is that it unintentionally causes your charge count to be higher than simply charging it once a day.

But what do I know, clearly I am “plain wrong” as you said. Besides why stress over a battery that’s going to need replacement in 2-4 years anyways? It’s not that expensive to replace these iPhone batteries so I wouldn’t even bother trying to keep it all perfect.
 
To those who care, frequent top offs are MUCH better than deep discharges. Charging from 50-100 twice is much better than 0-100 once. A cycle is 100% worth of charge, whether you do it all in one go from dead to 100 or 25% at a time four times.

Lithium ion batteries don’t like extremes (upper and lower 20% charge state, heat and just plain age in general will take some capacity from them.)

At the end of the day this isn’t an expensive Tesla battery, it’s a very cheap and easily replaced phone battery. Don’t stress it like I did for way too long.
 
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tonybarnaby said:
To those who care, frequent top offs are MUCH better than deep discharges. Charging from 50-100 twice is much better than 0-100 once. A cycle is 100% worth of charge, whether you do it all in one go from dead to 100 or 25% at a time four times.

Lithium ion batteries don’t like extremes (upper and lower 20% charge state, heat and just plain age in general will take some capacity from them.)

At the end of the day this isn’t an expensive Tesla battery, it’s a very cheap and easily replaced phone battery. Don’t stress it like I did for way too long.
Click to expand...
I should rephrase my original post, in that I never meant to imply that a user should drain their battery lower than 20%. I typically let mine drain down to about 35-40% before I recharge up to 100%. Draining below 20% and then recharging it all the way to 100% is obviously detrimental in the long run to battery health.

Having said that, like you, I don’t stress about battery life anymore, it’s a consumable part of the phone that will eventually need replacement.

While you can extend that life by taking certain precautions, the stress vs benefits ratio doesn’t make it worth stressing over. And besides, most people don’t have the luxury of always being by a charging port to maintain the perfect battery maintenance cycle.
 
Here's some validation:

The CoconutBattery screenshot below shows the "battery health" of a 855 day old iPhone 6 Plus that has been used constantly at least 12 hours a day every day. It has 846 load cycles on it.
Over this period (2.3 years) it has probably been charged to 100% full charge less than a dozen times. Typical charge cut off is near or below 80%. It has probably dropped below 40% less than a dozen times too.

You can see that treating the battery this way will essentially allow it to outlive the phone but at the cost of frequently topping it off to 80% or so several times a day. For me personally, it's easy to give it a bump up a few times a day since I'm usually not far from power for more than a few hours each day. And if so, I'll bring a spare battery.

Some people like to label proper li-ion battery maintenance as OCD behavior, but taking care of a li-ion battery correctly is no different than paying attention to your gas gauge or temperature gauge in your car. Also words like "stress over battery" are silly. What's stressful about plugging in a phone when it hits 40% vs 20%? It seems like playing Russian Roulette letting the battery linger down near 20% would be more "stressful" to me... knowing that without question that that lower charge level is hastening battery degradation.

For those who live near an Apple Store, replacing a battery is easy. For those of us out in the boondocks, a battery replacement is a formidable challenge— to be avoided if at all possible by just paying a little attention to the charge level indicator.

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