Should I obey my phone's charging advice?

Which rather begs the question of what it is that the "intelligent" charger claims to do. If it ceases supplying current, then one wonders how the phone knows that it's still connected. I suppose the phone might have a switch in the socket, but that seems a bit crude.

Does the phone consider the charger is connected if the charger itself is unplugged from the mains?

Sylvia.

Nowdays, the charging circuitry is almost always in the phone, not the plug pack, which is just a power supply.

Peter

I'm nitpicking here, but the charging circuitry (if the phone has a removable battery) the charging circuit is within the battery itself.

If you have a phone with a non user-replaceable battery, then aside from being a mug, the charging circuitry is then part of the phone mainboard (it saves cost that way).

To the original poster: It is *safe* to leave the phone plugged into the charger (or cradle as the case may be), regardless of who tells you what.

The only "problem" you might have by leaving the device on power the whole time is the battery doesn't get exercised (charged - used - charged - used etc).

This advice probably doesn't apply to mobile phones, as well, they're

*mobile* and you have to unplug them to use them, but applies more to laptops that are only ever used as desktops, and never unplugged.

Use it or lose it as the saying goes, if you don't exercise the battery, some time down the track when you DO need it, it simply won't last as long as you would hope.

If you're paranoid and you have a regular regulated DC charger plug-pack, you can monitor the current. While not charging, there will be some residule current that powers the phone, (and that varies a bit depending on if the phone radio is communicating or not) but most of the time it will be steady. When charging, you'll see the steady current rise until the battery is full, then drop to the normal steady current.

The usual course of action, is (with lithium rechargables) is when first applying the phone to the charger, it looks at the condition of charge (there's circuitry in there for that), and for anything above about 80% it won't do anything. Below that, it starts charging as per normal.

NiMH and NiCads are different, when first applying the charger, it will attempt to charge, then turn off when the circuitry realises it's charged. In this case, there is a risk if you sit there and continually charge/remove/charge/remove the device, it will force a bit of charge every time you do that, and risk over charging. Later on, there were indeed some NiMH/NiCad circuitry that worked as above, and did NOT start charging until it was clear the battery was NOT fully charged first.

--
What do you feed a Trojan horse? A latex lollipop!

If it is a Li-xx chemistry (which is almost beyond doubt in anything of this century, and even more so of anything vaguely current) then it will cause no harm whatsoever.

I would beg to differ, The battery (which a nitpicker would not have called a battery anyway, as it techiocally isn't ...) contains a protection module, but the charge regime is managed by circuitry in the phone in all the examples I have seen. This can be demonstrated by attaching a random lithium-ion or lithium-polymer cell (and appropriate presence/thermal bridging) to a phone's cell connections, where the cell will properly charge.

It is there too.

Exercising is not necessary in the slightest for lithium-based cells, as there is no memory effect. The only downside of leaving them connected to a charger long-term is that the cell voltage will remain at the upper end of the working range. There are three things which cause degradation of these cells:

. time . elevated tempreature . elevated terminal voltage. As phone manufacturers want to wring the maximum run-time out of them, they are likely to use a reasonably aggressive selection of charge termination voltage. But as (apparently) most users of latest-tech mobile phones seem to replace them at every contract period expiry, the difference is not likely to be significant.

Minimal difference.

The phone changes its battery saving mode regardless of whether I unplug it from the mains or the charger.