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Does the Galaxy S2 suck?

The charge time is 3 1/2 to 4 hours for me with the original battery and charger. Is this normal? what is your charge time?

I also lost all of my battery power in 5 hours, with the display being on for just 1 hour 20 minutes of that. It was maintaining a strong HSPDA connection.


Or is my battery just broken? its 2 weeks old and a can not get through more than half a day on a phone that apparently lasts a whole day of heavy usage.

Cheers

Gary.
 
Are you using the stock charger? Check the power output on the charger, charging times should only have to do with the charger, and power consumption on your phone. If your charger puts out .5a and your draw is .4a, then it will take a helluva lot longer to charge than if the difference was more. Using a 1a charger would be faster, i think the stock charger is .7a from the wall. Your USB ports on your computer are only going to put out .5a regardless.
 
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I am using the stock charger. Charge time is 3 1/2 hours, what is yours?
I have also used a Iphone 4 USB wall plug and a seperate USB lead....which rules out a charger problem.

Charge times do not seem to be much worse on the laptop, around the same...maybe slightly more. Where with the HTC desire it was 1 1/2 hours on the mains, 4 hours from the lappy.
 
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I've heard that that slower you charge your battery, the better. TRUST ME THIS IS BETTER - Okay, so it's a pain and it won't charge at your pc, but the battery will last a year...

My Desire batter lasted 6 months or so maybe 8 or 9 months. Since then my phone won't last a day, with data turned on, EVEN THOUGH i'm not syncing or using widgets that use them - and that's whilst it's in my pocket at school and so it's not being used at all.
 
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I've heard that that slower you charge your battery, the better. TRUST ME THIS IS BETTER - Okay, so it's a pain and it won't charge at your pc, but the battery will last a year...

when you say slower the better, what do you mean?
use a low ampage charger?
charge fully even when the charge is down to 50%
or only charge once the phone is dead of battery?


i have a brand spanking new s2 waiting for me at home and i want to treat it right.
 
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First - I am so envious of you!!!

But just charge it normally, as you would. Although check with S2 owners about letting it run down/not letting it run down. Different people say different things.

Anyway I have another hobby to do with Nitro RC cars, and basically their batterers are all Lithium-polymer or Lithium-Ion. and basically people say that If you charge them up really fast, they'll eventually being to loose charge.

AS with my Desire - charged in 90mins from 0-100% but a year on my battery life has now become TERRIBLE.

Samsung have obviously seen to this issue buy giving you a charger that physically charges the phone slower/the phone only allows itself to be charged slower (as people said if they're using GPS in the car, a car charger only maintains the battery, but doesn't charge)
 
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Ok I'm going from memory here but I think the stock GB charger for the S2 has an output of 5v at 700ma (per hour) and the battery in the phone is 1650ma.

Therefore when the phone is switched off (so that nothing is running in the background draining the battery) it should take:

1650ma / 700ma = 2.35 hours

to charge the battery when it is totally flat.

If the phone is switched on then it may take a little longer as the phone will still be drawing some energy from the battery to run functions in the background.

If you want to charge the battery quicker then use micro USB charger with the a higher output. My old nokia micro USB charger has an output of 1100ma and I think both Apple and HTC are around the 1000/900ma range?
 
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well, my battery appears to be working perfectly fine, i'll let you know more once i've had a few days use.

to compare to my hero:

Hero: disconnect from charger 7.30am, 45 mins mp3 listening on way to work, data on, wifi off, no games - it would leave me with approx. 77%
SGS2: disconnect from charger 7.30am, 45 mins mp3 listening and also played angry birds, shrek kart and lets golf on way to work, data on, wifi on half the the journey as i forgot i wouldn't need it. - leaves me with 85%

so, i hope it keeps up its good work and will continue to perform.
 
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Got my SGSII yesterday.

Charged it until its full then I started using it to download my backups online which took hours because the backups had issues. With wifi, data and brightness fully on, it lasted 13 hours on first use which I am really impressed by. My last desire on first use only lasted 3-5 hours.

I think batteries get better over-time. The more you use it, the better they get in the long run. My desire still lasts me over a day and its almost a year old. Also, the first time you get a phone, you tend to use it a lot. Testing features, playing around etc.

Gradually, i think the battery life will get better. The fact that you'll play around on it less, learn how to manage the battery and the battery itself holding charge for longer should assure this.

SGSII is a great phone btw. But I still miss the HTC.
 
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Mine is absolutely the most trouble free phone out of the box, I've owned.

Each day (as expected) my battery life is improving as I optimize it to my liking.

I've only had it less than a week, so I'm still getting all the little tweaks done that I typically like to do with my Android phones.

THIS is the phone that Google should have chosen to be a Nexus.
 
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Mine is absolutely the most trouble free phone out of the box, I've owned.

Each day (as expected) my battery life is improving as I optimize it to my liking.

I've only had it less than a week, so I'm still getting all the little tweaks done that I typically like to do with my Android phones.

THIS is the phone that Google should have chosen to be a Nexus.

Makes you wonder what the Nexus 3 will be like...
 
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Does it really matter what the lifetime of the battery is? Since it's user replaceable and probably won't cost more than a fiver to buy a new one on eBay, who cares?

When I got mine two weeks ago and turned everything on, had live wallpaper etc, the battery lasted about 5-6 hours. Now I'm more careful, I get a day out of it, but I am thinking of buying a spare battery or one of those thingies that you plug into the bottom to recharge the phone on the go (ie an external battery).
 
