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The proper way to charge your iPhone
- Thread starter lavrishevo
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My only concern is what Apple says about recharging the lithium ion on their laptops. They say a regular basis to drain the battery completely and recharge fully. Wouldn't the same principles apply to the iphone?
I've read for the longest battery life in the iPhone to keep it between 20% and 80% capacity with frequent charges to keep it between that area.
I usually just throw it on the charger in the car, getting about 15-20 minutes of juice a couple times per day, then of course if I need some in the morning when I'm in the shower or something. I usually don't charge the phone for more than a half hour at a time.
My battery life has been better, and i have done the same with my MacBook with the same results. Seems to really work.
I tried finding the article, but I couldn't... I think it was on Engadget but I really don't remember.
From what I've read, yes. That's exactly what I do. Sorry I didn't see your quote earlier or I would have included it in my prior response.
While it is true that you should avoid as best you can letting the iphone's battery run all the way down, (by all the way, I mean to the 20% or 10% warning):
1) In real world use, there will be times when despite your efforts it does run down to 20%, 10% or all the way, as long as you don't make a habit of it, and try as best you can to avoid it, your battery will be OK, its OK if it happens here and there, long as it's not running all the way down too often. Just do your best to prevent it from happening by charging the battery whenever you get a chance, as was said, no worries about memory effect.
2) You are supposed to, about once a month, let it run all the way down until it shuts itself off and says to charge it, then, charge it fully and undisturbed, like for 4-5 hours or so, this calibrates the battery's charge meter and gives you a more accurate power remaining indicator. Keep in mind, the battery gets to a 90% full charge relatively quickly, about 2 hours, but takes another 2 hours to get the last 10%, so, it may look fully charged in 2 hours, but generally it's not, unless it has been charging for about 4 hours, so, when doing your once a month calibration full discharge/full recharge, don't unplug it prematurely, make sure the lightning bolt inside the little battery icon has changed into a plug.
3) You can't overcharge the battery, once it reaches full charge, it stops charging the battery, there's no danger letting it charge overnight.
1) In real world use, there will be times when despite your efforts it does run down to 20%, 10% or all the way, as long as you don't make a habit of it, and try as best you can to avoid it, your battery will be OK, its OK if it happens here and there, long as it's not running all the way down too often. Just do your best to prevent it from happening by charging the battery whenever you get a chance, as was said, no worries about memory effect.
2) You are supposed to, about once a month, let it run all the way down until it shuts itself off and says to charge it, then, charge it fully and undisturbed, like for 4-5 hours or so, this calibrates the battery's charge meter and gives you a more accurate power remaining indicator. Keep in mind, the battery gets to a 90% full charge relatively quickly, about 2 hours, but takes another 2 hours to get the last 10%, so, it may look fully charged in 2 hours, but generally it's not, unless it has been charging for about 4 hours, so, when doing your once a month calibration full discharge/full recharge, don't unplug it prematurely, make sure the lightning bolt inside the little battery icon has changed into a plug.
3) You can't overcharge the battery, once it reaches full charge, it stops charging the battery, there's no danger letting it charge overnight.
Here is what I want to know: is it better to charge your battery to 100% (regardless of where the charge was at - 10%, 50%, 80%), or is it ok to charge it to whatever level you want, and will that type of behavior have any long term effects on the health of the battery?
To be more specific: does it hurt the battery if you plug your phone in for 5 minutes, just to give it say 10% more juice? I ask this because whenever I charge my devices I never unplug it from a charge until it's 100% charged, but my friend has no problem plugging in his devices for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it takes to get a bit more charge so he can use them right away.
Overall, when he DOES charge his battery to 100%, he almost always has a dead battery long before I do. This happens on all of his devices, including his iPod, camera, and his iPhone, whereas my battery in those devices always lasts much longer. Thoughts?
To be more specific: does it hurt the battery if you plug your phone in for 5 minutes, just to give it say 10% more juice? I ask this because whenever I charge my devices I never unplug it from a charge until it's 100% charged, but my friend has no problem plugging in his devices for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it takes to get a bit more charge so he can use them right away.
Overall, when he DOES charge his battery to 100%, he almost always has a dead battery long before I do. This happens on all of his devices, including his iPod, camera, and his iPhone, whereas my battery in those devices always lasts much longer. Thoughts?
Here's what Apple says:
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, its important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).
http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html
I usually run my main laptop through the mains with the battery in, do you think the battery will be prolonged if you took it out when attached to the mains?
I was at my local Apple store the other day waiting for a genius appointment and watched as the genius explained to the woman in front of me that she needed to drain her battery completely every time before she recharged it. Needless to say when he got to me I didn't take his advice too seriously which by the way was that I had too many applications on my phone. He said that unless the application came from a reliable company I couldn't trust it and should not download it.