Charging the battery

[El Mariachi]

I was wondering, does it reduce long term battery life if you charge the battery every night? By the end of the day I'm usually on about 60-70%, so I suppose I could use it for a couple or maybe even three days, but I've always had this habbit of charging my phones every night.

Just recently I realised it could damage the battery...is this really true? I usually have a device for about a year before getting a new one, so would it really make that much difference?

[Bassey]

Nope. That used to be true, but today's batteries actually prefer to be trickle charged little and often. Mine stays in a desktop cradle whilst at work so is being constantly charged.

I read somewhere that an occasional run-down and full charge also does them good but there was no supporting explanation for why this should be so.

[spmwinkel]

Might want to read this :

Groucho has purchased three N95’s (again and again, don’t think this discussion only applies to the N95 – it does apply to ANY device out there!) at the same time and used them in a pretty similar way. He, however, made absolutely sure he charged the device in three consistent (not mixing up the devices) and radically different ways: the first was charged only once a day (every night), not during the day; the second was charged when it has completely shut down because of the battery’s going flat and the third was almost always on charger whenever possible. The difference in the battery capacity, based on the different ways of recharging, turned out to be astonishing: the second battery (which was always let go flat, and only after that was it put on a charger) could only hold slightly more than a third of the battery that was always on charger whenever possible. The latter battery, in addition, fared considerably (about 16%) better than the battery only regularly (every night) recharged.

Source:
Expert: Werner "Menneisyys" Ruotsalainen - Charge your battery as often as possible - revolutionary, comparative, numeric results!
and
BlogN95: Gentlemen Charge Your Batteries!

[Bassey]

So, in other words, what I said

[spmwinkel]

Oh, absolutely! But the more sources that say the same, the better, especially if there's practical proof to back it up. I remembered reading the article I mentioned a few months ago, so I thought it would be a good way to back up your answer.