charging battery vs. extended

[gynormus]

What do you guys think..? is it too hard on the stock battery to take it down to 40% each day by mid day then charge it back up? if so should i just get the extended battery?

I am kinda jealous of the Razr's thinness... so would rather keep it slim.. just don't know if it damages the battery to be charged constantly.

 

[johnlgalt]

Run it down as far as possible, and then charge it, would be my advice.

However, on light use my extended batteries give me 32-38 hours per charge. At $25 a pop, I bought 2 (b/c I bought my phone from CostCo and it came with an external battery charger)

 

[rdsok]

What do you guys think..? is it too hard on the stock battery to take it down to 40% each day by mid day then charge it back up? if so should i just get the extended battery?

I am kinda jealous of the Razr's thinness... so would rather keep it slim.. just don't know if it damages the battery to be charged constantly.

BTW... this is the Bionic forum area and not the Razr so perhaps the OP just mistyped it when mentioning the Razr...

The Bionic does have an extended battery option... The Razr does not.

 

[wildkitten]

BTW... this is the Bionic forum area and not the Razr so perhaps the OP just mistyped it when mentioning the Razr...

The Bionic does have an extended battery option... The Razr does not.

I think the OP is making a comparison of the Bionic to the Razr when he speaks of the thinness, not that he has the Razr, especially considering with the Razr it's a moot point as it's battery is sealed. (The main reason that led me to get the Bionic over the Razr.)

 

[johnlgalt]

BTW... this is the Bionic forum area and not the Razr so perhaps the OP just mistyped it when mentioning the Razr...

The Bionic does have an extended battery option... The Razr does not.

I think the OP is making a comparison of the Bionic to the Razr when he speaks of the thinness, not that he has the Razr, especially considering with the Razr it's a moot point as it's battery is sealed. (The main reason that led me to get the Bionic over the Razr.)

^ This. He has a BIONIC, but is a bit jealous of the RAZR's thinness.

 

[Thom]

Run it down as far as possible, and then charge it, would be my advice.

However, on light use my extended batteries give me 32-38 hours per charge. At $25 a pop, I bought 2 (b/c I bought my phone from CostCo and it came with an external battery charger)

I agree and am on a standard battery.

Two other things to consider about the irrelevance of the frequency in charging ...

Whenever you connect the Bionic to a PC using the USB cable that came with the Bionic the battery is charging at a slow rate.

Whenever you use the mobile hotspot it is recommended that you have your Bionic connected by the USB cable that came with the Bionic to the charger that came with the Bionic. This is because of the heavy battery drain. This is another case of where you are charging an in this case at the fastest rate.

... Thom

 

[gynormus]

^ This. He has a BIONIC, but is a bit jealous of the RAZR's thinness.

Im a guy, and yes i have a BIONIC as per my devices under my profile to the <-----

So now looks like the I use a desktop dock at work and when on LTE I drain it by 3:00pm ish.. alot of pandora and playing around... I guess I can try that, waiting until its low then charge it back up. I just like to have enough charge to get me through the night at home without charging it again, thats why I charge it when it hits about 50% using the dock.

Oh nice the RAZR MAXX is now coming with built in extended battery and still thinner than the Bionic... FML, I still feel like we all got the shaft when they announced a new motorola phone 3 weeks after the launch of their latest DROID product. I dont think its fair... of course now RAZR customers are feeling our pain.. ok im done going off now.

 

[johnlgalt]

We didn't get screwed over, no matter what anyone says. Our phone was delayed for a very long time, otherwise that would never have happened. And I like being able to swap batteries - means I don't need to carry a hand crank with me when camping, just my 2 stock and 2 extended batteries fully charged. Do that with a RAZR - either one!

 

[wildkitten]

We didn't get screwed over, no matter what anyone says. Our phone was delayed for a very long time, otherwise that would never have happened. And I like being able to swap batteries - means I don't need to carry a hand crank with me when camping, just my 2 stock and 2 extended batteries fully charged. Do that with a RAZR - either one!

I couldn't agree more. While Razr's AMOLED screen was nice, I didn't find it that much better and I just don't want a phone that has a sealed battery.

I already have an iPod touch 4th generation, so I didn't want an iPhone anyway. And the extra .2 gHZ of the CPU didn't mean much of a difference. When the person at the Verizon store told me that instead of bringing the phone back to the store to have the battery replaced if it ever went bad, I was told I would do it like a phone replacement. They send me a "Certified Like New" Razr, and I mail in the old one in addition to the payment for a new battery. Well, I have had a couple of experiences with Verizon's "Certified Like New". It's more like "Certified Piece of Crap". The two times I have dealt with it, the "like new" phone has always needed serious cleaning and has had scratches on the case and screen.

I'm someone who takes care of my electronic devices. I don't intend to pay someone to send me something worse than I mail in to them. Not to mention it seems like a lousy way to handle battery replacement for a sealed phone, making people essentially start from scratch in setting up a phone.

