Life gets real from time to time, and our cellular phones do tend to get rather thrown around as we move on our regular routines. I don’t know anyone who can drop a phone on the concrete sidewalk better than I can, and I’ve done it in the pouring rain. Although we can’t help our clumsiness, there are a few things that you should take into consideration when you are doing simple things such as charging your phone, for instance.
The order of how you plug your phone to a charger and a charger to the power is actually important. You should definitely plug the charger to the phone before plugging the charger into the power current. By plugging your charger to the power before you plug it to the phone, you are possibly shortening the life of your charger because power is going into the charger, and is not going out into the battery of the phone for storage. Instead, you should plug the charger to the phone, then the charger to the power outlet-that way, there is no power interaction taking place until both your charger and your phone are ready.
I have seen a newer product that makes a great gift known as charging valets. Charging valets are small, often wooden pieces of furniture that can be sat on a nightstand for one to charge his or her phone, iPod, and other portable devices and gadgets. When the gadget is not attached to the chargers in the valet, they are still taking in power, so the entire valet should be unplugged when not in use to maximize the lifetime of the chargers. There is often a switch on the back of the charging valet that enables you to turn off all incoming power to the chargers when not in use; this switch should most certainly be utilized on a regular daily basis.
We often charge our phone while on the go. It came as a surprise to me when I first learned that you should only a AC/car charger in an emergency situation when you need to power your phone to make a call. Using a car charger on a regular basis is not at all healthy for the battery of your cellular phone.
One other note, waiting too long to charge your phone is not a good idea. In fact, you should never let any of your portable devices go all the way dead for a long period of time. This can permanently damage the batter of your device, and cause it to run low extremely quickly upon charging. You should charge your phone or device at least every other day. However, it is a bad idea to plug your phone into the charger and leave it charging for a long period of time-plugging it in before bed and unplugging it in the morning, for example. This can create the same problem for the charger that we discussed earlier when the charger is not connected to the phone. When the phone says the charge is complete, no extra power should be coming into the phones battery, as it can not store anymore and may overheat, which will reduce battery life and charger life alike.
Here’s to not needing to replace your cellular phone before your contract is up…that can be costly.
