Three Ways To Maximize Your Phone’s Battery Life

If you've ever wondered why your cell phone doesn't last as long as it's supposed to, here are three tips to help you take better care of it.

Gizmodo posted a great article about caring for our smartphone's batteries. It dispelled a few myths that I actually thought were true (like battery memory... who knew?), and had a lot of great advice. Here are the top three tip:

1. Keep topping it off throughout the day. Some old schoolers (like me) think a cell phone battery has a "memory," and that you should run it all the way down, and "teach" it its capacity. That used to be the case for nickel-based batteries that are hardly used anymore in today's tech. Most cell phones today use lithium-ion batteries. The don't have a memory so plugging your phone in to top it off won't degrade your charge capacity. It's even been suggested that letting a phone battery go to zero is actually dangerous as it can get chemically unstable. On the other hand, your batter doesn't like being fully charged either. To maximize battery life is to top it off as often as possible, and keep it between 40% and 80%.

2. Keep it cool. The warmer your phone gets, the more capacity your battery loses. At 77 degrees Fahrenheit, a lithium-ion battery loses 20% of its capacity every year. And if you carry your phone in your pocket, it's probably hotter than that all day long. Consider turning off all those features like GPS and notifications too. The less your phone is working, the better. Women do better when they carry their phone in a purse. And guys could go back to carrying their phone on a belt clip, but... no. So at the very least never leave your phone in the car, or sitting on a table or counter top that's in direct sunlight.

3.  Don't charge it wirelessly. Wireless charging mats get pretty hot after a while and can actually reduce the life of your battery (see tip #2).

But overall, there's really no need to worry about battery life. Even if you abuse your battery, it'll still last for two years with some capacity left over. And by then you'll be upgrading anyway.