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FAQ: Understanding Your BlackBerrys Lithium-Ion Battery

by Ronen Halevy on Aug 25th, 2008 at 11:16 am EST
7 Comments »
 

Oakie sent in this great article by Marshall Brain of HowStuffWorks the does a great job of explaining Lithium-Ion batteries. In case you did not know, this is the type of battery that powers your Berry. I found the description quite interesting and thought I would share. Here are some FAQ points I thought were worthy of mention:

  • BlackBerrybattery They have no memory effect, which means that you do not have to completely discharge them before recharging.
  • In fact if you completely discharge the battery you are actually ruining it!
  • They start degrading as soon as they leave the factory. They will only last two or three years from the date of manufacture whether you use them or not. This is sped up even further if they are stored at high temperatures.
  • If you are buying a new battery pack, you want to make sure it really is new. If it has been sitting on a shelf in the store for a year, it won’t last very long. Manufacturing dates are important.
  • A lithium-ion battery pack loses only about 5 percent of its charge per month, compared to a 20 percent loss per month for NiMH batteries.
  • There is a little computer in the battery which will shut down the battery if it is completely discharged or gets too hot. This computer eats the 5% every month.
  • There is a small chance that, if a lithium-ion battery pack fails, it will burst into flame.

Check out the full article on How Stuff Works at this link

On a side note Alexandre from Blackberry-fr.com (French) let me know about a bad experience he had with his brand new Bolds battery. For some reason his Bold became hot (screen and back) so he took out the battery and  put it back 5 min later. After an hour it was completely dead and will no longer take a charge. I really hope this does not happen to my future Bold.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 and is filed under Accessories, BlackBerry FAQ.
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7 Comments to “FAQ: Understanding Your BlackBerrys Lithium-Ion Battery”

  1. Posted by: Randy R.
    August 25, 2008 at 11:34 am EST

    Yea doesnt the highspeed internet heat up the phone sometimes if you leave it on, well its not like you have an option to disable highspeed and just leave it at 2G.

  2. Posted by: Morgan
    August 25, 2008 at 3:37 pm EST

    Now i know why my BB shut down for a day after I took it to the beach. I thought it died and was miraculously resurrected.

  3. Posted by: Bull
    August 25, 2008 at 4:50 pm EST

    LOL @ small chance of bursting into flames.

  4. Posted by: Jeff
    August 25, 2008 at 10:27 pm EST

    20% per month? After 1 month, it’s at 80% of max capacity. After 2, it’s 64%. After 3, it’s 51%.

    That’s right… with those batteries, you’d get but half the life after a mere 3 months. Takes a bit more than a year to be totally dead. Can anyone say “iPod battery”?

  5. Posted by: Ronen Halevy
    August 25, 2008 at 11:35 pm EST

    Yeah I found it to be a mind opening read. Now I understand why Apple does not allow for user replaceable batteries. Its a cash cow…