Cell Phone Battery Tips

I recently found a great tip on YouTube to determine if your cell phone battery needs to be replaced. It's called the spin test. You need to remove the battery from your phone and place it on a flat surface. Then you flick the corner with your finger. If it spins, it needs to be replaced. The theory is that a bad battery will have a bulge in the middle, which prevents the battery from laying flat. Overcharge conditions and poor cell quality and design can cause a battery to swell.

You will most likely first start having problems with the battery holding a charge. It won't be long before the phone will go into a reboot cycle and become unusable unless it is plugged into a charger. Running a cell phone on a charger with a bad battery can cause it to explode or catch fire. The recommendation is to replace the battery as soon as possible. Lithium Ion batteries typically have a lifespan of 500 complete charging cycles. If you charge your phone every day, the battery will generally last for about 2 years. Popular Mechanics says that you don't need to charge you battery all the way up, and use it until it's dead. This only applies to nickel-metal hydride, or NiMH batteries.