I just bought a new cell phone, and it uses a lithium-polymer battery. My last few phones used lithium-ion batteries. I have lots of chargers from these older phones, scattered about in convenient places (bedroom, kitchen, car, briefcase, office) that I’d like to keep using, rather than ONLY use the new charger that came with the new phone.
But… the instructions for the new phone say to ONLY use the charger that came with it. Of course, they always say that! Are Li-Po batteries really that different from standard Li-Ion batteries, in terms of how they must be charged? Am I risking blowing up my new phone, or burning down my house? Help!!
PS - Battery University says they use the same types of charger, but I’m still nervous. Can anyone confirm this?
Ideally, the cells themselves need to be charged at a slightly different voltage. But every phone I’ve ever seen has a built-in charger; the external connector just supplies a standard voltage, like 5 V. These days, pretty much every phone except Apple products uses microUSB for power input.
So unless you have some kind of removable battery and charge it by hooking up to the terminals directly, you’re fine.
Incidentally, older chargers may not be able to supply enough current to charge at the top rate. But this shouldn’t cause any other problems.
If you decide to ignore the manufacturer’s warnings, you are risking failure of the battery. These sorts of batteries tend to burst rather than catch fire.
Lithium-polymer cells are Lithium-ion; they just have a solid matrix for the electrolyte rather than a paste or liquid
the vast majority of the time, the “charger” that comes with a mobile phone is little more than a simple switch-mode power supply (SMPS.) All it does is take in AC mains voltage and output whatever DC voltage it’s specified for when it senses the right connection. The actual charging circuitry (which determines rate of charge and when to stop charging) is on the phone’s mainboard.
That’s technically correct (the best kind of correct!), but these days it’s expected that lithium-ion refers exclusively to the liquid electrolyte type, and if you have a li-poly battery you will call it that.
What kind of phone is it? Someone may have familiarity.
I’d agree that, generally speaking, the charger is just giving you 5V, and the phone itself has the charge controller in it to handle the battery properly. I’m not familiar with the internals of every manufacturer’s product, though.
New phone is an HTC One. Old one was HTC MyTouch 4G. Both are T-Mobile phones.
I checked the chargers. They list exactly the same input and output specs.
Also, both chargers come apart into an AC adapter and a micro-USB-to-standard-USB cord. Using the cord, with no electronics involved, lets you charge them directly from your computer. So I guess it makes sense that any differences in how the power needs to be massaged would be internal to the phone. Right?
Yep! You can plug any microUSB plug or charger into the phone, and it will do the rest. The HTC charger may be a little faster than other types (higher current rating), but they will all work. You can plug it into your computer, also.
Yep…as the good Dr. says, you should be good to go with standard chargers/cables. I haven’t looked at a tear down for an HTC phone in a long time, but based on history (and the market), it should have it’s own charge controller in the device.
Those wall wart dealies that come with your phone are more properly called ‘power supplies’. They don’t monitor battery voltage and current to stretch the life, the phone has a built in charging system to do all that. That power supply just comes up with 5 volts (typically) and the more current, the faster the battery charges.
ETA: car chargers, too.
The more current available, the faster the battery *might *charge. It’s up to the phone to actually draw and use the available current. If my old phone is designed to max out with an 850mA power source, and I attach my 1.8A cable from my tablet, the phone isn’t necessarily going to use the extra available current.
But yeah…fundamentally, if the phone can handle the extra juice, the battery will charge faster.
You are correct, of course. Anything more than an amp is probably not going to go any good.
It came to mind because I was recently burned buying a (very) cheap automotive USB adapter. It barely charges my phone and actually can’t keep up if nav (GPS and display on) is running.
AC to USB adaptors come in varying quality. The manufacturer put that on there as a CYA move so they aren’t stuck with warranty claims when you pair your phone with a low quality charger. Generally, it’s safe to ignore, especially if you’re using it with another known good brand of charger.