First charge, is it important?

[Guest Jaminben]

Over the years I've heard loads of things about the "first charge" some say you should charge it fully, then drain it till it dies, then recharge it again... others have different methods.

Some claim its just to do with calibrating the battery indicator, others say it actually improves the battery life.

Any truth in this? What should one do when the phone arrives? Keep it turned off and just stick it on charge? Or do what most people probbaly do plug it straight in and play about with it while charging for the first time?

Cheers people. ;)

[Guest ztedd]

It doesn't matter. These are Lithium batteries, so there won't be a problem if the battery is low or often charged. Only if it would be often charged near to 100% (or over), there would be a problem for the battery life, however smartphones don't charge till 100%, they stop somewhere around 90%, as does the ZTE Blade as well.

[Guest rbbrslmn]

Over the years I've heard loads of things about the "first charge" some say you should charge it fully, then drain it till it dies, then recharge it again... others have different methods.

Some claim its just to do with calibrating the battery indicator, others say it actually improves the battery life.

Any truth in this? What should one do when the phone arrives? Keep it turned off and just stick it on charge? Or do what most people probbaly do plug it straight in and play about with it while charging for the first time?

Cheers people. ;)

I think theres a note in the box of the san francisco still telling you to give it a long charge (cant remember rightly) but its nonsense and irrelevant to new battery types.

[Guest Phoenix Silver]

I think theres a note in the box of the san francisco still telling you to give it a long charge (cant remember rightly) but its nonsense and irrelevant to new battery types.

yes according to the doc first charge should be 12 hours ;)

[Guest SqueakyG]

Over the years I've heard loads of things about the "first charge"

So many people are confused about how lithium-ion batteries work. You wouldn't believe the number of people who still think batteries need need to be fully discharged and then fully charged. It's what we were all told in the 1980s... but that was a different technology. In fact lithium-ion batteries like to be topped up at any time... the only thing that may damage their health is completely discharging them.

The "first charge" is a myth. It doesn't harm the battery's permanent health to play with your device as soon as you take it out of the box. My theory about why manuals tell you to charge first is so that you don't get confused if the battery has no charge at all, then waste a lot of people's time - including your own - by taking the device back to the shop saying it doesn't work. Many stupid people must have done this.

Another lie you find in user manuals is the "300 to 500 charge cycles". The number of charge cycles is irrelevant. A lithium-ion battery will start to degrade around 1.5 years after the point of manufacture no matter how much it is used. I guess they don't want to explain it that way in the manual.

[Guest IronDoc]

While it may make no difference to the battery, it would probably make a difference to how its level is reported. Debatably, that's just as important if the software is gonna shutdown the phone when it reaches 5% or whatever it is.

I would guess this has more to do with discharging it though.

[Guest targetbsp]

While it may make no difference to the battery, it would probably make a difference to how its level is reported. Debatably, that's just as important if the software is gonna shutdown the phone when it reaches 5% or whatever it is.

I don't know about that - I think it kind of realises. My phone takes much, much longer to drop from 15% downwards than above that value. Like it's sort of gone down at a steady rate and that realised it has more left than it thought. So I think it's only its reporting to you that is non-linear.

It also doesn't shut down, even at 1%. I didn't dare let it go lower than that without charging it. ;)

[Guest IronDoc]

I don't know about that - I think it kind of realises. My phone takes much, much longer to drop from 15% downwards than above that value. Like it's sort of gone down at a steady rate and that realised it has more left than it thought. So I think it's only its reporting to you that is non-linear.

It also doesn't shut down, even at 1%. I didn't dare let it go lower than that without charging it. ;)

0% reported doesn't correspond to an actual level of 0. 0% should correspond to the minimum safe level; it's this that I think might be affected.

[Guest checkup]

If people would do more remote control stuff, they'd know better about battery technologies ;)

For all consumer devices and batteries, there is only one measurement the device has, which is voltage.

For Lion and Lipo Batteries, the max voltage per cell when charging stops is at 4.2V.

The blade has a lithium-ion (Lion) battery pack. The characteristics are:

- LIons don't like to get discharged too much (harms capacity)

- the "first charge" by the customer is no special charge.

- Get up to full capacity after several charges

-- happens quicker when you charge it to 100% each time

- have a certain amount of charge cycles, when you expect it to only have 80% capacity left. (~500-600 times)

- *each time* you plug it in is a charge cycle, no matter for how long you let it charge

The differences to NimH-batteries are:

- it's ok for nimh to get discharged way down

- nimh cells take charge after being at 100%, they dissepate it as heat

- you can charge them in series without caring about each cell

[Guest targetbsp]

0% reported doesn't correspond to an actual level of 0. 0% should correspond to the minimum safe level; it's this that I think might be affected.

But like I said, it slows down it's rate of reporting battery loss. As if it realises it has more than its been reporting to you so allows you longer before hitting 0. If it does do that then it wonn't reduce the time you get to use the device - it'll just look low for longer than it actually is.