Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“But the good news is that if you leave your charger on overnight, you still likely get about 300 charges total, assuming your battery was A1 to begin with and has never been ultra fast charged.”
Most mobile phone batteries have a lifecycle of about 300 charges before it loses around 20% of its capacity. Obviously this is dependent on how its used, Apple quote an iPhone battery going down to 80% after around 300 charge cycles, that is equivalent of charging and discharging fully. Unless you cain your phone (of any manufacturer), it actually takes a great deal of time to pass 300 charge cycles.
However its no secret Apple puts (comparative to their iPads) a crap lithium based battery in their iPhones. According to Apple an iPad would have to go through 1000 full discharge cycles before it would reduce to about 80% capacity.
Also this fast charge, Qualcomm have patented the tech behind it, as I understand the faster charging doesn't have any dentrimental effect on the battery. I believe its more to do with the charger itself, it puts out a strength of around 2.5A ( I think?), the battery is then able to receive and use more of the energy compared to that of a standard 500mAh wall plus. If you use the rapid charger on another device that isn't fast charge capable it will reduce the current to the standard 500mAh.
I don't for a second think Qualcomm and its partners would sell such a thing if it had any detrimental effect on the battery. The phones which support the "2.0 Fast Charge" are usually Qualcomm 801 and above based phones.
Originally Posted by Thine Wonk:
“Only if the charge controller prevents the battery from damage by running it too low. If you didn't charge it and ran to down to empty and didn't use it for a while it would probably damage the battery. One thing you never want to happen is for the battery to go outside of it's comfort levels as it causes damage. ”
I don't know if you are proving my point or questioning it?
Every mobile phone has built in cut offs to ensure user safety but also lengthing battery life. An iPhone or iPad will start discharging when it is charged to capacity, allowing the current to flow, I think it gets to about 95% or so and then starts charging again. Other phones like those with "Quick Charge 2.0" the device charges a lot slower at it gets to capacity. If we were talking batteries of old I would be inclined to support your point (whatever it was?). But we aren't, I don't argue that lithium batteries need short regular bursts of charging, however running it to capacity and then charging again a few hours later has barely a noticeable impact on the life cycle.
There used to be this school of thought that in order to ensure a long lifecycle one should only charge the battery to about 80%, however that turned out to be cods wallop as charging it to "capacity" and then using has no negative impact in the longrun. Granted letting lithium run down everyday will impact its lifecycle, but charging it to "capacity" and leaving it on is unlikely to impact shelf life again. You will find most phones and even laptops have built in protection to ensure that a battery stops taking in a current and over charging. They don't need software to do that either, if you took a lithium based battery apart you would see whats inside and what ensures that it doesn't suffer from overcharging.
There is a new technology in testing now that will apparently revolutionise how long takes to charge and also how long it can run. Thought samsung isn't expected to unveil this till later in the year (I think Qualcomm has involvement in this as well).
