Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Hi i was wondering whats the proper way to charge the n900 right out of the box, to extend the battery life. I was wondering right when u take it out of the box put the battery in do u turn on the device and charge it? Or leave it off and charge it until its full? Some people say right when u pop in the battery use the device until all the battery drain then charge it.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/

Edit (for lazy readers):

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

In particular:

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Just wanted to share this beautiful and interesting device with everyone :)

http://www.powermateu.com/pm_uk

imagine putting your phone on a pad to charge hehe its just cool :)

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

My baby is currently on it's first charge. How reliable is the info posted above? I'll be leaving it plugged in all night, but want to switch it on and set it up and activate the SIM, etc tonight. But don't want to hurt my baby in any way shape or form! lol! I know I'm being a little OCD about this, but it someone could clarify for me I'd be very grateful.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Also wondering.

Tomorrow I will be receiving my phone and obviously I'll be tempted to power it on right away. But if charging it first, WITHOUT powering it on is healthier, then I'll probably do that.
Where's the experts?

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

It's a neat idea, but the piece that goes on the back of the device is actually pretty thick, all things considered. Now, if they had custom battery covers like say the Palm Pre's induction charger, then I'd get one.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Arg the wait is killing me!! lol!! I did read in the manual that if you have a lot of Apps & widget running that it could drain faster than it can charge (not sure if it meant in general or from a USB port - hopefully it means a USB port, otherwise that's ridiculous!)

I;m only planning on setting it up, get contacts on and testing out the web browser, so think I'll switch it on (but leave it plugged in) in 5-10mins. It will have been plugged in for 1 hour by then!

PS. The notification light doesn;t simply flash on and off, it fades in and out...it's like a little heart beat :o)

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Proper way to charge any device...

Just plug in the Charger when the battery runs out...

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

God this phone is too advanced for me, never new it took a degree in rocket sience to charge!! What am i going to do, how do i plug charger into wall??

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Thanks for the sarcastic replies guys! But with the problems some people have reported with their batteries only lasting 6 hours whilst others last significantly longer, means I want to make sure I perform the "best" charge procedure. Normally, I'm not so paranoid about these things, but for some reason this is different and I can't explain why.

PS. Going to switch it on anyway now!

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

No.

To be specific:

1) If the N900 battery is discharged it will be difficult to charge the N900, if the battery is dead it will be impossible. This is because the N900 actually boots to a 'charge mode' even when 'off', because the charging is managed by software. Re. some other threads here from folks ending up in a catch-22 situation. EDIT: Read Phantasm's more accurate post two postings below - the catch-22 occurs only if you happen to need reflashing at the same time as the battery runs out. (Which can actually occur together though - battery running out due to a problem needing reflashing. So keep the thing charged anyway.)

2) You don't know the initial charge of the battery when the N900 arrives, except that it is probably low. So, the first thing you shall do is to start charging your new device. Either let it charge to full before switching on your new N900, or, if your're impatient, give it at least half an hour. Then keep charging it after you've switched it on.

3) After that, charge it when you get a chance. The lithium battery won't mind. And it doesn't need regular deep discharges or anything like that. EDIT: Another posting made me understand that 'when you get a chance' could be misunderstood. I didn't mean to charge it every five minutes. What I mean is that there's no reason to be in a habit of always let it run down before you charge it (my niece does that with her phone and as a result always run out of juice at the most possible inconvinient time, as when travelling and needing a problem sorted out).

4) The occasional run-down to when the device starts warning you about low battery doesn't harm, but heed the warning and charge it.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Lithium ion batteries do not need any conditioning whatsoever. You can start using it at any point, stop charging at any point etc. You don't have to care about how to use the battery.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

No... The phone will get power from the charger to start itself up to start charging the battery.

