Won't charge off USB?

[dishe]

A friend of mine is unhappy with boost service in his house, and plans to return his Ultra. But before he does, he was kind enough to let me borrow it for the day to evaluate and see if I like it (I'm waiting for it to come out on Sprint next week).

Here's the thing- he managed to let his battery go all the way down to dead. I don't have the charger, but I figured that's OK because it looks like a regular old USB charger.

So I grabbed a microUSB from my Optimus, and plugged it into my PC. I saw the samsung logo come on, and then a graphic of a battery that I assume is supposed to look like it is charging. But then the screen goes dim, shuts off, and starts over again with the samsung logo. This repeats indefinitely unless I unplug it or try powering on the phone.

When the phone is powered up, the battery is so dead it just displays a red X where the battery icon would be (I remember seeing that on other Android phones when the percent is less than 1). It seems to NOT be turning off while plugged in to USB, however it doesn't appear to be charging either. This is weird.

I recall the old Windows Mobile Samsung Blackjack had something like this, where if you let the battery go too far, it won't charge back up without the real official wall charger. Something about the output being higher on the wall wart than a regular USB. Could this be the same? Will the phone refuse to charge if dead unless I go back and get the charger??

 

[El Presidente]

I've never let my phone go completely dead and then try to charge it via USB, but I presume it would do the same. That's on the assumption that the Ultra has a Lithium Ion battery in it too (most modern phones do). I do recall reading somewhere that when dead, the battery needs that little bit of extra "kick" to start the charge process so your assumption is most likely correct and it needs the wall charger to charge properly.

If it wasn't dead, USB charging is fine.

 

[dishe]

Well, after trying different cords and chargers around the house, I managed to get it to stay on the battery charging graphic without shutting off. After about an hour of charging that way, I tried turning it on to see if it would power up- everything looks fine now, and it is continuing to charge while plugged into my USB.

I've got to say, this is a pretty nice little phone. I'm not sure how functional I'm really finding the keyboard (top row is really hard to press), but it seems like a ratio of size to function.

 

[El Presidente]

You could try out a different keyboard? There are a few different keyboard apps on the market. I use perfect keyboard. The paid version allows you to alter the size of the buttons, not sure about the free one though (although there is a demo available to try). It might help a little?

Is this your first Android?

 

[dishe]

You could try out a different keyboard? There are a few different keyboard apps on the market. I use perfect keyboard. The paid version allows you to alter the size of the buttons, not sure about the free one though (although there is a demo available to try). It might help a little?

Is this your first Android?

LOL, I meant the physical keyboard! One of the reasons I'm interested in this device coming from an Optimus is having physical buttons. I miss having a slide out keyboard from the days of larger HTC devices.

Maybe I'm just not used to the keyboard on this, but I think typing on screen might be faster at the moment. Which is crazy to me!

 

[El Presidente]

Oops, sorry

Missed the Optimus mention in the first post. I'll be honest and say I'm not overly keen on physical keyboards. I've a mate with the Desire Z and I found made more mistakes using that than I did with my DHD in portrait mode.