YOU are the one killing your Lithium-Ion or Lithium-Polymer batteries by
not understanding how to maintain them properly......

Sellphone bois just love to show their dicks by bragging how long their
sellphone will run between charges....a week, a month, etc.  This penis
envy is what kills the Li-xx batteries very prematurely.

Unlike Ni-Cd or Ni-Mh rechargeables that SHOULD be fully discharged at
some interval and stored in a discharged state, Li-XX batteries are more
like your lead acid car battery.  Deep discharging them without really
good reason except vanity consumes them in short order.

Inside each Li-xx battery is a custom IC that controls the battery's
charge and discharge cycle.  You don't ever see, I hope, your sellphone
go "dim" from a dead battery, because the IC in the battery is set to
prevent you discharging it past about 50% of its capacity, half
discharged.  This is the only way to prevent permanent damage, which
deep cycling a Li-xx battery does, irreparably.

If you'd like to get 4, 5, even 7 or 8 years out of one battery, the
solution is very simple....never deep discharge it.  Plug it in at every
opportunity and recharge it until the IC cuts off the charge, even
though you've only used it a couple of hours and it shows full scale on
the meter.  The chemistry just loves to be float charged, just like lead
acid does, but for a different reason.

I have an old 120GB MP3 player that's going on 6 years old.  It's a
Digital Mind Xclef 500 and, though simple, is still my favorite because
of its sheer monsterous memory that can store days of music without
playing the same song over.  Even today, 120GB is pretty large.  It has
no DRM or nanny games you boys know I hate.  Plugged into any PC,
Windoze treats it as just another external hard disk drive and will load
it accordingly.  It also records MP3, has an FM radio that actually
works great, and is just plain simple to use with its side-mounted
multifunction jog lever you can use driving without looking away from
the road.

The battery in it is a Korean Li-Ion hard wired into it like an iPhone.  
It has never been replaced and will still run it all day and have 60%
charge left when I plug it back in for tomorrow.  Its real leather case
has worn the paint off the aluminum case, I think improving its looks.  
It's a large, heavy beast that uses standard laptop drives even a
standard battery, if I ever need one.  Feed it +5VDC from any charger
and plug it into your stereo and you're ready for music!....

http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/dmc-xclef-hd-500/4505-6490_7-
31212346.html

Properly manufactured and cared for, a good quality LiIon cell will retain
most of its capacity for about 3 years from date of ****MANUFACTURE***.

If your phone was shipped with an old battery, or you do things that ruin
LiIon cells like deep discharge, this could impact on the battery life.

Factory fresh, genuine item no doubt.

Probably couterfeit and of unknown age.

Imo there are a couple of important misconceptions in the quoted part of
your post.

First of all, cell phones are not "sold for a 2 year contract". They may be
given to you at no charge if you sign up for a 2 year contract, which is a
contract for phone usage service, not phone device service.  My car, a
"luxury" model, pretty expensive thingy, has a 36 month, 50,000 mile
warranty. But the $300 per tire "run-flat" tires have none (except against
some rare and hard-to-define "manufacturer's defect"). Get a hole in the
sidewall and you pay. Your buying a 2 year airtime service does not have any
relationship to how long the phone itself, or its parts, will last.  Just as
well, if you fail to perform the minimum required services, and your
transmission goes, you may find that warranty voided.

Second, warranties are never guarantees of how long something will actually
last, but a reflection of how much risk the manufacturer is willing to take.
A good quality eyeglass frame, which may set you back $300, generally has a
1 year manufacturer's defect warranty. The frame may last you 10 years with
good care.

Third, cell phone companies, to my knowledge, offer service contracts for
their phones. I pay $5.99 (or $6.99?) a month to make sure my phone gets
replaced if it becomes lost, stolen, or broken. And that probably still
excludes the battery!

My advice for some of you is to try to work on not feeling so cheated and
abused about so many things that I see posted here.  It is not up to anyone
to protect you, the individual, against each and every little mishap that
might happen to you. I wonder if, in your own business and personal lives,
you meet up to the standards you set for others?