Power advice

[rhar75]

Hi, I've recently bought an android phone (nexus 6) having had iPhones previously.

I had terrible battery problems with my last iPhone which I may have contributed to by trying to avoid apples ridiculous priced charging cables buying cheap eBay ones.

Anyway I want to look after my new phone this time and wondered if I need make sure I buy a particular type of (additional) cable or charger.

Also I would like another genuine turbocharger and wondered where I can buy one?

Can anyone help?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Many chargers are interchangeable, but if you want to be safe, just stick with the one that came with the phone.

 

[rhar75]

Thank you b.diddy I'll have to find somewhere that sels genuine ones.

 

[Rukbat]

Look on the original charger, at the Output line. It's around 5 volts (5.0 or 5.2 isn't critical.) Look at the current (mA or A - 1A=1,000mA). Any charger that can supply at least that much will work. (The phone draws as much as it's designed to draw, as long as the charger can supply it. A 10 Amp charger won't charge the phone faster than a 5 Amp charger, because no phone should be able to draw even 5 Amps - it would cook almost any battery sold with cellphones today. The most a Nexus 6 should draw is 3.22 Amps (the capacity of the battery - or a 1C [1 times the capacity of the battery] charge), and it's probably designed to draw about 1/3 of that.

As far as the cable, Samsung plays games (5 pin, 9 pin, 11 pin), but most other manufacturers use the standard 5 pin connector, so any microUSB-to-USB cable will work, even one designed for charging only (no data) like the ones that come with wireless headsets.

The trick isn't the charger, it's how you treat the battery. Fully charge it before using it the first time. Then use it until the phone tells you to charge it. Repeat that twice more.

From then on, try to never let the battery get below 40% charge. (Charge between 40% and 60%.) That will give you maximum battery life. (See Battery University - How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - these people make battery analyzers, so they know how batteries react to all sorts of charging profiles.)

Especially with a phone that you can't replace batteries by just removing the back cover, keeping the battery going as long as possible is critical. (I have a 10 year old phone, still running on the same batteries - replaceable, and I have 3 - that it had 10 years ago. And I've seen people ruin a battery in less than 6 months by constantly running it until it was near 0 charge.) If the phone has to go into the shop for a new battery, you're probably paying $50-$100 to have a $10 battery (that costs $30 retail) replaced.

 

[rhar75]

Hey this really good info thanks. I did read up on the battery university about keeping the battery topped up which was a surprise. Interesting about the different number of pin cables. I'm certainly finding the cables work much more consistently than the iPhone ones ever did.

 

[Rukbat]

There are basically only 2 different microUSB cables (if you ignore Samsung) - one with 2 wires for power only (for devices that don't communicate over USB, they just need to get charged) and one with 4 wires for charging and data. (Remember, copper is still pretty expensive, so saving 2 thin wires on a million cables is a huge savings.)

I thought Apple pretty much used a single connector. I guess not. (The last time I had anything to do with Apple was around 1988, when I was writing programs for the old 128KB RAM Mac. I parted company with them when they went back on their word about never breaking code that followed the rules - which they did as soon as they changed from the 68000 line of CPUs.)

 

[rhar75]

Bet you were pleased about that move when u2 ended up on everyone's phone without asking.