[dvorak]

I tend to leave my incredible plugged in while at home or work so when I leave I have a full charge, because I use it constantly and tend to drain it pretty fast. Now I'm wounding if this can kill my battery. I know with laptops your supposed to remove the battery if you have it plugged in 24/7 or else you can kill your battery and it won't hold a charge. Would this be an issue with my incredible?

I'll prolly get Seidio's extended battery when it comes out.

[izzyncade]

I tend to believe it will, but only on the theory that it does kill a laptop battery if you keep it plugged in constantly... I would though, leave it to anyone who can back theory with fact before making any decisions...

[howarmat]

you should be fine, but discharging all the way every so often is good for it too

[moosc]

it will be fine.. once it reaches full charge it cuts back the juice.. if it would hurt there wouldn't be desktop/media chargers.

[RayStinkle]

This was only a problem with old batteries years ago. Lithum ion don't have to worry about this.

[izzyncade]

This was only a problem with old batteries years ago. Lithum ion don't have to worry about this.

Thats what Im looking for...

[bigk]

If your worried about it, buy the Igo Power Smart Tower. This smart tower detects if a plug in needs power and turns on the plug for you. It checks to see if the appliance needs power (like a cell phone for example) if it does, it turns that plug on. If it doesn't it will turn it off and save power. In your case I would think it would save your battery if your worried about it.

I do not own/use this product so I have no idea if it will work or would damage any thing. Use at your own risk.

"iGo" Power Smart Tower with iGo Green® Technology at iGo, Inc.

[wowpaw]

This was only a problem with old batteries years ago. Lithum ion don't have to worry about this.

Bingo. Although, I would recommend every so often that you run your battery down and then do a full charge just to cycle it. As time passes, your battery meter will become less and less accurate, and by cycling it, this will help calibrate that meter again.

[krelvinaz]

It is not like you are going to wear out the phone... even if after a year the battery starts to wear out from over charging you can just get a new battery. Wouldn't worry about it.

[rpfarrah]

No, No. NO. Do NOT purposely run your battery down all the way to make it work better. These are NOT Ni-Cad batteries.

Lithium Ion batteries LOVE to be charged and hate to be deep cycled (run down all the way).

[slinky317]

I'm still confused about how the battery works on the Incredible. This morning, I took my phone off of the charger and (phone being on), like many of you, it fell to 94% in about 5-10 minutes and held there. When I got in the car, I turned on my GPS and about halfway to work I plugged it into the car charger so I didn't waste battery too much. Right before I got to work, the light turned green and it hit 100%. I expected it to instantly fall down to 94% like before, but now it's hanging at 100% and I have no idea why.

[bigslam123]

I'm still confused about how the battery works on the Incredible. This morning, I took my phone off of the charger and (phone being on), like many of you, it fell to 94% in about 5-10 minutes and held there. When I got in the car, I turned on my GPS and about halfway to work I plugged it into the car charger so I didn't waste battery too much. Right before I got to work, the light turned green and it hit 100%. I expected it to instantly fall down to 94% like before, but now it's hanging at 100% and I have no idea why.

Read the battery thread and you will know why.

[slinky317]

There are about 100 different battery threads with about 100 different opinions in each. Which one should I be looking at?

[rpfarrah]

There are about 100 different battery threads with about 100 different opinions in each. Which one should I be looking at?

Mine.

jk

[slinky317]

I'm honestly looking for an answer. If someone could explain or show me an explanation as to why my phone drops 6% almost immediately after I take it off the charger, I'd love to know!

[rpfarrah]

I'm honestly looking for an answer. If someone could explain or show me an explanation as to why my phone drops 6% almost immediately after I take it off the charger, I'd love to know!

Tell us about your charging habits. Do you go to bed at 9:00 withe the phone on the charger? Or do you go a day or two before re-charging (that would be hard to believe, but....)

[doctorg23]

No, No. NO. Do NOT purposely run your battery down all the way to make it work better. These are NOT Ni-Cad batteries.

Lithium Ion batteries LOVE to be charged and hate to be deep cycled (run down all the way).

I've never heard of this. Why?

[slinky317]

Tell us about your charging habits. Do you go to bed at 9:00 withe the phone on the charger? Or do you go a day or two before re-charging (that would be hard to believe, but....)

I usually go to bed at around 11-11:30, and put it on the charger then with the phone still on. I usually take it off the charger at around 7:45am, and the phone decreases by about 6% within minutes.

[wowpaw]

No, No. NO. Do NOT purposely run your battery down all the way to make it work better. These are NOT Ni-Cad batteries.

Lithium Ion batteries LOVE to be charged and hate to be deep cycled (run down all the way).

LiIon batts need to be calibrated every so often, so although you shouldn't do this every time, you should probably cycle the battery every so often to calibrate the accuracy of the battery meter.

[rpfarrah]

I usually go to bed at around 11-11:30, and put it on the charger then with the phone still on. I usually take it off the charger at around 7:45am, and the phone decreases by about 6% within minutes.

It is important to note that I am not a battery expert (nor do I play one on these forums ) My humble opion is based on information received through years of networking with wonderful people like those of us on this forum and several others.

Here's my working theory: like many cellphones (the Samsung Omnia, for example) in order to protect the phone/battery, the DI battery charging system may stop when the battery is fully charged, and then not continue to "top-off" the battery even though it is still plugged in. So, when we plug our phones into the charger and go to bed, it is likely fully charged by, say, 3:00 a.m. If my theory is correct, then the phone receives no more charge until is is unplugged and re-plugged into the charger.

Now, depending upon how much stuff you have going on / automatically updating in the background overnight - this will impact how much battery loss you see shortly after you unplug. The phone has been mildly active (though asleep) after the charging stopped at 3:00a.m.

So, after unplugging you wait a minute or so and if you re-plug your phone into the charger you should eventually get a green light and you then achieve a genuinely full battery.

...my $.02

[Mitch R.]

Keeping li-ion batteries at a voltage of 4.2 is not recommended as it can cause premature corrosion. This is where the recommendation of not keeping them plugged in continually comes from. In some of the newer laptops, vie seen that the charge percentage drops to between 97 and 95% to keep it away from that 4.2v level.

Worse case, if you want to keep it plugged in, go for it. If you lose battery life, I'm sure there will be plenty of cheaper after market batteries available by the time you need a replacement. I also agree with the member that said draining them down all the way is not good as a practice because it isn't. I try to charge mine when it gets down to around 40%, but in the real world, this isn't always possible.

[TNScrambler]

hmm, I'm used to my old phones that I had to completely cycle to make the batteries survive...I was anal about it and knock on wood have never had to buy a new battery for any of my phones before my 2 yr upgrade date. That said I'm seriously considering the extended battery for the inc. but it has me wondering if I should just start keeping an extra usb cord with me at work and keeping it charged while on my desk.

[applejosh]

This is just a summary of what I've read over the years. I am not an expect on batteries or even a chemical engineer. This is just what I've read.

Lithium batteries should have a built in circuit to prevent overcharging. In general, Litihium batteries do not like to be deep cycled (and I've read that letting them go completely dead will actually kill the battery's life). However, the meter that reports your "percentage" will become inaccurate if you don't do a rather full discharge every now and then. (The evil fruit company recommends letting the battery go down to 20% or so and then charging fully about once every month to keep the meter accurate.)

Take this with a grain of salt.