There are a lot of questions about cell phone batteries. Should you leave your smartphones plugged in overnight? Is it bad for the phone? Bad for your safety? What's the right thing to do?
In fact, how much should you charge your phone? When's the right time to plug in? Should it go down to 0 percent every time? Up to 100 percent? How do you get the longest life out of the battery inside a smartphone? Does it really matter if you're only going to keep the handset around for a couple of years before an upgrade?
The debate goes well beyond the worry of moderate harm to a device, as some people have fears of "overloading" a smartphone battery. That worry seems relatively justified since it was only a few years ago that Samsung's Galaxy Note 7s were bursting into flame due to battery issues. But as we've explained before, unless a device has some serious manufacturing defects like that phone did, the fire-in-your-pocket (or on the nightstand) aspect is unlikely.
Myths Debunked:
- Charging My iPhone Overnight Will Overload the Battery - FALSE. The one thing all the experts agree upon is that smartphones are smart enough that they do not let an overload happen.
- I Should Freeze My Phone to Prevent Battery Problems - FALSE. Lithium-ion batteries hate two things: extreme cold and extreme heat.
- My Battery Should Always Drop to 0 Percent - FALSE. Running a smartphone until it's dead—a full discharge—every time is not the way to go with modern Lithium-ion batteries.
- My Battery Develops a 'Memory' - FALSE. Developing a "memory" was a problem with older nickel-cadmium (NiCad) batteries.
- Phone Batteries Only Live a Couple of Years - FALSE. Phone batteries measure their lifespan in "charge cycles
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