"I've experienced this on my android phone and it's not pretty, I couldn't trust the phone to do anything even though nominally the battery appeared to have lots of charge left."
I HAVE actually experienced this. The battery would still be at like 40% when it would spontaneously reboot (even do so a couple times even after I plugged it back in). But that's one reason I insist on user-replaceable batteries. A quick switch-out and I'm back in business.