I've written before about the issues all smart phone owners face when it comes to short battery life. A close friend and fellow Android user, OB, sent me this article which I thought was incredibly insightful, well-written and chock full of empirical data.
I'll bold the interesting stuff for the lazy / time constrained...The author argues against the full drain and charge technique, opting instead for a charge when partially full for best results.
http://phandroid.com/2010/12/25/your-smartphones-battery-gauge-is-lying-to-you-and-its-not-such-a-bad-thing/
Author's conclusion: Beyond that, the best advice I can offer is to stop paying such close attention to your battery gauge and to just use your phone. Charge it whenever you can, and then stop obsessing over the exact numbers. If you really need more usage time, buy an extended-capacity battery and use it normally.
Interestingly enough, improvements in battery management technology have compounded the average user’s perception of this problem. Older phones were rather inelegant in their charging behavior; usually filling the battery to capacity and then switching to a trickle current to maintain the highest charge possible. This offered the highest usage time in the short-term, but was damaging the battery over the course of ownership. As explained at Battery University, “The time at which the battery stays at [maximum charge] should be as short as possible. Prolonged high voltage promotes corrosion, especially at elevated temperatures.”
The phone manufacturers essentially have three choices:
1. Use older charging styles which actually maintain a full battery, thereby decreasing its eventual life
2. Use new charging methods and have an accurate battery gauge
3. Use new charging methods and have the inaccurate battery gauge
Option one has clearly fallen out of favor as it prematurely wears devices. Option two, while being honest, would most likely be met with many complaints. After all, how many people want to see their phone draining down to 90% while it is still plugged in? Option three therefore offers an odd compromise. Maybe phone companies think that users will be less likely to worry about a quick drop off the charger than they will worry about a “defective” charger that doesn’t keep their phone at 100% while plugged in.
One technique that has gained popularity in the user community is “bump charging.” To bump charge a device, turn it off completely, and plug it into a charger. Wait until the indicator light shows a full charge (on the ADR6300, for example, the charging LED changes from amber to green) but do not yet turn the device back on. Instead, disconnect and immediately reconnect the power cord. The device will now accept more charge before saying it is full. This disconnect/reconnect process can be repeated multiple times, each time squeezing just a little bit more into the battery. Does it work?The answer, of course, is that bump charging definitely works... Be warned, however, that repeated bump charging will wear your battery faster and begin to reduce its capacity.
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