How to evaluate a phone battery: check its wear and condition, how long will it last

Good day!

In recent years, the development of microelectronics has made a big step forward ... However, as for storage batteries, nothing revolutionary new has appeared in them, and they work practically the same as 15 years ago: a year ÷ two (sometimes three) and the battery starts sits down quickly ...

However, it is not always so easy to understand what is wrong with the battery and whether it needs to be replaced. Below in the note I will give several simple ways to check it, which at home will "prompt" that something is wrong with the battery ...

Note: The phone battery must not be punctured, thrown, hit, overheated, etc. All this can lead to its ignition!

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Assessment of the phone battery status: point by point

Inspection for blisters

The first tip is fairly standard: Examine your phone and battery for blisters. Usually, if it is large enough, it is noticeable to the naked eye. See the photo below.

Swelling of the phone (battery)

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Important: the presence of such a "hump" on the battery (even if it charges normally and works long enough) is an unequivocal reason for replacing it. The fact is that such a swollen battery can "break" the shell, which will lead to leakage of the chemical. substances (and possibly their ignition!).

Bloated and normal. battery is another example

Inspection for corrosion, oxidation

If the battery can be removed from your phone, be sure to also inspect its copper contacts. If something is wrong, you can notice oxidation and corrosion (green-white spots, like mold or mildew). See examples below.

Oxidation of contacts (on the left - there is; on the right - everything is in order with the battery).

Battery oxidized on a wet table // example of corrosion in a larger resolution

As a rule, such oxides appear after the phone is flooded with water or when it is used in rooms with high humidity (bath, sauna, bathroom, etc.).

Anyway, batteries with corrosion are recommended for replacement (the fact is that these affected areas on copper elements can start to get very hot, which is good ...).

Battery capacity test with USB tester

You can very accurately assess the degree of battery wear using a special. devices - testers. For home use (where high accuracy is not needed), some kind of "baby" in the form of a flash drive from AliExpress is quite suitable (such a device is not expensive, and for the house it is ...).

USB tester (with AliExpress)

How the test is done:

first, the phone battery is discharged at 0%;
all values from previous measurements are reset on the USB tester;
then the tester is connected to the phone, and the charger is connected to the tester (i.e. it acts as an intermediary between the phone and its power supply);
then wait until the end of charging the phone;
at the end of the operation, the USB tester will show the battery capacity (for more accurate indicators, it is recommended to perform additional and measurement of the battery discharge).

Note: Battery capacity is measured in mAh (mAh). For example, a value of 2000 mAh means that the battery can supply 2000 mA for one hour (or 1000 mA for two hours).

Of course, if the passport capacity of your battery is 3000 mAh, and the tester shows only 1500 mAh, then the battery is worn out by almost 50% and it will discharge much faster!

Checking with a multimeter

The multimeter, of course, will not be able to show the degree of battery wear (as a special.tester), however, many have it in the household and with its help it is possible to diagnose a "problem" battery (inside which not very good changes have definitely begun to take place ...).

Battery test with a multimeter

How to do it:

charge the battery up to 100%;
take it out of the phone;
to measure DC voltage, it is necessary to set the regulator to the desired value in the sector (recommended for 20 V);
then touch the tip of the red probe to the "+" terminal and the black probe to the "-";
wait until the value on the multimeter monitor reaches some constant;
the resulting value is compared with the passport value (usually, for phone batteries, it is 3.7 V). A disconnection of 0.7 V (or more) in either direction - as a rule, indicates the aging of the battery (and its replacement is recommended ...).

With the help of specials. applications

You can also find out about the state of the battery using special applications. As a rule, so that they can assess the degree of wear and tear of the battery and its characteristics - they need some time (for example, AccuBattery after about a week of work, after 2-3 charge / discharge cycles it shows all the statistics about the battery, see the example on the screenshot below).

AccuBattery - the app completely monitors the battery status

What applications can you choose:

AccuBattery: allows you to extend the battery life, fully controls the charge consumption, tells you which applications are consuming the most charge, etc.;
Battery care: similar app (only it's free);
Battery: a small application that displays battery statistics (wear, how much before recharging, temperature, etc.);
Kaspersky Battery Life: primarily aimed at monitoring applications and reducing the load on the battery (to extend its life).

General recommendations on how to extend the battery life of your phone:

disable modules you are not using: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 4G, etc. All these adapters can "eat up" a fairly large amount of battery power (especially when searching for a network);
disable location detection in various applications (especially for maps);
remove all applications that you do not use (first of all, those that are actively using the battery according to monitoring);
try not to use the phone in cold, humid and damp rooms (because of this, the battery deteriorates much faster ...);
Charge the battery only with the factory power supply.

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