Should you let your smartphone battery run completely drain before charging it?
When mobile phones were still in their infancy, the seller would ask you to only charge the battery when it was completely empty. And rightly so! But now, our smartphones contain different types of batteries, and these need to be treated in a completely different way.
In the past, batteries had a memory
The mobile phones of that time ran on a nickel-cadmium battery. This type of battery has a memory: it remembers the amount of power received during charging and will charge the same amount of power in the next charging session. Therefore, it was crucial that the battery was completely empty so that you could charge the largest possible amount of power.
Now the number of charging sessions counts
Your smartphone today runs on a lithium-ion battery. It is structured differently and has no memory. However, a li-ion battery does have a limited number of charging cycles, and it is actually not advantageous for these types of batteries to be completely drained.
It is recommended to charge your smartphone when the battery is at 40% and to stop charging at about 80%. This ensures the longest lifespan.
