I was always taught that to prolong battery life, especially on rechargeable systems and controllers, you should always let the battery completely die before recharging it. Although lately, I've heard different.

Does anyone know if killing the battery before recharging destroys the battery? Or is it better to charge when the system or controller is on red? I just got a 3DS, and I want the battery to last as long as possible before I replace it in a year or two.

Please move if this is in the wrong forum. Wasn't sure if it went in the games or advice forum. ^^"

I awas always told it's best to let the battery die or get dangerously low before recharging it. I've always done it with my iPod and DS and I've never had any problems. Battery life seems just fine to me.

To me, it seems to be the opposite. I would keep my things charged near full all the time and never had problems. But I am the opposite with my phone and my netbook where I would let it get critically low or die altogether and I know that I have lost two phones very very quickly this way because they simply would not turn on after a while (the batteries were shot) and now my netbook's battery only lasts at maximum an hour now.

I would have thought letting the battery get critically low puts more stress on the electronic device and I have never heard of doing that to prolong battery life.

That's news to me. .__. In my experience, batteries tend to last longer when you don't let them lose all their juice. I usually plug in my phone/laptop/mp3 player whenever they're about two-thirds out.

For the 3DS I've heard the best way to get the most out of the battery is to have it charging whenever it's not in use.

Depends on which battery you have :P The 3DS has a Lithium-ion battery, this means no 'memory' effect. It's not really bad if you don't let the battery die, but after maybe 50 charges it's time to die for the battery and recharge completly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery ^ more information.

For PSP, Sony says that it's best to not let your battery go under 6-7% of it's life and then fully recharge it. I always do it this way and my PSP seems to have a decent battery life.

. . .

Battery life DOES deplete over a period over time. It depends on the console / battery. Usually in this case, it depletes by .05% from battery life use for the PS3 system.

YES, it does matter. On a normal laptop, it would be .15% per HOUR.

Think of that.

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