Prolonging battery life (the Sony way)

[hrym]

This piece from The Guardian is interesting.  Sony have discovered (!) that people aren't replacing their phones as often as they used to and are concentrating on the thing that wears out first: the battery.

Leaving aside the marketing angle on this, the statement that batteries are happiest between 20 and 80% is interesting, as it goes against the usual advice to keep them topped up if possible.

It would be almost impossible to test (you'd need identical devices and 3 or 4 years), but it might be worth noting.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @hrym

I've read quite a few blogs and tips pieces on how to best look after the phones battery. 

Regular topping up helps to keep the battery moving inside. 

I also recharge sometimes times overnight which some think can damage the battery.

The iPhone and charger are smart where when it's fully charged the iPhone will revert to a trickle charge to stop any issues. I'm sure most modern chargers / smartphones have the same feature. 

I've had this iPhone for nearly two years and have calibrated it by letting it go to 10-15% and then fully recharging.

I'm a heavy user and can still get 2 to 3+ days out of it.  

I remember the old days of when a battery would create a memory if it wasn't left to discharge and then recharged and have a false reading and performance from this memory effect. 

[hrym]

The received wisdom is that you shouldn't need to condition a lithium-based battery, so the fact that you've had success is interesting, @BandOfBrothers.

The memory effect was with nickel cells and mostly affected NiCd - top those up and you'd get a life measured in minutes very quickly.  It's supposed to happen with NiMh too, but I've never noticed that - the batteries in my cordless phone have plenty of oomph after several years.

I think you have to have smart charging with Lithium cells or they'll blow up.

[BandOfBrothers]

I think the issue is the Internet is awash with tutorials and best practices. 

This one highlights about calibration but says to let the iPhone run until it shuts down. This is something I do not concur with !

http://iphone-tricks.com/tutorial/375-calibrate-iphone-battery-for-a-more-accurate-percentage

This is the official help and advice from Apple which does not really talk about calibration.  

http://www.apple.com/uk/batteries/maximizing-performance/

[hrym]

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@BandOfBrothers wrote:

This one highlights about calibration but says to let the iPhone run until it shuts down. This is something I do not concur with !

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That could be positively dangerous.  Some devices will shut down before the battery goes completely flat, but there have been reports on the forum of people being left with unusable devices because a write operation was in place on one of the system files and it failed to complete (a bit like a pc in a power cut).  A lot of manuals include a warning about not letting the battery go flat.  In an extreme case, they can simply refuse to start charging again.

FWIW, I once found an old phone that had gone flat some months before and stuck it on charge.  It was two hours before the "starting to charge" beep came on.