 

[johnlgalt]

Lol - nice to meet you - I'm basically the same way.

My OG DROID is sitting here, and it is in better condition than any certified like new refurbished tested and wiped device VZW could give me.

It has one minor scratch on the side, and you have to look for it to see it - and the gold paint has flaked off badly from the camera button (but at this point so has everyone else's lol).

My BIONIC is gonna be the same, provided I don't have an accident with it.

 

[wildkitten]

Lol - nice to meet you - I'm basically the same way.

My OG DROID is sitting here, and it is in better condition than any certified like new refurbished tested and wiped device VZW could give me.

It has one minor scratch on the side, and you have to look for it to see it - and the gold paint has flaked off badly from the camera button (but at this point so has everyone else's lol).

My BIONIC is gonna be the same, provided I don't have an accident with it.

Nice to meet you as well

To me, a case is something that is a mandatory item at the time I buy a phone, or even when I bought my laptop. I take great care with my devices and was really disappointed that Verizon didn't take that into account with a phone like the Razr. I might have bought that one had it been a situation where I could have taken it into the store and they replaced the battery then and there and returned the same phone to me.

 

[johnlgalt]

agreed. I've found the shell holster combination cases for both my OG DROID and now my BIONIC to be great - I'm a bit concerned that it may not be enough for my BIONIC, but so far all is good.

 

[wildkitten]

agreed. I've found the shell holster combination cases for both my OG DROID and now my BIONIC to be great - I'm a bit concerned that it may not be enough for my BIONIC, but so far all is good.

I'm a fan of the nice leather flip style (some call it wallet style) cases. Still looking for a good one (or any one) that will support the extended battery, although someone in another thread directed me to a web site called Forte I believe it was.

Just hard to fathom why there is so few case options for the Bionic with the extended battery. You would think with a smart phone an extended battery would be even more in demand thus making a case that supported the ext. battery be even more in demand.

 

[stoney bones]

im pretty sure manufacturers recommend draing the device comlpettly before recharging. also, ive been told that they are made to be recharged a certain amount of times, aka "cycles" and even if you plug in your phone for only say 15 mins that still counts as a charging cycle.

not sure if thats fact but thats what ive been told from a CSR.


also, on your long days try using an app killer program to kill unnecessary apps that are consuming a lot battery resources.....switching to 3g will save you battery and still be plenty fine for pandora and general web browsing...


as far as cases are concerned.....to me phones are like art. they are not meant to be covered up but to each his own....i just dont understand people that go and buy a razr with its special corning glass and kevlar and all its thinness...then they feel the need to slap on some cheap plastic case probably leaching chemicals into your bloodstream lolol more seriously though, cases are just a way for them to squeeze some extra pennies out of you....bottom line, if your going to have a device that costs the better part of $1000 in your pocket maybe you should treat it better then the $40 wal mart pre paid you used to use.....or get insurance and have a piece of mind. just my 2 cents though

...i stopped using cases..i had two before but each time i dropped my phone the screen still cracked...making the $20 case utterly irrelevant...just another $20 they got from me....

 

[Thom]

im pretty sure manufacturers recommend draing the device comlpettly before recharging. also, ive been told that they are made to be recharged a certain amount of times, aka "cycles" and even if you plug in your phone for only say 15 mins that still counts as a charging cycle.

not sure if thats fact but thats what ive been told from a CSR.

For a new battery I always charged it to 100% and ran it to 0%. I repeated this three times.

For the kind of battery in the Bionic (Lithium-Ion) it is documented heavily that it makes absolutely no difference. See the article at ... Tip: Condition your new cell phone&#8217;s battery to make it last longer (but be sure to condition it properly) | Android Articles | dotTech ... as an example.

also, on your long days try using an app killer program to kill unnecessary apps that are consuming a lot battery resources.....switching to 3g will save you battery and still be plenty fine for pandora and general web browsing...

Some apps are designated as always running. The are loaded and doing nothing or close to nothing. One of the main reasons is that when you want them you want them instantaneously and don't want to to wait for them to load and initialize.

When you kill one of these apps after a short while (seconds) it is reloaded and reinitialized. As a result, you changed from something loaded in the background not doing anything to something that is periodically being deleted, reloaded, and reinitialized.

The result is that you are using more resources (and battery) to play with the app killer than just leaving the apps alone.

How big an impact is of course dependent on how frequently you tell the app killer to kill.

... Thom

 

[Vehtemas]

This site might help you.

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

They recommend charging it often and not for long periods to reduce the amount of stress that charging puts on your battery.

Overall their info and stats look rather consistent.

Apple - Batteries

And this one is from Apple which seems to back up the first one's claims.

P.S. Stonley, based on these two sites (and their data) their claim is that one charge cycle is going from 0 to 100% over a course of charges, EG: I use 50% of my battery one day and 50% the next day, THAT would be one full charge. I recommend reading both of them.

