[hookbill]

I've seen two separate schools of thought on this. I believe the majority of people believe that you should not let your battery drain out before charging. This, as I understand is because the new generation of lithium batteries do not have a "memory" like the older ones and therefore don't need to be fully discharged. In addition I have heard to fully discharge the battery will reduce battery life.

However I still see some people out there insisting that you should fully discharge the battery. So since we all are (ahem) experts here, what's your take on this issue?

[wxman2003]

I know with my mac book it is recommended to occasionally fully discharge the battery, let it sit overnight uncharged to drain it down to almost nothing and then recharge it. One can get about 400 full charges cycles out of that battery before it doesn't last long after a charge. So if you use it and discharge 20% and then plug it in you would have to do that 5 times to be considered 1 full charge cycle. I'm sure it the same with a phone battery. In 7 months I have only done 65 full cycles on my mac, so you see the battery will last about 4 years before I have to replace. Since I will likely have my mac in 4 years, I will replace the battery. My phone I will not have more than 2 years, so how often I charge it, or how I charge will make no difference.

[greydarrah]

Personally, I charge it at night whenever I go to bed and its at or below 50%. About once every couple of weeks, I'll have a busy day on it and take down to the point where it turns off the radio. That good enough for me.

Grey

[hookbill]

Personally, I charge it at night whenever I go to bed and its at or below 50%. About once every couple of weeks, I'll have a busy day on it and take down to the point where it turns off the radio. That good enough for me.

Grey

That's exactly what I do. I'm a bit surprised there isn't much discussion on this. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[patches152]

i associate the difference of battery life with the difference of hardware. handset, battery and charger. if one is bad, then it will impact the charging and battery life, and the overall experience...something to think about.

[brodmeister]

see i have some weird issues. if i use my "generic" motorola razr2 home charger i get somewhere around 30 hours of time on my phone.
if i use my blackberry storm charger sometimes up to 48 hours.
always full to 100% over night

now on a day by day basis i use my phone as follows
all are aprox and usual are the same day to day

20 * 2 minute phone calls
1 hour online web surf
8 hours music (through the headphone jack to the truck)
30-50 texts
250 - 400 km through MANY different tower zones (analog and digital)

and if i use the Motorola razr 2 car charger. it takes aprox twice as long to charge as compared to the house charger. (example today. 28 minutes to go from 2% to 10% so i could turn on my radio)

anyone have this?

[wayfr]

Personally, I charge it at night whenever I go to bed and its at or below 50%. About once every couple of weeks, I'll have a busy day on it and take down to the point where it turns off the radio. That good enough for me.

Grey

thats what i do too. the way i see it, chances are real good that i wont have this phone long enough for this to be an issue. just keep the thing charged as often as possible and you should be ok as long as you dont plan on keeping it more than a year or two, tops.

[irishgod52]

I usually charge min e overnight while I'm in bed and when I'm in the car so I know I will have a full battery.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[hookbill]

In my opening post I was asking if anyone felt it was a good idea to run the battery down completely. I believe that is not a good idea, that this generation of batteries is not made that way. Nobody feels differently? Then I guess its not as controversial as I perceived.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[bs1two]

I charge mine when it gets to the yellow area on my battery. Other than that I don't pay battery life much attention. Then again working in a VZW store I have access to a charger at all times.

I am confused on what they mean by charge cycles. Does that mean when it's completely dead til it gets a complete charge or every time the battery receives any type of charge?

[wayfr]

In my opening post I was asking if anyone felt it was a good idea to run the battery down completely. I believe that is not a good idea, that this generation of batteries is not made that way. Nobody feels differently? Then I guess its not as controversial as I perceived.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

These types of batteries, by nature, are designed to be discharged and recharged.
I would say that based on this type of battery (as opposed to an automotive lead acid which is not designed to be discharged more than a couple of times) it can't hurt to cycle the battery every now n then.
So, sure itd a good idea, but to me its not necessary. Again I don't plan on keeping this thing around long enough for it to be an issue. If you however plan on keeping yours around gor a long time then yes, proper battery maintenance would be beneficial to you.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Volcomite]

I've tried to test what works best for my battery, but I haven't noticed anything noticeable. Sometimes I charge it to full before I head to bed, and then take it off the charger. The only major difference the next day is that the radio is turned off, and it doesn't seem to last much longer than if I charge it over night. What I typically do is just charge it over night.

[venomgirl]

I am a tad lazy about charging...when at work I charge it & at night...but I have friends that are constantly chaging...the lowest I try to go is 25% that waiting til the battery is nearly dead was for 2g cell phones the new devices last either way

[Craterz]

These types of batteries, by nature, are designed to be discharged and recharged.
I would say that based on this type of battery (as opposed to an automotive lead acid which is not designed to be discharged more than a couple of times) it can't hurt to cycle the battery every now n then.
So, sure itd a good idea, but to me its not necessary. Again I don't plan on keeping this thing around long enough for it to be an issue. If you however plan on keeping yours around gor a long time then yes, proper battery maintenance would be beneficial to you.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Actually, this is not true. Lithium ion batteries are not designed to be discharged completely, in most cases the device will prohibit this anyway. So in the end it really doesn't matter. On the other hand, Ni-Cad's would develop a memory if not fully discharged on a regular basis. Car batteries (or most anyway) are a different animal altogether, since they are designed for high amperage output over a very short period of time (that is, starting your vehicle, which is the heaviest load on the battery), rather than constant usage over a longer period of time. Lithium Ion batteries have a life to them, but will most likely last longer than you will keep your Storm.

In short, the way you decide how often to charge is up to you . For me... I charge as needed, if I think the battery will last a couple days then I will charge it every couple days. Then again, I carry two batteries with me and swap 'em out when the low battery indicator starts whining.