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Help Battery life - advice needed

ship69

Well-Known Member
Jul 10, 2012
117
5
UK
Hi

I need some advice on charging my Galaxy Note 2.

A) Is it bad for the life of the battery to leave it on charge (e.g. charging it over night if it is already 60 or 70 % charged?)

B) Is it better for the life of the battery to trickle charge (on a slow charger) or to charge it on a faster charger?

Thanks

J
 
The best charging scenario it's too trickle charge and unplug it the moment it reaches 100%. Slow charging is ideal because it doesn't create too much heat. Overcharging your batteries well shorten it, but I don't think it will drastically shorten the lifespan of the battery if you leave it overnight. But then again I'm not an expert. That's just what I believe in. :)

Sent using the force
 
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If you are obsessed with taking care of your battery, the best thing would be to charge it up to around 80 percent and re-charge it when it falls to about twenty. In other words: keep it between 80 and 20 at all time - not higher, not lower.

This will extend your battery life to some three years. One (me for example) could argue that it's a useless practice because you'll probably switch phones anyway within that time. You can just treat that battery like a bitch (charge it all night even though its full, have it drop all the way to zero, expose it to high temperatures etc etc) and when it's baked you just get a new battery (android, yay) or it's the next owner of your phone's problem.
 
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OK so the consensus is trickle charge is better than fast charge.

If I charge slowly over night, is that significantly better than a fast charger overnight?

Also it's interesting that going below 20% would appear to damage the battery slightly - because as I recall the advice for PC batteries used to be to cycle it agressively now and then taking it right down to (near) zero charge and back up to full charge in a series of cycles and that this was good for it!

Are mobile phone batteries different in this regard, then?
 
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Also it's interesting that going below 20% would appear to damage the battery slightly - because as I recall the advice for PC batteries used to be to cycle it agressively now and then taking it right down to (near) zero charge and back up to full charge in a series of cycles and that this was good for it!

Are mobile phone batteries different in this regard, then?

It isn't "phone batteries" in this regard- it is Lithium Ion batteries. The old advice you have about discharging to 0% is for old nickel cadmium batteries, and those are almost never used for laptops anymore. All major brands use Li Ion now.

Letting a Li Ion battery drop to 0% can irreversibly harm it. Toosploos is correct that the ideal is to always keep it between 20% and 80%. Unfortunately always stopping the phone from charging at 80% isn't very realistic. Additionally, the life of shortening incurred from reaching 100% charge is much less severe than reaching 0% charge. (So generally it's better to just leave it on the charger.)

If you wish to store a Li Ion battery for a prolonged period of time, it is well known that, for the longest life, you should store it at 40% charge.

Also yes, trickle is better than fast charge. This is true for every battery type I'm aware of.
 
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Is trickle charging better due to heat?

Or is it just better to slowly charge you're battery?

I don't let my battery go lower then 20% just because I am always around a charger but I do always fully charge my battery. I don't let it sit on the charger overnight though. I just charge it and once it's fully charged I take it off. I have let it sit on the charger before a few times but never very often.
 
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