Cell Batteries - Here’s What to Know

Cell batteries… they certainly do last longer now than they did when they were first used on cellular phones. There are two reasons for this. One is the composition of the batteries has changed to become better and less expensive to manufacture. Second is with the arrival of the digital cellular phone.

When portable cell phones first arrived on the scene they used nickel cadmium batteries or Ni-cad as they are referred to as a power source. They were the most cost effective at the time. However the where bulkier, heavy and had a memory factor attached to them. This meant that if they where not totally discharged the majority of time before recharging them, they develop a shorten memory. After short charging them over a period of time they would still show a full charge but the capacity of the battery diminished until there was no capacity to hold charge left. If they were not handled properly their life span was approximately one year. If handle properly they could last easily up to four to five years.

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Next came the nickel metal hydride cell batteries or Nimh as they were known. These batteries were the same size almost as the Ni-cad cell batteries but did not have the memory factor built in. You were able to charge them even though they were not fully discharged and they would not loss their capacity over the life of this cell phone battery to hold a charge. They lasted up to five years quite often as long as you did not recharge it every day. As with any battery they have only a set amount of cycles in them and these vary. So never charge a portable battery more than is necessary.

The latest type of battery that is use in the cell phones today is the Lithium Ion battery or Li-ion as it known. This cell phone battery has the best bang for the buck as it has great capacity, it is small in size and has the longest talk time of the three cell batteries. One of the great characteristics of it is its capacity to maintain a high charge even though the cellular phone has been shut off for a long time, like maybe a week to three weeks. The costs to manufacture these batteries has decreased a lot over the last couple of years an these batteries are used in a lot of cases were a high quality long lasting battery is required.