If you look at the finger battery, the battery of a laptop or phone, you will notice an inscription, for example, 2000 mAh. Many people know about this designation only superficially, associating the numbers with the battery charge, that is, they think: the larger the number, the longer the device works. But this is not quite so.
What do the letters mAh mean
Perhaps someone noticed that on some batteries, Wh is indicated, and on other mAh. What does it mean? And what is the difference?
Most often, the Wh-designation can be seen on laptop batteries for Dell, and the mAh value on Asus, Toshiba batteries and devices from other companies. To understand the difference, you need to understand the definitions.
Notebooks and phones do not need a powerful battery, and therefore their capacity is measured in milliampere-hours, which are recorded as already known - mAh (but batteries for cars have a unit of measurement ampere-hour - Ah). Milliampere is one thousandth of an ampere. That is, it is nothing but the derivative of current and time.
So mah - what does this mean? A milliampere-hour is considered a unit of measure showing the amount of charge stored in the batteries. 1 mAh - a charge transmitted over an hour through a conductor with a current strength of 1 mA. When the battery has 2000mAh, it gives a current of 2 amperes (2000 mA) at this hour.
What is Wh
Wh (watt-hour) will make it clear how much power is stored in the battery, that is, 1 Wh has a power of 1 watt transmitted over an hour through the conductor. As a rule, the Wh designation is more understandable to gadget users, because it is easier to understand how many hours it takes for a laptop to work, for how long the battery lasts.
For example, the laptop battery indicated 90Wh. Knowing that 1 watt is consumed per hour, you can calculate the laptop’s runtime, which needs at least 60 watts of power: 90Wh divided by 60 watts, 1.5 hours of operation of the electronic device.
The question arises: where did these 60 watts come from? They are indicated almost always on the laptop power supply in the form of volts and amperes, which must be multiplied with each other - this will turn out the power figure, these notorious 60 or 70 watts.
What are the differences between mAh and Wh. mAh - indicates the amount of charge (current) stored in the battery; Wh - notifies about the power that the battery can provide to the device, the same laptop, for example.
How to translate mAh to Wh and vice versa
If you look at the laptop’s battery, you can see that its capacity is indicated there, say 5200mAh, as well as a voltage of 14.9 volts (V). What to do with all this? Divide 5200 by 1000 and get 5.2 ampere-hours (Ah). Then you need to multiply 5.2 by 14.9, and you get 78.48 watts-hours (Wh).
If you need to translate Wh into milliampere-hour (mAh), then you should "go" back. That is 78.48 Wh divided by 14.9V - we get 4.9Ah, which are multiplied from 1000 to get 4900mAh.
What does mAh mean on the battery?
As it turned out, mAh is not an indicator of energy, but it is connected. Everything becomes clear with simple mathematical calculations.
With the data on the phone’s battery 5000 mAh and 1 milliamp of battery consumed, the battery lasts for 5000 hours, with a loss of 2 milliamps, it’s enough for 2500 hours, with spent 1000 milliamperes of battery lasts for 5 hours.
Often there are situations when a battery with 6000 mah first gives a current of 6 Amps per hour, but then less and less, that is, it "sits down". It depends on what tasks are performed on the electronic device. It is known that if you listen to music on your smartphone or watch a video, the gadget "sits down" faster than when reading an e-book in the same amount of time.
Sometimes on the packaging of electronic devices you can see the meaning: "2000 mah two cells." What does it mean? mAh to calculate the total capacity of 2000 you need to double, and you get the total capacity of 4000 mah (2000 * 2).
What else affects the performance of electronic devices
Much depends on the type of battery - most electronic gadgets today have a lithium-ion battery, which can be charged without waiting for a full discharge.
In addition, hardware also affects performance: the more powerful the phone, the more mA should be in the battery. For example, one gadget with a 1550 mAh battery can work for 5 days without recharging, and the other with 3500 mAh will not last a day.
The display is also a big energy consumer. The secret here is in the technology for producing screens. IPS will require more power than Super AMOLED, which are very energy efficient due to the predominant black color on the screen. Do not write off the brightness and resolution.
It is important that the phone has as few extra background processes and services as possible. Fortunately, Sony and Samsung devices include special utilities in the software that optimize the device and save energy.
And this is not all: do not forget about the heart of any electronic gadget - a processor that also likes to eat well.
It turns out that this is not so important if you look closely at the other characteristics. Therefore, when buying a new device, you should pay attention not only to the battery, but also to hardware, software and the type of screen.
What does 10000 mAh on battery mean?
But the real find was external batteries (Power Bank) with a similar capacity, which will become a lifesaver for every traveler when there are no outlets nearby, and the volume of the native battery is small.
While some Power Banks can only charge a couple of smartphones, others can easily handle tablets, laptops, and digital cameras). Accordingly, more powerful ones are those devices with a battery of 20,000 mAh and higher.
The capacity of external batteries is measured in the same milliampere-hours. This parameter determines how many times the device can charge a smartphone or other device. But even if the capacity of 10000 mAh is indicated on the Power Bank, then in fact it is less, and it is written in small letters that in fact its capacity is less. As a rule, 10000 mAh - by 30%, which are "lost" as a result of voltage conversion. The range of gadgets having a powerful battery - 10000 mAh and higher is becoming wider.
How long does a 20,000 mAh battery last?
For example, the usual situation: the “native” charger to the gadget was lost (broken). They gave another one for use, the output of which says "800 mA", but now it is not clear how much it should be charged. On the phone’s battery is indicated: 2500 mA, and there is an incomprehensible inscription: Standart charge 18 hr at 200 mA. How to deal with all this? Again, the calculations: the battery is able to accumulate a current energy of 1500 mA, which is theoretically issued within an hour before a full discharge.
The inscription on the battery means that it should be charged with a current of 200 mA for 18 hours, and the charger can give a current of 800 mA. It only remains to calculate the hours: the charging current is 4 times greater (800 mA divided by 200 mA), which means that it will take 4 times less time to charge the battery. Thus, the battery with this charger will charge 4.5 hours (10 hours divided by 4 hours).
Ideally, it is worth buying external batteries with an outstanding current strength of 2A, since the current strength at the output affects how quickly the gadget charges.
For example, if an external charger has a capacity of 20,000 mAh, it is enough for 17 full charges of the smartphone, but, again, it all depends on the "native" battery.
How to choose a battery for your smartphone
Today, many batteries have a charge controller, which in an emergency (overheating, overcooling the battery) will turn off the device. This is great, but when you buy a battery, you should focus not only on the controller, and not even on the capacity (however, the larger the mAh, the better), but:
- identity with old battery; voltage also matters (average 3.7 V);
- type of battery (lithium-ion or other);
- warranties (standard - from six months to three years);
- the number of times to charge the battery (usually 1000 times);
- strength;
- cost (it’s impossible to buy a high-capacity battery for little money: either the seller is trying to cheat, and the battery is of poor quality, or the capacity is lower than indicated).
It should also be remembered that charging the battery too often can contribute to rapid wear.
The article examined what this means - mAh. We hope the information was helpful.