In-Depth iPhone Battery Experiment Pits Slow Charging Against Fast Charging

Telling people to not “overthink” battery life and charging, and backing it up with data, is going to absolutely rock the world of a great number of posters in the iPhone forum. Thoughts and prayers.

wow, just like every other battery test. replace your battery if/when it falls under 80%. otherwise, use your phone as you see fit, folks.

This comes up a lot and every test is more or less the same.

Marginal benefits if you make some pretty significant compromises every day for forever.

If you only charge to 80%, your capacity will hold slightly longer. Capacity that... you're not using.

If you fast charge every day for years all the way to 100%; you'll still have 80% capacity at the end of several years. Capacity that you would've been artificially limiting yourself to the entire time.

Feels very "cover the couch in plastic" to me. Sure I guess it improves it somewhat; but is it worth not getting to actually use the "thing"?

And ultimately, battery replacements from Apple are both reasonably priced and available for a very long time, with third party options virtually indefinitely.

I keep my phones for a really long time so, in theory, I'm the one this information most benefits. The only thing I actually do is make sure to use a slow charger on my nightstand. When I plug it in at night, it's going to be plugged in for the next several hours so there's no benefit to fast charging. Beyond that, it gets hit with a fast charger if I ever need to charge in the middle of the day. Always to 100%. And after 3-4 years the battery capacity starts to get noticeably poorer. A hundred bucks (give or take) at the Apple Store (free with AppleCare+) and I walk away with a brand new battery. And most people will have replaced their phone long before then.

It just doesn’t make sense to limit yourself to stay within a range now to possibly save a few percentages later.

The 80% crowd isn’t going to like that lol.

I've always been a fan of the idea that your phone (or any device) should work for you, not the other way around. If it is easy for you to manage your battery, great. But don't work so hard for it. You are unlikely to significantly change the usable life of a modern battery and compared to the effort some people put into it, it is not a smart trade.

I've always felt the same way about OSes. You shouldn't have to work so hard to keep your OS organized, secure, updated, etc., again, you got a computer/device to improve your life, not complicate it.

It just doesn’t make sense to limit yourself to stay within a range now to possibly save a few percentage points later.

For sure.

If you limit yourself to 80% then after 4 or 5 years you can avoid a battery that only... has 80% of it's capacity left?

What exactly have you accomplished?

Let's imagine a phone owned for 6 years. One person limits it to 80% and has 80% capacity for 6 years. The other person doesn't limit it at all and ends up with 80% capacity and maybe a smidge under for a year or two?

...I really don't get it. Like genuinely. How is the first scenario not the obviously, clearly, no brainer, no question worse scenario? How is a capacity life of 100, 96, 92, 88, 82, 80 better than a capacity lifetime by year of 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80?