Since I got this Otterbox I do double soft resets, I rarely do a battery pull. Maybe once/ twice a month. And always when the phone is on and I leave it out for about 20 or so seconds. I'm sure you could probably take it out for 2 seconds and it wouldn't make a difference. I have. Once something is unplugged, its not going to matter how long its unplugged, right?
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I was told by a few here on the forums that leave the battery out for at least a minute to ensure internal memory dies. The people who told me this are quite reputable...
Even customer service has me do a battery pull (with device on) when needing to reset something that went goofy.
Even RIM recomends this. There is alot of people that will argue that this is not needed and could possibly corrupt your OS. It works that's for sure though...
Looks like there is a general agreement with device on.
Just spoke to customer service because I couldn't get push email to work. He told me to do a battery pull with device on. I specifically asked if it would make a difference with it on / off. He has told me it shouldn't, but has done it with battery on.
So from now on, will pull battery with device on.
Reason why I asked time the battery should be left out is purely because a lot of devices still have a partial charge enough to keep memory contents for a little while. Guess the one minute mark is safe from above tip.
Leaving the battery out for 30 seconds is enough to guarantee the last bits of juice have been consumed.
In practice, a couple of seconds is enough to force the cold start process.
Back in the old days, our computers had big capacitors in their power supply. It actually took a noticable amount of time for the power to go off after flipping the switch.
Battery powered devices use tiny caps, they are fully discharge in milli-seconds.
Pulling the battery (with the phone on) is a next step solution that fixes a host of problems. It should not be your first step. When you pull the battery, there is a very, very slight risk of corrupting your OS, resulting in your having to wipe / reload your device. It's happened once in my experience.
Be sure to perform a backup before the battery pull, if you can. If you can resolve your problem by a soft reset, Alt-R.Shft-Del, you should. You should only pull the battery if the phone is locked up, or you can't soft reset, or soft reset doesn't solve the problem. At that point, the benefits far outweigh the risks.