Do you have to FULLY charge the battery?

[_heatherly]

I know many people that say with lithium batteries there is no memory, and you can charge it as much and as often as you want. Personally I've always let my smartphone die or get to 1% before charging; many say it doesn't matter, but I have the best smartphone battery track record of anyone I know.

You do this on a regular basis or just when you first get your phone?

 

[IamHahn]

You do this on a regular basis or just when you first get your phone?

Regular basis. I'm not OCD about it, but I do this when I can.

I believe the half of varaiable in the statement 'YMMV' (Your Mileage May Vary) is how something is used. There is a difference of over 5 mpg in my Jeep when I drive it vs my wife, and her first iPhone (3G) would die two times and be half dead by the time my phone was dying. I was really suprised to read people having issues with the iP4s, as mine lasts until I go to bed with about 3-3.5 hours of Pandora while at work, right in line with her iP4 with little to no streaming.

 

[jimpilot]

It really doesn't matter, however, I ran mine all the way down three times when I first got mine on the 14th. It's more of a habit than anything else. I've never had an issue with any of the batteries on my iPhones, though. I can easily go more than 2 days on one charge with my iPhone 4S.

That's what I did when I got it, although not on purpose. Just playing with it too much.

 

[leharris22]

I used to be really careful to charge/discharge completely on my devices. But after reading about lithium batteries, I'm convinced it can't harm them to charge/discharge when you need/want. As long as do a complete charge/discharge around once per month, you should be fine.

 

[GingerSnapsBack]

I went into verizon and bought one of those black iphone/ipad chargers with a 6 foot cable. I didnt trust the reviews for the ones on Amazon, so I paid Verizon 29.00

What came with the Verizon one? Just the cable? I saw that when I went to Verizon to get my contacts switched over from my Storm2 to my iPhone but didn't ever look at the box very closely.

 

[Adawg1203]

I know many people that say with lithium batteries there is no memory, and you can charge it as much and as often as you want. Personally I've always let my smartphone die or get to 1% before charging; many say it doesn't matter, but I have the best smartphone battery track record of anyone I know.

You may want to be careful letting your devices with Lithium batteries completely drain, too much. This decreases the longevity of the battery. Once a lithium type battery gets low, yellow or red, then its time to charge.

Again, each time you completely drain, then charge, reduces the longevity of the battery.

 

[circlez]

I will be receiving my iPhone 4S this afternoon. Do I need to fully charge it before I use it? I am so excited that I am going to want to rip the box open and start playing with it right away but I want to make sure that I am not going to screw up the battery.

Just rip it out of the box. Give in.

 

[skyscraper04]

im not really worried about my 4s battery if it doesnt last long because its really easy to replace them.

 

[ghostface147]

You may want to be careful letting your devices with Lithium batteries completely drain, too much. This decreases the longevity of the battery. Once a lithium type battery gets low, yellow or red, then its time to charge.

Again, each time you completely drain, then charge, reduces the longevity of the battery.

Prove it.....

 

[GibMcFragger]

Prove it.....

It's common knowledge.


Beamed over the interwebz from my iPhone 4S using Siri.

 

[Timhewitt]

Lithium battery life is actually extended by only partially discharging, as there is less stress on the battery than what happens in a full charge/discharge cycle.

There are positive results to be had by charging often and not letting your phone battery get very low.

Whether or not any of us see the actual difference in the life of our phones is another question.

There is a nice website - battery university - that debunks most of the myths around batteries of all technologies.

 

[Timhewitt]

It is better to do a full charge and discharge

No, it's not. That puts maximum stress on the battery and shortens its useful life.

Lithium batteries are not like nicad batteries. Nicad batteries need to be discharged regularly to break loose the crystals that cause them to have memory. Lithium batteries do not have this problem.