8 TIPS TO KEEP YOUR PHONE'S BATTERY HEALTHY
LET'S TALK ABOUT CHARGING A PHONE BATTERY
1. YES, YOU CAN LEAVE
YOUR PHONE PLUGGED IN OVERNIGHT: It is not the end of the world if you don't
unplug your phone the second that it is charged. That charger is smarter than
you give it credit for. Leaving your phone on the charger all night (or all day)
is far better for your battery than running it down and charging it up.
2. CHARGE A LITTLE BIT
WHENEVER YOU CAN: Lithium-ion batteries don't respond well to being charged all
the way up and then run all the way down. They take much better to little bits
of charge here and there.
3. YES, YOU CAN LEAVE
YOUR LAPTOP PLUGGED IN ALL THE TIME: Don't worry about overcharging the
batteries in your gadgets, and especially don't worry about overcharging your
laptop. What we just said about phones applies here, too.
4. BUT MAYBE POP OUT
YOUR LAPTOP BATTERY WHILE IT'S ON THE CHARGER, IF YOU CAN: The biggest danger
to your laptop battery—and your phone battery and your tablet battery—isn't
overcharging, but heat. And with that in mind, it might be wise to pop out your
laptop battery while you're plugged into the wall, if you can. As Andrew from
iFixit explains:
5. KEEP YOUR BATTERIES
COOL: Speaking of temperature, make sure you don't leave your phone in a hot
car all day. Or place it on top of your gaming PC. Or use it in a sauna. Try to
avoid wireless charging if you can, because the waste-heat those chargers
generate will also bake your battery. Also, beware of quick chargers. While
your phone and charger are generally smart enough to minimize damage from
high-voltage chargers, a lot of power super-fast can generate extra heat. And
if you have to store a gadget or its battery for a while, do it in a cool dry
place.
6. STORE BATTERIES WITH
A LITTLE BIT OF CHARGE: If you're storing batteries, you give them about a half
a charge first. They'll slowly lose their charge over time, and if it drops
into the true-zero danger zone, your battery will automatically trip its safety
circuit and kill itself for real before it can become unstable.
7. MAYBE GO REPLACEABLE
IF YOU CAN: If you're borderline insane about your battery life, consider
opting for gadgets that have removable batteries when you can. For one thing,
there's no faster way to "charge" a gadget than by swapping in a
fully charged battery. And if you can't avoid these bad battery practices, at
least you can start fresh by buying a fresh battery.
8. DON'T LET YOUR
BATTERY RULE YOUR LIFE: If you follow the most basic rules of thumb—don't go
all the way from full to empty if you can avoid it and minimize the exposure to
heat as best you can—you'll be fine. It's easy to obsess over battery care, to
let charging superstitions metastasize into obsessive ritual. But just remember
two things:
- a) Your gadgets and their batteries are designed to keep you from ruining them. Lithium-ion batteries today are better, smarter, and more resilient than the nickel-metal hydrides of yesteryear.
- b) Your batteries are going to die. No amount of obsessive care will save you from having to deal with a less capable battery a few years from now.
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