How to Extend the Lifespan of Your Battery

Posted on Sep 12th 2011

As the cost of a quality battery has come down over the years, and technology has greatly improved, many people enjoy the freedom of using their device without considering the effects on the battery. Most people will replace their phone before the battery goes dead but long-term owners can take steps maximize its longevity. As a general rule - the fewer times you charge it, the longer it will last, so conserving your battery power is key. Here are some specific techniques to conserve and preserve.

Avoid running the battery all the way down. Most Lithium Ion batteries will last between 300 and 500 charges, but if you let the battery run down too much before charging, that can hurt its lifespan. It's better to keep it fully charged as much as possible. So, if you’re at home and near the phone’s charger, plug it in! With Lithium Ion batteries, you cannot overcharge ... There’s still a lot of confusion about that, from the days when nickel-based batteries were used in phones and had to be fully discharged once in a while to condition the battery.
Heat – especially in the car — is not your battery’s friend. It affects the battery's storage capacity and is one of the elements that shortens lifespan the most, so don't leave your cell phone on the dash or in the glove box on warm days.
To conserve battery power, you can turn off the Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G radios in your phone when you’re not using them, and dim the backlight on the phone’s screen.
Turn off “push e-mail,” that is delivered to you as it is sent, and instead manually check for new e-mail. The more frequently e-mail or other data is fetched, the faster your battery will drain.
And here’s one for frequent fliers... When you get further and further away from a cell tower, the harder your phone tries to find a signal and thus, the more battery power it uses. When you’re 30,000 feet in the air, you can’t get a signal because all the ground-based towers are out of range. Turning your cell phone off when you're in the air will do wonders for conserving battery life.

While these steps can help you prolong the lifespan of your battery, we all have to determine if the ends justify the means.

Source: MSNBC