Help Phone charging question

keyzboy17 · Jul 15, 2011

Hi! Im new to the forum and I want to say thank you for all of your responses..I recently rooted my Samsung Captivate and I absolutely love it. I am a die hard android fan now. Between youtube and this forum, you made it possible for me to root it.

But anyways,
I have a simple question about changing a phone..I always would rather change my phone using the phone manufactures charger. I dont like to charge my phone via usb by my computer or an off brand car charger. Is it necessarly bad to always charge a phone by a usb cable to the computer? And same question except for a car charger?

Gracias =D

The Shape · Jul 15, 2011

This is purely opinion and my preference but I only charge my phone when the battery is down to about 10%. I turn my phone off and charge it with the original charger until it's 100%. It seems to last longer. I don't like doing non full charges with my car charger or via USB unless my phone won't make it.

lunatic59 · Jul 15, 2011

Modern Li-Ion batteries perform better from smaller incremental charges than constantly deep-cycling the battery, although from a practical standpoint, you probably won't see much of a difference doing it either way.

Your phone doesn't really care one way or another where it get's it juice from as long as it's the correct voltage. USB spec's say output voltage from a USB port can be 4.75~5.25 v. Most output a little over 5, unless you have your power supply maxed out, but as long as your phone charges, there's no reason to check.

What will effect you more is amperage. A lot of a/c adapters output 1~2 amps while a USB port can deliver as little as 500ma. What that translates to is charge time. If you see what your a/c adapter is rated for, that should give you an optimum spec for the phone.

The only gotcha with car chargers is they can have a higher amperage rating meaning your phone could charge too quickly and generate a good bit of heat. Since cars tend to be hot and if the phone is in use too, you could see temperatures rise to the point of doing harm to the battery or phone. The downside of low power car adapters is if you are using the GPS and Bluetooth, etc. the phone could need more power than the charger can deliver and continue to drain the battery even though the phone is plugged in.

Android26 · Jul 24, 2011

lunatic59 said:
Modern Li-Ion batteries perform better from smaller incremental charges than constantly deep-cycling the battery, although from a practical standpoint, you probably won't see much of a difference doing it either way.

Your phone doesn't really care one way or another where it get's it juice from as long as it's the correct voltage. USB spec's say output voltage from a USB port can be 4.75~5.25 v. Most output a little over 5, unless you have your power supply maxed out, but as long as your phone charges, there's no reason to check.

What will effect you more is amperage. A lot of a/c adapters output 1~2 amps while a USB port can deliver as little as 500ma. What that translates to is charge time. If you see what your a/c adapter is rated for, that should give you an optimum spec for the phone.

The only gotcha with car chargers is they can have a higher amperage rating meaning your phone could charge too quickly and generate a good bit of heat. Since cars tend to be hot and if the phone is in use too, you could see temperatures rise to the point of doing harm to the battery or phone. The downside of low power car adapters is if you are using the GPS and Bluetooth, etc. the phone could need more power than the charger can deliver and continue to drain the battery even though the phone is plugged in.

Great post! In addition to this, it should be noted that the Captivate phone charger produces 0.7A so if you can find a car charger, etc that gives you 0.7A your Captivate will be getting exactly what it expects (according to Samsung).

vpcocco · Aug 2, 2011

I've had my Samsung Captivate for a year now using the original stock battery

Is it now time to replace the original stock battery?

* seems to take longer and longer to charge
* plug it in at night, only to discover that at some point it actually stopped charging (the lightening indicator on the battery was gone). Would have to jiggle the connector for it to re-appear. Maybe my connector is messed up.

* I've done the battery 'recalibration' thing a couple of times now - that doesn't seem to help anymore.

btswein · Aug 2, 2011

Does anyone know how many amps our Captivate charger is? I'm looking to replace my $1 Amazon car charger with a better one since it only seemed to keep the charger the same when I was using Google Maps or the like while driving.

lunatic59 · Aug 2, 2011

btswein said:
Does anyone know how many amps our Captivate charger is? I'm looking to replace my $1 Amazon car charger with a better one since it only seemed to keep the charger the same when I was using Google Maps or the like while driving.

The charger that comes with the phone is 5.0v/0.7A

btswein · Aug 4, 2011

lunatic59 said:
The charger that comes with the phone is 5.0v/0.7A

Thanks!

Help Phone charging question

keyzboy17

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The Shape

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lunatic59

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Android26

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vpcocco

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btswein

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lunatic59

Moderati ergo sum

btswein

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