Look at Table 2 on the first link, if you have a 50% depth of discharge (50% battery left) you can get 1,500 charges out of a battery whereas you would only get 500 with a 100% depth of charge. I assume it would correlate depending on the voltage and charge used.

P.P.S.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prime_batteries

On this site there is a paragraph:

"Lithium-ion is a very clean system and does not need formatting when new, nor does it require the level of maintenance that nickel-based batteries do. The first charge is no different than the fifth or the 50th. Formatting makes little difference because the maximum capacity is available right from the beginning. Nor does a full discharge improve the capacity once faded. In most cases, a low capacity signals the end of life. A discharge/charge may be beneficial for calibrating a &#8220;smart&#8221; battery, but this service only addresses the digital part of the pack and does nothing to improve the electrochemical battery. Instructions to charge a new battery for eight hours are seen as &#8220;old school&#8221; from the nickel battery days."

Which seems to make the claim that the prepping that people use on their batteries is a waste of time...

 

[doogald]

This site might help you.

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

They recommend charging it often and not for long periods to reduce the amount of stress that charging puts on your battery.

Overall their info and stats look rather consistent.

Apple - Batteries

And this one is from Apple which seems to back up the first one's claims.

You beat me to it. There is a lot of bad information about battery usage out there, particularly from people who mistake the issues of NiCad and Ni-MH with Li-Ion, which are totally different.

 

[wildkitten]

This site might help you.

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

They recommend charging it often and not for long periods to reduce the amount of stress that charging puts on your battery.

Overall their info and stats look rather consistent.

Apple - Batteries

And this one is from Apple which seems to back up the first one's claims.

P.S. Stonley, based on these two sites (and their data) their claim is that one charge cycle is going from 0 to 100% over a course of charges, EG: I use 50% of my battery one day and 50% the next day, THAT would be one full charge. I recommend reading both of them.

Look at Table 2 on the first link, if you have a 50% depth of discharge (50% battery left) you can get 1,500 charges out of a battery whereas you would only get 500 with a 100% depth of charge. I assume it would correlate depending on the voltage and charge used.

P.P.S.

How to Prime Batteries &ndash; Battery University

On this site there is a paragraph:

"Lithium-ion is a very clean system and does not need formatting when new, nor does it require the level of maintenance that nickel-based batteries do. The first charge is no different than the fifth or the 50th. Formatting makes little difference because the maximum capacity is available right from the beginning. Nor does a full discharge improve the capacity once faded. In most cases, a low capacity signals the end of life. A discharge/charge may be beneficial for calibrating a

 

[doogald]

When you say charge it often and not for long periods, does that mean it's ok, like when I'm in my car, the battery is at 70 or 80%, for me to put it on the charger for a few minutes while I'm driving and disconnect it from the charger before it's 100% or should I always charge it to 100%?

That's fine. It's probably better than charging to 100% in the car. My understanding of car charging cables is that they do not have the circuitry that cuts the power to the device when it starts reaching 90%, as usually happens with stock wall chargers, so if you can pull as soon as you see the notice that the device is charged, pull it.

Also, I tend to put my phone on the charger before I go to bed and disconnect it when I wake up. That obviously means I have had it on the charger for a few hours after it has been fully charged. Is that a bad idea?

Again, this is fine. It's what I always do. The phone's charging circuitry and the charger that it comes with are smart enough to cut power to the charging circuitry when the phone reaches close to full charge, as batteries can start to overheat quickly when they reach charge capacity. The only issue is that the charger plug itself may still be drawing power, so you may be drawing power (and, of course, paying for it) that does not go toward charging the phone.

 

[Vehtemas]

When you say charge it often and not for long periods, does that mean it's ok, like when I'm in my car, the battery is at 70 or 80%, for me to put it on the charger for a few minutes while I'm driving and disconnect it from the charger before it's 100% or should I always charge it to 100%?

Also, I tend to put my phone on the charger before I go to bed and disconnect it when I wake up. That obviously means I have had it on the charger for a few hours after it has been fully charged. Is that a bad idea?

As Doo said I agree with him.

Based on the information on those sites they recommend charging it when it isn't that low, for example, charging it when it gets to 60% will take less heat and less stress than charging it from 10%.

As for the wall charger yes, as Doo said the charger will cut the power when it hits 100% thus saving you any problems.

 

[wildkitten]

Thank you both. That actually taught me a couple of things I didn't know.

 

[cook1273]

I purchased the extended Motorola battery, my battery life has improved a lot. Used to be lucky to get a day of normal use, now I can go almost two days. I know it will vary from person to person, for me it was worth it. Amazon had a great deal on it.

 

[Vehtemas]

I purchased the extended Motorola battery, my battery life has improved a lot. Used to be lucky to get a day of normal use, now I can go almost two days. I know it will vary from person to person, for me it was worth it. Amazon had a great deal on it.

Oh I know, I still charge mine every single night however, and sometimes if I am going out at night I will give it a bit of juice just in case.