6 persistent phone charging myths, debunked

Charging your phone should be easy — just plug it in and forget about it. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of bad advice out there that is actually doing more harm than good.

Let’s debunk it, shall well?

First, a note about exploding phones: Almost all smartphones these days use lithium-ion batteries, and yes, those batteries have been known to blow up occasionally. The thing is, the dangerous batteries — at least in the widely publicized case of the Samsung Galaxy Note7 — were a result of too-small battery cases and manufacturing problems.

In other words, it’s not that all cellphone batteries are inherently fire-prone. Properly produced lithium-ion batteries should not burn a literal hole in your pocket. OK, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to it.