Taking Care of Your Batteries

Most batteries found in today's gadgets will be based on the lithium-ion technology. This is the standard chemistry found in current generation technology because of its advantages over nickel-cadmium and other types of batteries. However, most people are still unaware of how to maintain their batteries to prolong their lives.

To check if your battery is indeed lithium ion, closely examine the battery itself.  It should state somewhere that it is lithium or lithium ion.  Some manufacturers may choose to abbreviate it and simply call it "Li," the chemical symbol for lithium.

Once you ascertain that the battery in question is indeed lithium-ion based, these are a few things you should keep in mind to extend its storage capacity in the long term:

My Cell Phone Died! Quick, Where's The Charger?

Most lithium ion batteries have a fail safe mechanism that shuts off the device and conserves what little power the battery has once it reaches critically low power levels.  However, if one were to neglect the battery and allow it to stay depleted, it will use up its reserves and be unable to hold a charge anymore.  But don't overreact - it's okay to let your device drain the battery, but find a way to charge it ASAP!

Don't Be A Fool, Keep It Cool!

Lithium ion batteries are really sensitive to heat.  Make sure that your battery stays cool: heat can slowly destroy the battery's ability to hold a charge.  If a lithium ion battery is exposed to higher temperatures over a long period of time, it will lose its ability to hold an effective charge.

Some experts suggest people to get belt clip and attach their cell phones to it instead of leaving them in their pockets because the body heat can adversely damage the battery in the long run.  Since that might look extremely dorky and the actual difference of doing so cannot be measured for all lithium ion batteries, it is up to you to decide if you want to do that

For laptops, consider getting a cooling pad and/or using compressed air to blow dust to promote better ventilation.  Cooling pads are simply fans that blow additional air into your laptop to promote air circulation to drive out heat.  If dust accumulates in your laptop, it will hinder the air's ability to drive the heat out.  Go to your local electronics store and buy cans of compressed air to blow into the laptop to get the dust out.

It's Okay To Charge Regularly!

There is a myth out there that you should wait until your battery is completely depleted before recharging or else its ability to carry a full charge will diminish.  This is a carryover from older battery technologies, such as the nickel-cadmium battery.  Lithium-ion batteries do not suffer from this memory effect problem as much as nickel-cadmium does and it is okay to charge your device even if it is only partially depleted.  However, devices must be able to accurately gauge the battery's power level and if one were to consistently recharge when the battery is not depleted, the software will become confused and often report inaccurate power levels.  Sometimes it will tell you that the battery is low when the device can run fine for a few more hours.  Therefore, you should always try to recharge once you deplete the battery, but it's not the end of the world if you don't.

Bottom Line:

• Don't let your batteries be out of power for too long, find a charger before it dies.


• Keep your lithium-ion batteries cool at all times, heat is their biggest enemy.


• It's okay to recharge lithium-ion batteries even when they're not depleted, but do so when possible.

And in the end, all batteries will lose their charge.  You should be lucky if you can still get a good amount of battery life out of the same lithium-ion battery 2, 3, or even 4 years down the line.

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