Understanding the smartphone battery life is the smartest thing any smartphone owner must do. What is the smartphone battery lifespan, when must one get a battery replacement, is battery replacement better than purchasing a new phone, and how to take care of the smartphone’s battery healthy are issues that every smartphone user must know.
How Do You Know When A Smartphone Battery Needs Replacing?
Smartphone manufacturers have designed batteries that are meant to retain at least 80 to 85% of their original capacity after two to three years. This is equivalent to about 300-500 charge cycles after which the smartphone’s battery capacity will drop by roughly 20%. Take note, however, that your phone’s battery can degrade faster than that. Many factors such as exposure to direct sunlight or extreme temperatures as well as fast charging, overcharging and water damage can easily cause damage to battery health. Determining how degraded or deteriorated your smartphone battery is tedious and could be difficult and time-consuming.
A definite symptom of degraded battery capacity is when your phone exhibits symptoms like random reboots or sudden shutdowns at 30 or even 50 percent charge. Suppose your smartphone’s battery life is showing signs of not lasting as long as it once did. In that case, you may want to check out an app like AccuBattery which runs in the background while collecting discharge and charge data over several days and estimates your battery health. While not accurate, this app still offers a safe estimate and helps determine whether or not your phone needs a new battery.
Once your smartphone approaches three years of continuous use, a new battery is warranted to improve its daily optimum performance. This is because lithium-ion batteries begin to undergo performance degradation after a few hundred charge cycles. If you are using an iPhone, here is a convenient way to check your battery capacity. Go to the Settings app, navigate to Battery > Battery Health, and check the Maximum capacity section. Remember that Apple strongly suggests replacing your battery once its health falls below 80% of its original capacity or after approximately 400-500 charge cycles. Here are some telltale signs that tell you that there is something seriously amiss with your smartphone battery:
Your Smartphone is Constantly Dying
The easiest way to determine whether or not your smartphone battery needs replacement is by observing how often you need to recharge it throughout the day. Depending on personal usage habits, many users can use their smartphone for their normal daily routines and still have some decent charge left at the day’s end. However, if you have to recharge it at mid-day, or more than once a day, then surely you need battery replacement.
Your Smartphone is Reaching its Limit
It is important to determine how many times you have charged your smartphone since you first purchased it. If you have been charging your smartphone about once a day, then one year should be around 350 charging cycles. So when you near the 18-24 month period, your smartphone battery is most likely degraded as it is designed to last from 300 to 500 charging cycles.
Charging Cycles Don’t Completely Recharge the Phone
A sure sign that you need battery replacement is when your smartphone battery is no longer able to attain a full charge on a normal charging cycle timeframe. Remember that most mobile phones need roughly 4 to 6 hours from being completely drained to attaining a full battery status. You may run a simple test by allowing your phone’s battery to drain under 5% battery life left and then plug it into a charger for the amount of time recommended by the manufacturer. Turn on your phone’s power and check how full the battery is. If your phone battery registers below 100%, then that means that your battery is incapable of holding a full charge and a replacement is in order.
The Battery Runs Hot
Apps that take time to load or a slow response time to your finger taps could mean battery degradation. However, when your battery overheats under normal circumstances or gets alarmingly hot when you are charging your device, you can be very sure of battery damage. Immediate action is needed in cases like this and you may want to Call 020 7417 1737 for more information.
How Much Does It Cost to Replace A Smartphone Battery?
Replacement batteries are easy to come by. We at Square Repair can easily and quickly help you replace your battery. A replacement battery will be much less expensive than purchasing a new phone. A smartphone battery replacement will most likely cost you between $50 to $100, inclusive already of taxes and labor if you have it serviced in an official service center. This comes out as superiorly more cost-saving than purchasing a brand-new, top-of-the-line smartphone. However, in weighing your choices, remember that getting a battery replacement for lower-end smartphones could prove a tad trickier than you think. Consider this: if your current smartphone device costs you around $260-320, you might instead opt to purchase a new device over spending $60-80 more on a battery replacement.
Often enough, this option may prove to be more attractive as it is hassle-free, especially since repairs sometimes take several days.
The choice of whether or not to replace your smartphone’s battery is ultimately yours to make. If you have become obsessed with your current mobile phone and would prefer to no longer pay extra cash for an upgrade, however minor, then replacing your phone battery is the best option available to give your smartphone a new lease on life.
Is it Worth Changing The Smartphone Battery?
Remember what we said about your smartphone’s lithium-ion battery having a lifespan of 400-500 charge cycles or equivalent to roughly about three years? This simply means that new battery replacements offer the easiest way to prolong and lengthen the longevity of older model phones. Cell phone batteries, including those of Android phones, have about two years before battery health begins to deteriorate. Past the two years, charging issues begin to appear as an old battery will most likely slow down your smartphone’s performance or even cause sudden shutdowns.
Is it Better to Buy A New Phone or Replace The Battery?
The decision to buy a new phone or simply purchase a smartphone battery replacement is all yours to make. If you have become so closely attached to your current phone, no matter how old it may be, and if it continues to function well and serve its purpose without any damage to its internal components, then simply replacing the existing battery would be a sound and logical move to make. Take note that the type or model of your mobile phone, your service provider, and your plan will determine whether purchasing a new device will either cost a fortune or almost nothing at all.
If you are the techie type who prefers to have the latest apps or the best camera and video technology available on the market today, then definitely the only way to go is to purchase a new phone.
For android phone users, it is important to remember to replace these devices before their hardware becomes obsolete. This is because the Android OS is no longer being updated anymore and some of the apps may need a newer version than what you currently have.
To recap, buying a brand new smartphone or simply getting battery replacements for older phone models is a purely personal decision as it greatly depends on how satisfied you are with your current phone, the condition it is presently in, and the attendant costs that either choice will entail. You need not have the sleekest model with all the latest technology. Taking good care of your smart device is key to enjoying it for years to come. Contact us or book an appointment with us today
How to Take Proper Care of Batteries?
As much as possible, always charge using the supplier-provided charger. Most smartphone manufacturers such as LG, Samsung, and Apple, have fine-tuned their chargers to their phone batteries with the right amount of current. This ensures proper over-charge protection. Batteries give adequate feedback to the charger to ensure the correct and appropriate amount of current flowing through both.
Never forget to discharge your battery completely once a week. Drain your battery almost completely to less than 5% and then fully recharge. This improves your battery’s overall health and will increase the battery life.
Keep your smartphone’s display blank and avoid using it while charging. Smartphone users believe, though not thoroughly proven by scientific study, that the charging current will be different from the discharge current and may take an unusually long time to charge which invariably will be detrimental to battery health.
Never overcharge. If your smartphone overheats when in normal use or if it becomes unusually hot when charging, immediately unplug the charger. While your smartphone may have built-in over-current protection capabilities, no one can be sure about these things.
Again, never forget that batteries have about 500 charge cycles or about 2-3 years before they show signs of battery deterioration and degradation. Your usage and charging habits directly affect the overall health and lifespan of your smartphone batteries
For many if not most of us, our smartphones have become our inseparable shadows, our loyal friends, and indispensable partners in the conduct of our everyday lives. And giving their batteries that extra tender care and attention is the only way to assure us of a long-lasting and meaningful affair with what has become our most trusted ally.