The only case in which there will be a problem is if the phone is unable to start itself (needs reflashing to fix that) AND battery is dead. Then you don't have the battery to reflash it and you can't start it as it can't boot to allow charging.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

a) Lithium batteries are shipped at 40% or 60% charge as per chemistry recommendations, not "unknown level". The reason is that they incur least damage under this charge. 100% is bad for Lithium (cool for Lead-Acid, like your car battery)

b) You can "charge" your phone for a million hours. The charge circuitry as well as internal battery protection will cut the juice once the battery reaches final voltage and the charger voltage depresses. Leaving it there is pointless, as pointed out by the green light. If you insist on leaving it plugged forever, the battery will eventually self-discharge and the circuit will top it up under 4%, where it's safe. It's called trickle charge, generally speaking.

c) Info provided in the link is solid. Read the about on the site and know the people who recommend this, they are not a forum for a reason, the information is not open for debate. I have verified a lot of that with people who design professional chargers.

d) Lithium batteries in their current incarnation are -let's say- organic in nature and as a result they sort of rot. Sort of. Normally it takes some 10 years so rot under ideal conditions (60% charge, 4 deg C), about 3 under normal conditions (phone, pocket) and about 3 months when heated and charged (40-45 C, 100% charge) or overcharged, like in laptops. Holding a laptop in bed with sheets blocking vents and with a charger plugged is why some people cry batteries start to lose effectiveness in "new" laptops.

--

In 3 years, you'd get roughly 1000 cycles which is good for a battery carried around in a pocket and discharged at god-knows-what levels from 1/4C (flat in 4 hours) to 1/30C (30 hours), sometimes randomly combined.

So basically, charge every day means that in about 3 years, your battery is going to be visibly damaged (50-70% capacity) whether you charge every day or not. You lose very little if you set it to charge every day (or night). Leaving it in the charger does little to no damage.

There's another batch of advice floating around, saying that charge-every-time-you-get-a-chance is a good strategy. While true that small charge cycles aren't counted, they are SMALL charge cycles, under 5%. If you charge more than 4-5%, that's a cycle in most Lithium chemistries. I'm not pointing fingers or invalidating the advice, I'm just saying, it only works for like 5 minute sessions.

Note that discharged batteries charge at a higher rate than charged ones, a Li chemistry pulls 50% of charge in the first 20 minutes and the rest of 50% at a slowly decreasing rate in the next 50 or so. 10 minutes at near-empty is NOT a free cycle.

If you have no choice, charge. Other than that, nightly charge and hold-you-all-day usage is the best balance between conservation and utility.

Hope I helped.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

@ndi
The info you supplied is helpful - although I am at a loss to know what link you refer to. It got missed?

Maemo 5 - representing step 4 of 5 - "Missing Link" - sorry, I'm going mad waiting for my N900 to arrive (FedEx says it out on the truck for delivery!!!!)

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Has anyone heard of an inductive charger setup for the N900 yet? I wanted to go that route to minimize the times I plug into the port. As with any mechanical connection, it will eventually wear out with enough usage. Plugging in 10 times a day is got to limit the life of the device.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Thanks. Updated my post.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

scientific answer ...........................

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Battery University (Google)

Heard? Possible. Applicable? No.

Induction is not magic. You have two copper coils that run AC through it. If they are close enough to each other, the electromagnetic effect of one induces current in the other.

Point being, one coil has to be in the charger, one in he device.

If this is built in (the receiver coil and stabilizer) then you're golden. If not, you have to add it, and the only way to do that is via charging port. And, unless you plan on dragging the coil hanging from the port, you need to remove it.

You might have noticed it's no dream deal. Adding a coil is doable but the N900 is really crammed and you might have to sacrifice something (in addition to warranty).

IMO, it's not something that "just works" and modding the device to preserve it is like screwing for virginity.

They said the thin charger with N80 was flimsy and several people destroyed it. Careful insertion means I got 3 years of worry-free charging before retiring the device. Just use care and don't leave it where people step on it.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

i have a n900 got it late in dec battery life was good but not great i had facebook widget on ,weather,email,3g,msn and auto connect on wifi however 3 days ago battery developed a fault only last 5 hours max with only 1 phone call of 3 mins ,no txt etc i turned all stuff of even ran on 2g.The battery life on this is unbearable has anyone else experienced this .

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

I know this is going to sound daft but it has worked with a few odd problems. Try shutting down and pulling the battery for a bit then replace the battery and reboot. See how the battery lasts after a full charge then.

Re: Proper wy to charge the n900?
 

Have you been playing in Extras-Devel? It might be an app with cpu consuming problems...
Have you bought a new Case? It happened to my before, that the magnet will cause the screen to be on and consume plenty battery.