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I've recently been wondering if it's better for my iPod's battery life (longevity, not usability time) to operate it from external power sources when possible or to simply recharge it periodically.

Or does it matter? The place in question for me the most is in my car, where I have the option of using the charger when it's connected. Will this degrade the battery's "lifetime"?

I searched here and on the web, found lots of good info on the battery and tips to prolong both lifetime and charge, but nothing on this....

thanks,
Andrew

 

[jpr703]

I could be wrong, but Lithium batteries (like the one on the iPod) tend to suffer more from deep discharge/charge cycles than they do from frequent light charging. Using that logic, I used my iPod while it was fully charged (but still plugged into the charger) every day for more than a year. Another year later, the battery is still going strong.

 

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Quote:

Originally Posted by jpr703 I could be wrong, but Lithium batteries (like the one on the iPod) tend to suffer more from deep discharge/charge cycles than they do from frequent light charging. Using that logic, I used my iPod while it was fully charged (but still plugged into the charger) every day for more than a year. Another year later, the battery is still going strong.

Cool, that confirms my logic/reasoning. I suspect that while being powered, the battery is not discharging, so the time wouldn't go against it's "lifetime".

According to one of the links someone here pointed out in another thread, the lithium batteries (as you stated) aren't as badly affected by smaller discharges. IIRC, it said that the discharges could be thought of as being summed up. In other words, if you used 1/10 of the complete charge each time between charging, 10 "cycles" like this would be the equivalent of one full discharge.