Cell Phone Batteries are the lifeline to your cell phone, with the increasing popularity in our society, owning a cell phone is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Cell phones are extremely valuable for business, travel and personal use, parents are even using them as a tracking or safety devices for there children, so they always have a way to communicate with them.

With today’s technology cell phones can also surf the internet, take pictures and even act as a MP3 player, and then you have your PDA devices that enable you to sync to your email and run your business right from your phone. Now all of these features sound good but the fact of the matter is you have to rely on good battery power to keep your phone running all day long.

The first peace of advice I will give you is to use a genuine or OEM battery, which means the battery that comes with the phone from the factory. These are truly the best batteries on the market and are specifically made for the particular model phone you may have. Counterfeit or aftermarket batteries are usually cheaper and less reliable. One flaw is that these type cell phone batteries don’t have built in safety detectors to let you know when the battery is overcharged and may cause overheating and leakage into your phone which can be very dangerous.

So having and using a cell phone is convenient and fun, but proper care and proper equipment like cell phone batteries is very important, a well maintained phone can last you a long time.

As I said in an earlier post, an OEM or genuine battery would be the choice of purchase, the quality and safety features are far superior to the aftermarket and counterfeit counterparts. Although the aftermarket batteries are usually cheaper, you may get what you pay for and that is a “cheap” battery.

The aftermarket cell phone batteries do not come equipped with a built in Safety feature that detects an overcharge, so you can wind up over heating the battery causing leakage into the phone and spoiling its circuits. You may also run into the battery not discharging completely and causing you to get a fully charged reading when that is not the case.

Batteries that are not compatible with a particular model phone can cause more damage than meet’s the eye and you may have to resort to purchasing a new phone after all. Now I’m not going to sit here and say all aftermarket batteries do not work properly, there are some reviews and test that say otherwise, but the majority of the studies say that cheap prices equals cheap product, and a cheap product can cause saftey hazards and definitely ruin your phone.

I would definitely do your research before buying a cell phone battery, research your model and battery with the manufacture and see what they recommend as spare parts. Cell phone batteries are the most important piece of the puzzle, so be careful and hope you find this information useful.

I wanted to pass along some information I found useful to help keep your cell phone batteries in working order.

• Make sure you charge your battery correctly by following the manufacture guidelines. Most of the new model phones have lithium-ion batteries, while the older models have nickel based batteries, you can check the label on the battery to find out what type it is. Nickel based batteries tend to lose there battery life if not charged properly, let the battery fully discharge before charging again. If you partially charge the battery a few times the battery will forget it can be fully charged, and it will have to be reconditioned. A lithium-ion battery on the other hand does not have to be reconditioned, the battery after it’s been fully discharged will require a charge, but do not overcharge or keep on the charger for long periods of time. So regardless of the battery type, only use the charger that came with the battery, or a charger made for your specific model.
• Keeping the battery cool will extend the life of the battery, so don’t leave your phone in your car or in direct sunlight. Excessive use at high temperatures or overcharging will cause the battery to loose some life, and will eventually cause the battery to fail.
• Initialize a new battery even if the battery indicator on the phone tells you otherwise, so that they can obtain maximum capacity. Nickel batteries should be charged and discharged 2-4 times and should have an initial charge of 16 hours. The lithium-ion batteries should be charge 4-6 hours, depending on the model. NOTE: Do not fully discharge a lithium-ion battery, the batteries life is shortened every time you fully discharge them, instead when the indicator gets to 1 bar, go ahead and recharge.
• Battery Storage is one step few of us take, if you are not planning to use your cell phone batteries for long periods of time, store them in a cool place and away from any metal objects. It is not necessary to freeze the batteries and make sure the battery is not exposed to moisture. Lithium batteries are not capable of operating at refrigerated temperatures so let the battery sit for an hour or so in a room temperature environment prior to use. Always recharge the batteries after storage.
• Keep the contacts clean on the phone, over time the contacts may accumulate some dirt, you will want to keep this clean in order to get the maximum energy transfer. You can clean them with rubbing alcohol by applying it with a cotton swab.  If there is any corrosion, fretting maybe the cause, which is when the two contacts are of different metal types, like gold and tin. If this corrosion is present, apply acetone or nail polish remover with a Q-Tip to avoid damaging the plastic case.

Hopefully these helpful tips will give your cell phone batteries a longer life and increase your cell phone usage time.

1. Turn off the phone, sound simple right? This is by far the simplest and most effective way of conserving your battery’s power, if your not using the phone just simply turn it off. You can do the same if you’re in an area with no reception, as your phone looks for service its draws extra power from your battery, so if you can deal without it until you get to a good area, just turn it off.
2. Use a ring tone instead of using vibrating; the vibrating option uses a lot more power than a ring tone. Although sometimes vibration is necessary for example, if you are in a meeting.
3. Turn off the backlight, if your backlight is not needed simply turn it off. If you have to use the backlight, you can shorten the length of time the light stays on. Some phones actually have an ambient light sensor and will dim when necessary.
4. Avoid unnecessary features, if you getting low on your battery indicator, don’t browse the internet or take any pictures, leave the power for the cell phone use. Using the camera will definitely decrease your cell phone batteries power, especially if you have a flash.
5. If you are not using Blue Tooth, turn the feature off. These days there are even problems with virus infected smart phones, which could in turn affect your phone.
6. Try and keep your calls short, check your guidelines from the manufacture, the talk time and battery time is totally different, the talk time is usually quite smaller.
7. The same goes for WIFI and GPS, if you are not using these features keep them off, it will drain the battery.
8. Use GSM mode on your phone vs. 3G/ Dual Mode, the dual mode will drain the battery quicker, you can get almost 50% more usage using the GSM mode.

 Basically it comes down to this, if your not using the features turn them off, all phone usage will pull the battery power down and its up to you to follow the guidelines in order to correctly charge your phone. Cell phone batteries can be quite frustrating, but with proper care you can make the life of the battery last longer.

The genuine cell phone battery will give you a better fit and more reliability; you will get 50% more usage out of the OEM type battery from the manufacture. You also want to check your warranty, most companies offer a 1 year warranty on battery replacement. You should also get a 1 year phone warranty as well. A refurbished battery from the factory would be an alternative solution and you may even save some money.

Purchasing cell phone’s online are usually the best way to get a deal, but be careful who you buy from. I recently bought a phone off ebay from an online store and the phone was in great shape but was advertised as new and never opened, well it turned out to be an old model and clearly the box had been opened, although it turned out to be a nice purchase, it was not really the phone I wanted or thought I was getting.

Refurbished phones have been my choice and you can get some great deals. The phones are usually about 20-40% cheaper and come with a full warranty, but here again make sure you are buying these phones from a good source, I would recommend one of the major carrier’s.  A refurb can either mean that the phone failed inspection due to an internal issue or an external flaw, but the phone went back through quality control and was finally approved for sale.

The same can be said about cell phone batteries, you can get them online and in the store, but remember that your cell phone will only work as good as your battery will, so make sure to do your research and make a good quality descision. With the increasing usage of multi-media, gaming and now video your cell phone batteries are going to take a beating so choose wisely.