How To Identify a Bad Phone Battery

BEIJING, CHINA - APRIL 20: (CHINA OUT) Jia Yueting, co-founder and head of LeTV, introduces new smartphone on April 20, 2016 in Beijing, China. Le Holdings Co Ltd unveiled the pure electric concept vehicle LeSEE which meant Super Electronic Ecosystem during the press conference on Wednesday in Beijing. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

The durability of battery is a major concern for phone users. Long battery life is of utmost importance to phone users in countries with epileptic power supply like Nigeria.

You will find many online discussions, whether in forums or articles about phone batteries. Almost all of them are about charging and stretching out the time between charging.

According to Android Central, another problem you might face, especially if you keep the same phone for a couple of years is that batteries do not last forever.

Phone batteries are complicated

We have all either had to get a new battery for our car or know someone who has. Batteries are chemical power plants and once they have reached to a point where they can no longer build a charge through their chemical reaction, they turn into a container for semi-toxic and expensive materials that do not do anything.

When that happens, you need to provide a new battery if you want to continue to use the things that it powers. And be sure to recycle your old one properly, please.

You used to be able to change the battery yourself in a phone, but those days are never coming back.

Phones are not like cars, where changing the battery is as easy as disconnecting the old and connecting a new one. They used to be, but thinner phones and higher battery capacity demands meant that they are now small foil bags sealed up inside your phone. They are designed to last a specific number of charge cycles, and a charge cycle is taking the battery from its lowest point to its highest.

It is worth noting that this does not mean zero to 100, even though the phone will report it that way. Batteries are designed to be used at 80 per cent of the listed capacity (but still safe up to 125 per cent) and never brought down to a zero-charge state. The circuitry inside your phone takes care of that and makes it simple for us by reporting the scale to 0-100.

The number of charging cycles that a battery is rated for is an approximation; the reported number is based on an average. There are ways to “game” the system when it comes to charging cycles, and you have probably seen advice that says to charge your phone a certain way to extend the usable life of the cell. These do work, but you will not be able to get too much extra life from your phone’s original battery so it may not be worth it. You have to decide if micromanaging the way you charge your phone is worth another two or three months of life.

Signs your battery is ready to move on

A battery does not just suddenly die under normal circumstances; it gives some warning signs that it’s getting close. Sometimes batteries can just short or have another type of fault that kills them, but those instances are not very common. A lot of time and energy went into designing a safe and long-lasting battery for a phone.

You might notice when your battery is going downhill because it rapidly discharges while you are using it. If you used to go half the day and your battery was still at 60 per cent, for example, and it now hits 30 per cent during the same time, it is a sign that the battery is starting to sour. Other things like bad apps or a bad update can do this, too, so it can be tricky to diagnose.

Your phone’s battery will most likely die a slow, noticeable death.

You will also notice that it will not charge completely. No matter how long you leave it plugged in, it never says it is fully charged because it is not. It cannot hold enough electrical energy to register as full by the electronics in your phone because the materials inside have degraded enough to affect performance.

One of the first warning signs is your phone losing charge right away. If you take your phone off the charger when it says the battery is at 100 per cent and it immediately drops to 90 per cent or 80 per cent, the battery is getting a bit old. It’s normal for some phones to lose a few percentage points of battery charge right away (at least according to the battery gauge) but a drop of 10 per cent or more is a sign of a problem.

If your phone is bulging or swelled up, stop using it right away

If you notice your phone bulging in the middle or getting very hot on or off the charger, that is a sign of a bad battery too, but you also need to stop using it right away and take it somewhere that a techician can look at it. We have all heard stories of phones bursting from a bad battery, and the whole Note 7 thing is still fresh in our minds.

Phone batteries are safe when used as intended. Because of things like Samsung’s excellent response to Note 7s catching fire and bursting, they are safer now than ever before. But accidents and malfunctions happen. Do not ignore any signs of excessive heat or swelling because nobody likes it when their pants catch fire.

You probably will not see any of these signs for at least 18 months after you bought your phone if you bought it new. Battery life may be listed in charge cycles, but the goal is to make them last two years since that is the standard length of a carrier contract. But if you really like your phone or really like not spending money on a new one, you will see your battery die eventually.

What can you do about it?

You used to be able to go online or take a trip to the carrier store and buy a new battery for your phone. Those days are gone and I doubt they will ever come back. But the battery in your phone probably can be changed by someone who knows what they are doing.@folaojotweet

#Takeaway

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