Battery lies!??!

[rogerthat227]

Ok so i got my first smartphone (RAZR) two weeks ago and have been loving it. One of my main concerns has been to optimize battery life. Now, extremely large numbers of people have been saying that proper phone care is to condition your new battery (drain it completely, followed by charging it completely). Now, i did this twice thinking it was the best thing for my phone to supposedly "learn its full cycle". Turns out through research elsewhere, these batteries supposedly can't learn or remember ****! All of a sudden a saw a post saying that proper battery care for lithium-ion was to charge frequently. Basically the article that was forwarded said the more you let your phone run in between charges the faster it will be dead and useless. Through further research, each source has come back saying the opposite of what I originally thought was correct. Saying that actually charging these batteries frequently is better for overall battery life. Can someone who knows something about these batteries please clear the air!!

 

[Sydman]

You are never going to find a straight answer, especially on here. You are always going to find information leaning both ways, there will be accurate research defending both cases. And in some cases both answers could be right, more than likely not but you never know. As far as the conditioning your battery that type of thinking is held over from the old NCAD batteries and such, most don't believe that holds true for the newer lithium batteries. Also a lot of people saying draining the lithium batteries all the way down is bad for them.

Me personally I tend to agree with draining your battery till it is at 5% or even until the phone reboots is a bad thing to do. I don't "condition" my battery and I am going on 1d 8h 12m 9s on battery and my level is at 50%. So obviously conditioning is not required to get adequate battery life. Just have to read everything you possibly can and make the right choice from there. Bottom line is there is no question that not "conditioning" your battery could be safer, and if you still get decent battery life then why bother doing it.

 

[milkshed27]

Ok so i got my first smartphone (RAZR) two weeks ago and have been loving it. One of my main concerns has been to optimize battery life. Now, extremely large numbers of people have been saying that proper phone care is to condition your new battery (drain it completely, followed by charging it completely). Now, i did this twice thinking it was the best thing for my phone to supposedly "learn its full cycle". Turns out through research elsewhere, these batteries supposedly can't learn or remember ****! All of a sudden a saw a post saying that proper battery care for lithium-ion was to charge frequently. Basically the article that was forwarded said the more you let your phone run in between charges the faster it will be dead and useless. Through further research, each source has come back saying the opposite of what I originally thought was correct. Saying that actually charging these batteries frequently is better for overall battery life. Can someone who knows something about these batteries please clear the air!!

I've been posting about the negative affects of frequent full discharges of Lithium-ion batteries in multiple forums whenever this topic comes up. However, my posts are my opinion based on research and experience. If you're interested in reading them here's a link to a thread that I posted in. My posts are #s 12 and 14. Battery Experiences - POST HERE! - Android Forums

 

[nateohio]

Unless you're flashing custom roms, you shouldn't have a need to calibrate you're battery. Notice that I said calibrate, not condition! Lithium batteries don't develop a "memory" like the older batteries did.

Where battery calibration becomes an issue, is when you flash a custom ROM that doesn't replace the battery.bin file or you get overzealous with flashing at charge levels other than 100%. The
only thing calibration does is replace the .bin file.

In other words, if your running stock, you shouldn't even be worrying about this.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums

 

[ambrown]

Great posts on this thread! I agree, lithium batteries don't have "memory" like some other kinds of batteries have.

The best thing you can do is try to keep your battery charged as much as you can to get good battery life. I have let my phone run all the way down a few times, though this was not intended, I just ran out of battery at the end of the day.

Since you have the Razr one thing you can do is use the smart actions app to help you consume power wisely. Also going to: settings/about phone/battery/battery use, on a regular basis will help you to know which things are using the most battery. Whether they be apps or other system operations.

I've found that the display is the biggest culprit on my phone for battery drainage. I use the Brightness Level widget by Curvefish, found in the market here: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.curvefish.widgets.brightnesslevel , to control the brightness of the display and save battery. I find the auto brightness is brighter than I need and 25% for most indoor lighting to be sufficient. 50-100% for outdoors use. 0% for use at night and in the dark. I'd recommend trying it out and see if it helps.

Sent from my Droid Incredible on 2.3.4 using the DroidForums app

 

[scottysize]

Plenty of theories. Must are either left over from the old Nickel-Cadmium batteries, or are just guessing. Here's a good article:
How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

 

[satarecah]

But drain it below 20% because you can customize a smart action for low battery conservation