Battery Care PSA

If you are a "normal" person, you probably have at least one device kicking around your arsenal that uses a good old lithium ion battery. These are usually found in phones, mp3 players, laptops, etc... basically portable things that use a lot of power.

There are a lot of opinions out there on best practices with batteries, below are some decent guidelines that should keep the relationship between you and your precious device happy and productive...

Resolution

The main points are bascially:

• Lithium Ion batteries have no chemical "memory effect" - their life will not be permanently reduced by partial discharge cycles.
• In fact, for the most part they prefer lots of little charge cycles rather than fewer larger recharge cycles, with one exception...
• Lithium Ion batteries do have a battery meter to predict battery life that does require calibration (the following steps):
1. [It can't hurt to start from a fully charged state, but not required]
2. Discharge it past the point when it complains until it shuts itself off.
3. Then recharge it back to full and then leave it charging for another few hours even after it says it is full.
• Do at least one calibration cycle like the above when you first get the device to make sure the battery meter is correct.
• Do another calibration cycle when the battery meter seems to be getting low but you think it might be premature.
• You shouldn't need to do a full/calibration cycle more than about 1 out of every 30 charge cycles.

Heat is their worst enemy in terms of reducing their life. Full recharge cycles accumulate much more heat than partial recharge cycles so plug it in whenever you can at other times when you aren't doing a calibration cycle.

source --> http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm