You might be wondering what is a cycle count and what it has anything to do with the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Actually, properly understanding this thing can help you extend the life of your iPhone or any other phone. Today, I’ll be covering this very topic and some ways to extend the life of your phone. These methods can be applied to all phones because all phones use lithium-ion batteries.
The topics to cover in this article are:
- What is a recharge cycle
- How to slow down cycle count
Let’s start by going over what a recharge cycle is.
What Is a Recharge Cycle
To put it in layman’s 1 recharge cycle is counted when a phone goes from 0% to 100%. They are most commonly known as a cycle count. The higher the cycle count is, the higher the battery degradation will be.
That’s right! Cycle counts are directly linked to battery degradation. If you’re an iPhone user like me who just bought an iPhone 12 Pro Max, you won’t really know about this concept. However, you might have noticed that when you were using an Android phone, after some years the battery starts to drain much faster. This is because of battery degradation in the phone.
iPhones in particular show the health of the battery in the settings menu. If your iPhone or any other phone (like Tecno) has gone through the 500 charge cycles the battery health will fall to 80%.
How to Slow Down Cycle Count
One of the primary means to stop battery degradation and slow down cycle count is to just don’t use your iPhone 12 Pro Max😂. Joking aside, I’ve just bought a used iPhone 12 Pro from Wise Market Pakistan and it came with 100% battery health.
I was just as shocked as you because even after 2 years, I was expecting battery degradation. However, when I showed the phone to my friend and checked it myself both methods yielded the same results.
How I think that this is possible because the previous owner sold the phone after one-time usage and when Wise Market Pakistan inspected the device they turned it off. The cycle count that I checked for the phone was in single digits and the phone was never opened. So I believe I got the phone for steel.
However, this isn’t true for all iPhone buyers who may get a phone with 10%-15% of battery degradation. However, there are some means by which you can slow down the cycle count of your iPhone 12 Pro Max and get the most life out of it.
1. Avoid 100% Charge
You might be thinking that I’m crazy for saying this with me but bear with me. In comparison to phone batteries that are partially charged, the phone batteries charged to a 100% degrade at a higher rate.
You may or may not have experienced it myself. As a working man in Pakistan, there is never enough time to fully charge my phone but the good thing that I’ve got from this is that compared to the phones my brothers and sisters are using, mine is the one with the higher battery health.
Ideally, you’ll need to charge the phone when it is below 40% and unplug it when it goes over 80%. This is the sweet spot where the battery can stay healthy for much longer than usual. You can monitor the battery health in the settings but don’t get too hooked on it.
If you charge the phone at 100%, it may give you good battery life for the time but being at such an extreme state does cause the battery to degrade. The same is true if you go at the opposite end of the battery percentage at 1% or 2%.
2. Avoid Unnecessary Charging
Ok! In the previous point, I mentioned charging the phone within a particular range but that doesn’t solve the cycle count issue. Actually, I said that it’s “ideal” to charge within this range but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to charge within it.
Normally, we do like to charge our phones as much as possible but this can increase the chances of battery degradation. What I personally do is wait until I hit the 20% mark and then charge the phone to at most 90%. This may stretch the sweet spot a bit but it can help with the overall cycle count.
3. Don’t Use the Phone While Charging
It’s something that all of our parents have told us at some point but we don’t normally listen to. Actually, it’s completely right that you shouldn’t be using your iPhone 12 Pro Max in such a way because it’s charging and discharging at the same time.
This can extend the time for charging the phone which will affect both the battery health and cycle count. I personally don’t use any phone in such a way because there is a chance that the phone may cause bodily harm.
Conclusion
Overall, by utilizing any of these methods. You can easily drop down the cycle count for an iPhone 12 Pro Max or any other phone. I myself try to follow these methods myself but changing your routine in such a way can be a bit difficult.
However, I’m still very lucky to say that my iPhone 12 Pro has such a low cycle count. I really commend Wise Market Pakistan for giving me such an amazing smartphone. They have a wide range of smartphones starting from iPhone all the way to Oppo. They also have other products such as laptops, accessories (like earbuds and smartwatches), and lifestyle products. So, go to Wise Market Pakistan and I assure you won’t be disappointed.