How to Prolong Your Smartphone Battery Life

The battery on your smartphone is probably the component that will degrade quickest, and even as smartphone batteries have dramatically improved in terms of their ability to hold a charge, many people still find that over time a battery can’t hold a charge as long as it used to. Here are some tips to help you extend the lifespan of your battery so you won’t need smartphone battery replacement quite as early.

How Battery Lifespans Work

When you allow a battery to get close to 0% and charge it all the way to 100%, that’s a battery charge cycle. After a certain number of full charge cycles, the capacity of your battery will degrade, meaning it cannot store as much energy as it could when it was new. Phone manufacturers say that after about 400 charges (if you do a full charge cycle every day, that’s just a little over a year), the battery capacity degrades by about 20%. These are just estimates, and actual degradation could be more or less.

Maintain Consistent Temperatures

Phone batteries that are continually exposed to extreme temperatures—both hot and cold—will degrade faster than average. If you can avoid keeping your phone in places where it’s exposed to extremes, such as in a hot car during summer months or a freezing cold car in the winter, do it. Keeping it in a mild temperature range helps extend battery life.

Charge Properly

Learning the best ways to charge a battery can help extend its life. For example, fast charging (while very convenient if you’re out of juice and need your phone right away) puts more strain on the battery than a normal charge cycle. You should also avoid draining a battery all the way to 0% and charging it all the way to 100% if possible. This is counter to what you may have known about older batteries, which performed better if they were drained and charged completely. Today’s batteries don’t require this, and can perform worse under those circumstances.

If you are planning to turn off and store the phone for a long time (several months), charge it to about 50% before you turn the power off. It’s best to turn the phone on once a month or so to keep the battery working, since it will continue to degrade even when turned off.

Getting Your Smartphone Battery Replaced

Even with the best battery management, the component will wear out over time. The longer you have your phone, or the more you use it, the more quickly your battery will wear out. The good news is that Bad Apple can quickly replace the battery in your phone and get you one that works just like new, so you don’t have to spend a fortune on a new phone just because the battery isn’t working. Call or stop by our stores to find out more.