Is it a bad habit to charge overnight?

[Edwin Bos]

A lot of you seem to have a vast knowledge about the Maxx's battery and how to train it, etc. Me...I'm clueless!
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Droid Forums

I do understand that the first few times (5x or so) it is better to fully drain the battery before recharging. After that it shouldn't matter too much. Personally, I do it all the time...

 

[FoxKat]

I do understand that the first few times (5x or so) it is better to fully drain the battery before recharging. After that it shouldn't matter too much. Personally, I do it all the time...

Actually Edwin Bos, there is absolutely NO benefit, not during the first few times, nor ever, with the Lithium Ion Polymer batteries of today to "drain them fully", and in fact it's a very dangerous practice, both from the position that it will add stress to the battery and shorten it's effective lifespan, and that it can result in the phone becoming unresponsive to the charger and suffer what is commonly called the "white light of death". It has been mentioned several times in this thread (among dozens of others I've schooled members in), and EddieKeyton actually referenced (a few posts up above), a friend of his who felt the need to prove to Eddie that it was harmless to discharge the battery fully, only to have the phone become unresponsive and suffer the "white light of death". Laughing, and I'll bet while saying "I told you so", Eddie had to rescue the phone with a patched charging cable.

You should avoid EVER letting the battery get to the point where the phone shuts down on its own. Instead you should at the best, plug into the charger as soon as possible after the phone tells you too, and at worst as it gets into the single digits of percentage remaining.

 

[Edwin Bos]

Hi Fox,

Thanks for the mail!

Didn't know that. In fact my own phone shuts down on itself on a regular basis and never really had problems with this. Good to know though.

Won't let it happen again

 

[FoxKat]

Hi Fox,

Thanks for the mail!

Didn't know that. In fact my own phone shuts down on itself on a regular basis and never really had problems with this. Good to know though.

Won't let it happen again

No problem. I say you should use your battery gauge much the same way as you use the gauge on your gas tank for your car.

You wouldn't think twice about putting gas in the car as it approaches empty, lest you want to find yourself to be stuck on the highway with no gasoline. I know I sweat bullets when my car tells me 0 miles till empty. That 0 miles till empty indicator on our cars is actually telling us we're now using the reserve tank thats left behind before we're completely empty and we're lucky if we may be able to get ten or fifteen to 30 miles before it sputters to a stall.

Well, when your phone says its at 15% and says "connect to charger", it's essentially telling you the same thing. In other words, that last 15% is your reserve tank and you should really consider the usable portion of the charge to be between 100% and 15%, and consider 15% as empty, leaving that last 15% as a reserve to give you time to find the nearest charger.

So why would you then let your phone battery run till it's 'dry' if you wouldn't do the same with your car? Well the simple answer is because you're not as dependent on your phone as you are in your car, such as for transportation as an example. However, the more we become dependent on our phones for everyday communications, business, personal, safety, etc., the more important it is that they are on 24 / 7.

Fortunately for you, your meter and battery are apparently in good sync so you haven't had a problem. Still, it's risky business with these phones to allow that to happen.