How hot is too hot for a phone?

[Awesomesauce99]

I'm here today because of my science fair project. I can't find it anywhere on Google (thought you knew everything, Google), but how hot is too hot for a phone? More specifically a smart phone. I feel kind of stupid asking it considering the complicity of other questions but I really need it answered. Thank you!

 

[BobK]

When it starts melting it is too hot!

But, seriously, your question is ambiguous on several levels. Do you mean the highest ambient temperature at which it can be operated, or how hot the phone itself can get before it is damaged, or even what temperature will damage the phone even if it is turned off?

None of these questions can be answered in general, it would depend on the specific phone, and even what you are doing with it.

Bob

 

[Awesomesauce99]

I meant how hot it got before it was damaged or didn't run smoothly. Do you know like a general range temperature? Or maybe the temp for a Samsung phone? Even an educated guess would do fine.

 

[BobK]

Sorry, my education did not include enough to guess at this.

I don't think anyone can give you a reasonable answer to this. For one thing, not all parts of the phone will be at the same temperature. It is quite possible that you could comfortably hold the phone in your hand, while one particular chip exceeds it maximum operating temperature and fails. There is also a time element. A component might operate very briefly above it's max temperature but fail it does this for 10 minutes.

Bob

 

[garublador]

I've had friends have their iPhones turn themselves off when sitting on the dash of their parked car in the summer. So the outside case temperature was probably somewhere in the 120F range if I were forced to guess. I don't know why the phones decided to shut off for sure, either. My guess it was either because the CPU core got too hot or the battery temperature was too high.

 

[BobK]

If your science fair projects involves heating up phones until they fail, this could be very dangerous. A likely failure mode could be an exploding battery.

Bob