Improving the Performance of Your Cell Phone Battery

What to Do with a New Cell Phone Battery

Let’s face it, most of us don’t read the directions before we start using a new gadget we’ve just bought. If you did read the directions on your new cell phone or battery, you know it’s important to give your new battery a full charge before you use it. Don’t start using a new battery right away even if it has some power; fully charging it before its first use will allow it to achieve its maximum capacity, which will give you more power in the long term.

Sometimes new batteries that provide power monitors will report being fully charged after just a short period of being plugged into the charger. This is normal but deceptive. Leave the battery plugged in and let it keep going. Nickel-based batteries should initially charge for sixteen hours or so while lithium ion batteries should be given about six hours of charging time.

Full or Partial Discharging?

You may have heard of the battery “memory effect,” which means that a battery will lose some of its power capacity if it is repeatedly only partially discharged before being recharged. Because of this, many people continue to use their cell phones until they die completely before returning them to the charger. For nickel-based batteries (an older technology), this is the way to go. Lithium ion batteries, however, do not suffer from the memory effect and will be damaged by full discharges. Recharge your lithium ion cell phone battery when its meter shows about one bar of power left.

Taking Good Care of Your Battery

We take our cell phones with us everywhere, so they often end up going through some tough conditions. Obviously you want to avoid dropping your phone on hard surfaces and you need to keep it clean, but there are some other ways you can take care of your phone to protect your battery. One is to keep the battery from high temperatures. Don’t leave your phone in a hot car for long periods. Also avoid carrying your phone in your pocket, where your body temperature will heat up the battery. If your cell phone battery does get dirty, clean it carefully with cotton and rubbing alcohol, paying particular attention to the condition of the points of contact between the battery and the phone.

Putting It All Together