charging cell phones

[paul wheaton]

Cell phones are like little computers, right? So this is not off topic
I got a cell phone and it said to make sure to charge the battery all the way up before using it. Then run it all the way down before charging. Then repeat this about three times.
I did a pretty half-assed job of this and now my battery holds hardly any charge.
Is this something that will be fixed by new and better habits, or do I hafta buy a new battery?

[Shriram Shivakumar]

Yea, cell phone batteries, they dont hold up power for long (even though they claim so). I keep two batteries, I keep charging one while using another. Then I swap 'em.
It is interesting though. My cell phone uses Li-ion battery and I gotta recharge them quite frequently. But, my regular phone uses NiCd batteries, and I have to recharge them only once a week!

[Guy Allard]

Ni-'s or Li-'s, they all need to be run all the way up and all the way down. The only practical way to do this is to have at least 2 batteries.
I have very good battery performance from cell phone, cordless drills, and cordless saws.
And the good performance is because I am religious about all the way up and all the way down.
Once you trash a battery by not doing this - well, it's trashed - get your wallet out.
Regards, Guy

[Mike Curwen]

In my city, (Winnipeg), there is a place that takes batteries that have a memory, and cracks them open and fixes them up. It's cheaper than a new battery, and they give a warranty. They feel they can do this, because

a) no battery is beyond redemption.
b) they cycle it up and down 4 times on a charger/discharger before giving it back to you.

I did this with the small battery in my beard trimmer, and it has worked awesome.

Perhaps look around for this type of place in your community.

[Frank Carver]

The trick here is that typical consumer electronic devices (phones, camcorders, music players ..) don't make good dischargers. It's in the interest of the electronic device to stop using the battery as soon as it doesn't give enough power to fully run all the electronics :- the result of running a phone on a battery giving out too low voltage or intermittent current could be catastrophic for the phone. So, they all have cut-outs and fail-safes.
But, what is best for the battery is to be discharged fully, all the way until it's giving out nothing at all. Bear in mind, however, taht sometimes individual cells can fail, and although all the others are working, the overall output of the power pack is drastically reduced. Unless you fancy taking the pack apart and testng/replacing cells this is new battery pack time.
It's quite popular, for example, for the chargers which come with camcorders to include a separate discharger circuit. They can do this as the batteries are separate, and usually charged outside the camcorder. This is how the above-mentioned battery reconditioning service works; they have generic charger dischargers for the cells in most all types of battery and discharge/recharge or replace individual cells in the battery pack to bring the pack as a whole up to full function.
I don't know about your phone, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can get a custom discharger for your phone batteries. Try google for your phone model number and "discharger". If you can get one it may well be worth a few full charge/discharge cycles.

[Jess James]

Is it bad for your battery's life to use the phone while it is recharging via car charger and/or desktop charger?