CodeMonkeyAlx

I know of some devices having a kind of "Charge Memory" being that if you don't follow a certain way when you first charge them they will be stuck with a maximum battery life of what ever you percent you charged it to in the beginning

I am wondering if this is true for the Nexus 7 as well since I am soon to be a new proud owner of one come tomorrow afternoon. I want to know what I should do when I first get it?

Give it a full charge then set it up?
Run it till it dies then charge it?

What is the best option in this case...

If this post seems a little insane its because I am quite excited to get my nexus and I want to get the most out of it as I possibly can. Aside of that I have been doing app development out of a ZTE Score for the last six months and it was time for an upgrade. SO again sorry if it seems like I am a little paranoid / antsy about things... I do have a semi good reason.

El Presidente

Lithium batteries like the one in the Nexus 7 don't have a memory so you can just charge them as and when. Generally, most of my devices get a full charge out of the box, then full discharge and after that, I just charge it whenever (it rarely gets below 40%).

It actually ahortens the life of lithium batteries doing full charge/discharge cycles constantly so they're not recommended as a regular thing.

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Last edited by El Presidente; December 27th, 2012 at 04:14 PM.

CodeMonkeyAlx

Thank you for the answer, this is a HUGE help since it was one of the things puzzling me for a while now!

El Presidente

No probs, if you fancy a little more in depth reading, have a look here: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

Hope enjoy your new toy.

SlyFerret

Yes! There is a lot of bad info out there about rechargeable batteries, much of it based on info older battery technologies being applied to newer technologies.

Lithium Ion batteries require chargers that can monitor battery status and protect from overcharging. Overcharging a lithium ion battery is bad, and can cause it to heat up or in some extreme cases catch fire.

Modern devices that use these types of batteries have charger circuits that stop charging the battery when they reach a full charge. They will simply keep the battery topped off. This is why newer lithium ion batteries in standard sizes like AA or AAA should never be put into a charger that was made for old NiCd batteries. The older chargers lack the protection circuits.

It is safe to put the device on the charger every night when you go to bed.

As El Presidente said, lithium ion batteries can be damaged by "deep cycling" them on a regular basis. It makes me cringe every time I read a thread where somebody recommends doing so to "calibrate" a battery. The battery meters on phones display battery status based on the voltage level of the battery. The thresholds are hard coded, and there is nothing to calibrate. Avoid running them all the way to zero.

-SF

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