This Big Question comes from a coworker who endure ramble yesterday in immobilize temperatures ; his admirable act of temporary insanity leave him with a dead phone for 10 minute of arc . Once he thawed out , he wanted to have intercourse whether or not it was normal for his smartphone to catch a cold .
On its web site , Apple recommendsyou apply its devices “ where the ambient temperature is between 32 ° to 95 ° degree Fahrenheit . ” ( Sorry Minnesota , that important phone call will have to wait until April . ) In covering their effectual base , Apple is probable being overcautious . While extreme frigid — much colder than 32 degrees Fahrenheit — can cause your phone to go on the fritz , this problem has almost always proven to be a impermanent one .
And what get the brief amnesia ? According to David Linden and Thomas B. Reddy’sHandbook of Batteries , very cold temperature will glower the “ dismission content ” of a lithium - ion battery ( the kind of battery normally used in smartphones ) . In other Scripture , the assault and battery struggles to perform efficiently in the cold and will drain quicker . Still , this is only while in use , and the long - term effects are n’t too scary .
Seth Porges ofPopular Mechanicstook six types of smartphones to an environmental examination facility togauge their performance in the uttermost cold . They started with a slightly lively environment ( 40 ° F ) and then incrementally lowered the temperatures to points far below zero .
All the phones survived down to -10 ° F . Once the mercury strike -30 , however , “ five of the six phones experienc[ed ] serious battery or liquid crystal display problem . ” Reassuringly , none of the damage suffered during these tests proved to be permanent . Once the phone returned to normal temperature , so did their functionality .
The only earphone to survive a plunge to -40 ° F was an superannuated Motorola flip phone , one whose gamey - tech features include texting and not much more . In fact , that same impudent phone pull round conditions that are positively Plutonian ( -314.7 ° F ) . After repeatedly being dipped in melted nitrogen , the speech sound would still perform fine after warm up back up to a normal temperature .
musical score one for the “ they do n’t make ‘ em like they used to ” crowd . Clip those insolent phones to your belts with pride , friends , you earned it .
