Gadget Care

By Aleksi | Permalink | No Comments | August 1st, 2007 | Trackback

Be nice to your things and they’ll be nice to you. The words of our mothers echo in our heads, for much longer than we like most of the time. Could she be right?

The maintenance on some of the various electronic devices that are out right now can almost seem non-existent. Because of this, many of us start to disregard their safety, and tend to abuse them, causing them to wear out sooner. With a few tips and some caution, you can make your electronic devices last longer too.

1. Don’t leave them in exposed sunlight. It doesn’t matter what it is, or if you’ve turned the screen face-down, simply keeping them out of direct sunlight and exposing them to high heat will help you greatly increase the life of your device. Leaving them in the sun can cause distortion to the screen, and cause the device to operate at a much higher temperature, causing problems for the internals.

2. Don’t drop them. This isn’t quite what you’d think. Obviously we don’t choose to drop our things, especially the expensive ones, but if you are known for being a clutz, perhaps you’d be better off looking into some type of carry case or a protective cover. Many cell phones actually come with cases, so if you’re going somewhere that you fear you may drop it, don’t be embarrassed to use one.

3. Don’t leave them constantly plugged in. If you leave your devices plugged in to external power, the battery can actually start to fade faster than if you let the device drain and then recharge it. A batteries capacity is slowly reduced over the life of the battery, and leaving them on external power can reduce it by as much as 5% over the course of it’s life. Not a lot? 5% of the 8 hour life span on your iPod may come in handy.

4. Don’t put them in your back pocket. This happens way too much. You sit on your back pockets. Even if you think you won’t forget it’s there, you may fall on your back pockets. Not a good idea.

5. Hard drives are not flash memory, and they’re not similar. Technically our iPods are not even recommended for exercise or activity that requires a lot of movement. The storage inside is a hard drive, which are vulnerable to breaking with sharp movement. Certain devices, such as the iPod Nano, and other MP3 players and cellular phones rely on “Flash memory,” and do not have internal drives. Devices such as these are going to be able to handle more stressful activity, and also typically cost less than their hard drive equipped counterparts.

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