How long have smartphones been around? About a decade? That’s a long period of time (yes, it is, 10 years!) and yet people still don’t seem to know everything there is to know about them. And what does the human race do when it’s not informed well enough about certain things?
We come up with our own ideas, create theories, which soon turn into myths and misconceptions. That’s right, folks, today we’re going to get to the bottom of some of the biggest smartphone myths out there and clear the air once and for all.
Myth 1: Task killers boost battery life and speed up phones
While task managers sound really useful in theory, you don’t really need them in practice and the truth is that they can’t help out your phone a lot. Even when you “kill” your app, it still stays cached in RAM so that you can access it more quickly later on. It’s recommended that you close apps only if they misbehave, because doing this will actually slow down your device. Plus, modern smartphones come with task managers of their own, making third-party ones redundant.
Myth 2: Charge your phone only when it’s about to die
We understand where this myth came from – most people can recall older mobile phone models and batteries with the “memory effect”. Basically, batteries used to lose their maximum energy after being only partially discharged and then recharged (repeatedly) because they would “remember” that smaller capacity. However, thanks to Li-Ion batteries, you can power up your smartphone whenever you want and there’s no need to drain the battery completely before doing so.
*MTP tip: It’s a good practice is to keep your handset charged between 40% and 80%! You might also want to turn off your phone once a week, give it a chance recuperate and restore battery life.
Myth 3: For the love of God, don’t charge it at night!
Relax, like we said – you can charge your phone whenever you want and that includes night time. Your phone knows when to stop charging and once it’s fully charged, the charger will simply stop drawing power and your battery will be safe. Nothing bad will happen, apocalypse averted.
Myth 4: More megapixels surely mean that I get a better camera
Not really, no. Megapixels matter, of course, but what matters more than the number of them is their size. If a camera sensor has larger pixels, it will let in more light, and you will get photos of higher quality. If a sensor packs a plethora of smaller pixels, the quality of the photos won’t be as good. Because of this, 8-megapixel cameras sometimes shoot better photos than 13-megapixel ones. This doesn’t go just for smartphones, but for digital cameras, too.
Myth 5: Use only original chargers, never third-party ones
You should be fine as long as you don’t have a cheap knockoff. If you get an off-brand charger (e.g. Belkin) for your phone, it will still work just as well as the original one you received with your smartphone. Don’t be afraid to juice up your phone with a more powerful charger, either – your phone will not get damaged (it will draw the power it needs and then stop charging) and might even charge faster!
