Android - Charging over USB can be harmful?

I don't see how the duration of the charge would relate to whether or not it's harmful to the smartphone. I have never seen any documentation that keeping a phone plugged in perpetually (whether plugged into USB, AC or DC) would cause any harm to the phone itself. An argument could be made that it's harmful to the battery.

Constant charging is not generally a problem for Lithium Ion Polymer batteries (which most new cell phone batteries are). It is in fact better to frequently charge them, and not let them fully discharge.

One factor that does degrade the battery life of all Lithium Ion batteries is heat. The more heat it's exposed to the faster it will lose capacity, so I can see how keeping it plugged in may keep it warmer longer and theoretically degrade the battery life.

Here are a couple good resources discussing battery life:

  1. http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
  2. http://www.droidforums.net/forum/tech-issues-bug-reports-suggestions/1974-understanding-battery-life.html

The issue is to not let the battery specifically lithium battery be full changed and not let it completely discharge . let it be between 40 to 80 percent. by using USB is more suitable because it let the battery to be slowly charged with significant absence of heat to damage the battery. Thanks