Your phone’s battery life can seem arbitrary at times. One week you’re streaming music for hours at a time and keeping your bar in the green, the next your phone dies the moment you try to load a map. What gives?
So just how long do mobile phone batteries last? Read our guide to find out about a number of big and small factors that can cause your phone to pack up prematurely and what you can do to prevent sudden phone death.
Many people think that keeping their phone plugged in constantly is the best way to maintain its battery life. Nothing is further from the truth. Your battery will stay stronger if you regularly give it a good workout; otherwise, it adapts to the constant charge and it weakens more quickly.
Just like how exercise is better for your immune system than sitting around all day, batteries last longer if you learn how to do a phone charging regimen. Let the battery drop to the red and occasionally let it die so that it learns the difference between how your phone should work at maximum power and when it needs to take a rest. This will give you a more accurate read on its charge percentage too.
It’s easy to forget that yesterday you read the news, jotted out some notes, checked email, studied French on a language app, checked the weather, took a picture, loaded the picture onto Instagram, used the calculator and, oh yeah, made a call on the phone app. It’s even easier to forget that you didn’t close out any of those applications after you finished using them. Having all those apps running in the background is a massive drain on your battery life. Get in the habit of checking what programs you're running at least a couple of times a day and closing things out. You’ll be surprised how much you can extend your battery charge by running a tight ship.
The equipment you use to charge your phone makes more of a difference than you might think. Weak cords make for weak charges and can mislead your phone into thinking it’s at 100% when it’s probably puttering somewhere closer to 60 or 70. “How long do mobile phone batteries last” is a trickier question to answer when the data you’re getting from your device isn’t accurate.
Good charging equipment is paramount to keeping your phone’s battery in top shape. Targus’ 4-Way USB Charger pumps power to everything from laptops to smartphones and automatically detects the charge your device needs. While the 2-in-1 USB Wall Charger & Power Bank enables you to recharge your device from a mains plug over USB, which then charges up the power bank ready for you to take for on-the-go charging - keeping your phone topped-up while you're out and about.
So how long do cell phone batteries last? A long time, with the right gear in hand.
