LONDON — If you want to use your shiny new iPhone for as long as possible, you better take good care of it.
Most people are now holding on to smartphones longer instead of regularly upgrading them, and there are many reasons why.
At the dawn of the smartphone age, you might have upgraded to a new device every few years to make sure you had the latest must-have features or because your carrier’s contract subsidized the purchase of the newest model. But that’s no longer the case as smartphone technology has matured and innovations have become more incremental, and carrier pricing models have changed.
There’s also an environmental push to keep old phones out of landfills as electronic waste becomes a larger sustainability issue. Smartphones these days are also just sturdier and better able to survive dunks and shocks.
“As long as you take care of your phone and keep it updated, you’re going to get at least four or five good years of use out of it,” said Chris Hauk, of Pixel Privacy, a tech website. Some device owners boast in online forums that they’ve had phones last more than seven years.
And if you’re paying over $1,000 for your smartphone, you’ll probably want to it to last as long as it can. Here are some tips to extend the lifespan of your Apple or Android mobile device:
Battery care
One of the biggest factor in your phone’s lifespan is the battery. A rechargeable battery’s chemical age isn’t related to when it was manufactured. Instead, it’s based on a complex mix of factors including “temperature history and charging pattern,” according to Apple.
“As lithium-ion batteries chemically age, the amount of charge they can hold diminishes, resulting in reduced battery life and reduced peak performance,” the iPhone maker says.
The company says its charging optimization technology is designed to improve battery life, and it’s safe for iPhone users to charge their phones overnight.
Samsung, meanwhile, says its lithium ion batteries do best when kept above 50% charge. It advises against running the battery down.
“Repeatedly allowing the battery to drain fully may shorten its life and decrease its overall capacity,” the company says in an online guide. “If this happens, you’ll need to charge the battery more frequently and it may last only a few hours before needing a charge, for example.”
Avoid extreme temperatures
Apple says that batteries warm up as they charge, which can shorten their lifespan. It warns against using your phone or charging it in very hot temperatures, above 95 degrees (35 Celsius), “which can permanently reduce battery lifespan.”
Samsung also says extreme heat or cold can damage batteries and warns people not to, for example, leave their phones in a car’s glove box when it’s very hot or cold. And don’t put your phone in a freezer either, it’s a myth that it can prolong battery life. “This is not correct and can damage your battery,” Samsung says.
Google, which makes the Android operating system and Pixel phones, says hot batteries drain faster, even when they’re not in use, …read more
Source:: The Denver Post – Business