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Does it really matter what the lifetime of the battery is? Since it's user replaceable and probably won't cost more than a fiver to buy a new one on eBay, who cares?

When I got mine two weeks ago and turned everything on, had live wallpaper etc, the battery lasted about 5-6 hours. Now I'm more careful, I get a day out of it, but I am thinking of buying a spare battery or one of those thingies that you plug into the bottom to recharge the phone on the go (ie an external battery).

If your going to do that, (the external charger is a good idea because the phone doesn't need to be turned off) but I'd actually suggest this Genuine Samsung Galaxy S2 i9100 Extended Battery Case

It is expensive, but the "things that you put on the bottom" are good, but they are very flimsy and a little accident could damage your micro-usb port. I'm saying this simply because I use one on my desire and I'm constantly paraniod that is will bend a bit and break the micro-usb port.
 
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Makes you wonder what the Nexus 3 will be like...
I read (sorry forgot to capture link) that LG gets the next opportunity to build a Nexus. I sure hope that doesn't come true. LG is really struggling and has been for the last 24 months. That would be a horrible move for Google.

The build quality on my SGS II is exemplary and I am completely happy with it.

Does it really matter what the lifetime of the battery is? Since it's user replaceable and probably won't cost more than a fiver to buy a new one on eBay, who cares?

When I got mine two weeks ago and turned everything on, had live wallpaper etc, the battery lasted about 5-6 hours. Now I'm more careful, I get a day out of it, but I am thinking of buying a spare battery or one of those thingies that you plug into the bottom to recharge the phone on the go (ie an external battery).
True, you do bring up a going point. I'm already up to a good seven hours of very intense use, and I still have 30% remaining.

If your going to do that, (the external charger is a good idea because the phone doesn't need to be turned off) but I'd actually suggest this Genuine Samsung Galaxy S2 i9100 Extended Battery Case.
Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen one of these before. When I travel for long periods internationally, I simply bring a second battery for whatever phone I choose to take with me. That's the solution that I prefer.

I couldn't agree more. The nexus one was a top of the line phone for it's day. I would have expected at least dual core (not to mention qHD) for it's successor. All we got was NFC? Bummer.
It is disappointing that my Nexus S is not as good of a phone as my Galaxy S II. However that said, there's nothing quite like the pure unadulterated plain Android OS that comes on the Nexus S.

I'm already on 2.3.4. You get the updates really fast via Google. The curved display glass is nice as it feels ergonomically correct, yet only having a Super AMOLED and not the Super AMOLED Plus is a drawback. I just cant' get over how nice that display is as implemented on my SGS II.

Cheers to all :)
 
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If your going to do that, (the external charger is a good idea because the phone doesn't need to be turned off) but I'd actually suggest this Genuine Samsung Galaxy S2 i9100 Extended Battery Case

It is expensive, but the "things that you put on the bottom" are good, but they are very flimsy and a little accident could damage your micro-usb port. I'm saying this simply because I use one on my desire and I'm constantly paraniod that is will bend a bit and break the micro-usb port.

That looks interesting but most of the time, I'm near a computer for at least part of the day so I won't need the extended battery life all the time and I do love the wow factor of the SGS2's thinness.

As far as the external battery goes, you make a good point about damaging it but I hadn't been intending to use it while it was charging. I suppose an alternative would be a micro USB male-female cable that I could plug into both and then it wouldn't be much different to using the phone while plugged into the mains.
 
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I read (sorry forgot to capture link) that LG gets the next opportunity to build a Nexus. I sure hope that doesn't come true. LG is really struggling and has been for the last 24 months. That would be a horrible move for Google.

I agree, but only because I've never had any LG experience and in a VERY naive and (silly way, if i'm being honest) view them as a "cheap"/"bad" version of Samsung/HTC (in phones)/Sony - I repeat, this is simply because I've never bought, or even considered an LG product in my life (in terms of TV, pc monitor or whatever) - there's no real reason, I just haven't come accross them.

And I believe the Nexus, Nexus S, And Nexus 3 are almost like "marketing" for Google. By giving the main 3 android phone makers the "opportunity" to make the FLAGSHIP Android phone, it probably keeps LG (in the future) making Android phones...Also I don't think that Google would make a mistake that bad (because they would've really thought this through because they've got the Nexus and the Nexus S (okay, so it wasn't revolutionary, but it was pretty darn good) to live up to.

And on the LG front - I believe hey have just unveiled an brand new range of SUPER-ULTRA-MEGA (zomg :p) high resolution displays.

LG's new ultra-high resolution AH-IPS displays, simply stunning at any size -- Engadget

Samsung who are pioneering in Super AMOLED higher resolutions in tablets mainly - (even though they are should be producing 4"-4.3" qHD Super AMOLED Plus displays by year end) - so that's a bit odd.

So that is one advantage as to why, Google may have chosen LG.
 
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Frankly I find myself confused by which Samsung device makes up which.

Now they name it Galaxy S2, and I know for a fact I have a Galaxy device, but I've no clue why 'my Galaxy' differs than one almost exactly the same outer-appearance but with different software. Yet, it never says on the box or anywhere on the hardware itself which version is which. Therefore, I can only assume the differences in software are to do with the different versions of Android OS.
 
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