These 4 Common Habits Are Slowly Killing Your Phone

Smartphones have become very important in our day-to-day life and are now like a portable extension of ourselves into the digital world. So it's necessary to take care of them, but many people falter badly in this area and do things that damage their phones without even knowing.

Here are some things you should stop doing to your mobile device.

1. Fully Charging and Completely Draining Your Phone's Battery

Your phone's battery degrades with every charge cycle (that is, a full charge of a phone's battery from 0% to 100% and discharge from 0% to 100%). So, over time and as your phone goes through lots of charge cycles, the battery will degrade. According to manufacturers, a phone's battery will degrade to 80% of its original capacity after 400 charge cycles which take about two years but, your charging habits can speed up or slow down that degradation. 

Avoid bad charging habits like draining your device to 0% before charging it, charging your phone to 100%, and using your smartphone while it's charging. The best thing for your battery's health is to plug it in when it drops to 30% and unplug it when it hits 80%

2. Using Cheap and Unbranded cables

It can be tempting when you're looking for a new charging cable, and you see unbranded ones going for way less than branded ones. Trust me, it's not worth the savings and could end up costing you more money and even your life. 

Yes, you read that right. By using uncertified cables', you put yourself at risk of fire and electrocution. As for your device, unbranded cables can severely damage the battery. Branded charging cables have all sorts of safety features and protection mechanisms that you don't find in most uncertified/ cheap cables.

3. Not Protecting Your Phone

We all love the nice look of our phone bare and might even be tempted to use it like that. Resist it's not worth it.

A case and screen protector do more than protect your phone's external body. They also protect your phone's internal components. You see, whenever your phone falls without a case(a good solid one, I might add), not only are the external parts of your phone damaged, the internals is, and the structural integrity of your phone is too. The more your device falls, the more the internal and external components wear and loosen. 

A good case keeps your phone's rear looking good and reduces the damage caused by the impact of dropping your phone. If you have butterfingers, an armor case is your best bet.

4. Practicing Bad Security

Security patches and updates are no joke, and you should take them seriously. After all, companies won't spend money and resources on them if they aren't necessary.

These updates are essential, and they protect your phone from all kinds of malware and cyber-attacks. Also, update your apps (especially your social media apps and apps that contain sensitive information about you) as they often have bug fixes and security updates. 

Be very careful of the apps you download, especially fake apps that try to mimic features/services of popular apps. Said apps are often filled with adware and can deliver viruses to your device. Also, be careful where you download your apps from, don't download apps from sketchy app stores because some sneak in viruses, spyware, and other security threats into your phone as you download apps from their servers.