Wednesday 9 March 2016

10 Tech Myths You Need To Stop Believing

Should you always be closing your apps on your phone? Are more network bars equal to better signal? Here are 10 myths that need to stop being thought of as true. If you know of any more myths that need to be debunked, let us know in the comments.
"Leaving your phone plugged in at night hurts your battery."
Most people charge their phone overnight and it's not uncommon to hear "You shouldn't leave your phone charging for that long, it hurts your battery." Well this isn't true, phones nowadays are too clever for this to happen, as the battery level fills up it automatically slows the rate of charging and once it's full it doesn't try and charge it anymore. For the best battery life, charging your phone every now and then throughout the day is great, but if you want to charge it overnight, that's absolutely fine.
You can't always take tech specs for face value.
When searching for your next phone, tablet or computer, it's a natural thing to go straight to specs to see what will run better and what has the better tech inside of it. But tech specs aren't all the same. Look at any fastest phone comparison online at the moment, on paper the Galaxy S6 with its 8 cores should wipe away the competition with the iPhone only having 2, but in reality the results are far closer.
The same thing goes for megapixels, iPhone's have never has the highest megapixel counts on their latest phones, but the results speak for themselves, the quality you can get from an iPhone 6 is incomparable to any of it's competitors, but the tech specs say otherwise.
"Always close apps on your phone, it helps battery."
The chances are that if you open up your multitasking on your phone you're going to see a bunch of open apps, everyones first thought (including mine) is to kill them, they must be wasting battery and RAM, right? Wrong. Like I mentioned about battery life, phones are too clever now for this to impact on battery or RAM, mobile OS's nowadays are really good about managing memory, unlike a computer that will always slow down with more things open.
"Don't jailbreak your iPhone, it's illegal."
My personal favourite. As a jailbreaker myself I hear all the time that I shouldn't do it because it's illegal, granted, the name 'jailbreak' doesn't exactly help the matter, but illegal it is not. Jailbreaking your phone will void your warranty and that's about the extent of the risk involved.
"Never let your computer run hot."
It's not uncommon to hear that your computer should never run hot, and although it shouldn't run too hot computers nowadays are more than capable of running at temperatures a lot hotter than we would assume. Running warm can actually be a good thing, the hotter the CPU is allowed to be, the more freedom it has to run at a higher clock speed, in turn giving you better performance. Generally cooler is better, but running warm isn't a bad thing at all.
"An expensive HDMI cable equals better video quality."
We've all been in PC World and seen these super gold-plated, diamond-encrusted HDMI cables that will transform the way we see HD forever, and because they're more expensive they must be a ton better, right? Well no. HDMI is a digital signal, so whether you're using a £4 or £400 cable the signal is going to be identical. Don't fall for the marketing.
"Your eyes can't see more than 60fps."
This one is the craziest of them all, and it's widely believed. The have been many reports from different reaction tests that people can react to visual signals in less than 1ms, this is equivalent to 1000fps. So where did this myth come from? Well in truth most of what we see on screen we see at 60fps, most monitors and TV's are only capable at outputting a 60Hz refresh rate which only shows 60 fps. So if anyone says to you "I cannot see anything beyond 60 FPS", make sure to let them know that they need to try viewing scenes that are able to deliver more than 60fps in the first place.
"Macs don't get viruses."
Well the fact is Macs do get viruses, and it's crazy to think that it's common opinion that they don't. But why is this? First of all Macs are structurally different from Windows PCs so the viruses that affect PCs, won't affect Macs. Secondly, there are far fewer Macs than what there are PCs, therefore hackers generally make viruses that are going to affect more population.
"More bars = better signal."
This is a myth that is understandably believed, but it's a myth none the less. The network bars on your phone indicate the signal strength from the mobile tower that is closest to you. However the service you get depends on how many people are using that tower at the same time as you.
"Don't charge your phone until it's completely dead."
This one's infuriating because we hear it all the time. The truth is it's better to charge your phone every day than to do a 'deep charge' from time to time. Lithium-ion batteries that are in most gadgets nowadays fare better when they're charged. If you constantly let them drain to 0%, they become unstable. 
If you know of any other debunked tech myths, let us know in the comments below.

Tricktune

Author & Editor

I am an allround web developer. I am a senior programmer with good knowledge of front-end techniques. I love structure and order and I also stand for quality. I love spending time on fixing little details and optimizing web apps. Also I like working in a team.

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