Cellular Phone Battery

Cellular Phone Battery

What steps should I take with a new cellular phone battery?

When you've bought a new cellular phone battery, you want to maximize its life and performance as much as possible. Following our few simple tips can help.

The First Time You Charge the Phone Battery

Start by turning the phone off. You need to charge new cellular batteries for twenty-four hours before you use the phone. It takes some time for new batteries to reach their full charge potential, so expect batteries to be only partially charged for the first few charging cycles. Your phone may indicate that a new battery is fully charged before the twenty-four hour period is up, but it's important that you leave it plugged in and charging. This process is called 'initializing' the batteries.

Conditioning Cell Phone Batteries

For the first few cycles of discharging and recharging new cellular batteries, it is beneficial to discharge the batteries fully before recharging them. This 'conditioning' will maximize the power capacity of both lithium-based and nickel-based batteries. To discharge batteries fully, either use the phone until it dies or leave the phone unplugged from the charger until it is discharged. For this initial conditioning, it is preferable to leave the cell phone turned off while you charge it overnight.

For nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) and nickel cadmium (NiCd) phone batteries, it is important to continue this process of fully discharging the battery before recharging it. These nickel-based phone batteries suffer from what is often called the 'memory effect,' which means that a partial discharge and recharge cycle can cause the battery to recharge only partially in the future. Lithium-based phone batteries do not suffer from the memory effect, so continuous conditioning over the life of the batteries is not necessary.