smartphone battery life question
 

I'm getting a new smartphone next week, probably a HTC desire HD.
I know that battery life is an issue with these as it has a 1230mAh battery.
What will happen if I fit a higer capacity 16000mAh battery in it? Am I likely to get a bit longer use between charging? Can this cause any damage?
cheers!

Getting the bigger battery will improve battery life , it shouldn't be a problem using it in the htc

I have the Desire HD and you CANNOT fit a larger battery. That's 'larger' in terms of being 'bigger in volume' because of the fact that the battery is basically inside the phone. As a batteries *output* is, all other things being equal, related to its volume then you won't get a *better* battery.

There are plenty of them out there that say 1600mAh, or whatever, but they last no longer than the standard one. Go over to ... http://androidforums.com/ ... and ... http://forum.xda-developers.com/ ... and take a look through the battery threads!

I charge mine every night and also stick it on charge if I'm in the car. (I also switch it OFF at night as I do with any mobile!). I probably will get one of these *cheaper* batteries at some stage just in case.

Oh, and a battery with more 'mAh' will not cause any damage on its own. There'd have to be something else wrong, like dodgy terminal connections inside the battery or something.

HTH

Dave

Friend of mine spend literally years slagging off the iPhone using battery life as his opening volley. He bought a Desire HD, what an idiot.

I had a quick look at the HTC desire HD section on androidforum.com and the first 2 threads I read related to battery life recommended a battery with a higher mAh

Flashing with custom roms can help with battery life, took ages to find one my wife was happy with

Well, after reading some of the battery life threads about the Desire HD I think I might just go for the older Desire.

Fair enough but depends on what you want from the phone and how much you use it. Seems almost none of the so-called *smart* phones last much longer than a day.

Dave

Apart from marts360 his lasts 10 days apparently :wonder:

I'm still undecided to be honest. I really like the HD and I suppose I can always charge it via my laptop or car and buy a few spares for it.

That's because he has an iBerrysireDroid4G .... :thumb:


The charger connection is microUSB so easy to get cables. The only time you'd have problems is if you were backpacking in the wilds with no power for days on end. But if you were doing that then you'd probably not care about taking your mobile in the first place!

Dave

At least he had the option to be able to swap the battery.

True.

As said, no smartphones really last that long, depending on usage. Just have a spare charger at work, or a spare battery, or even one of those mobile battery charger things.

I have a HTC Desire Z........... battery lasts about 3 days or so. I leave it on all night as I use it for an alarm.

WiFi is off, the only updates it does is the weather every few hours, e-mails update when I ask it to.

Send a dozen or so texts a day probably, some days I don't make any calls other days I could be on there for nearly an hour (call time in a month is under 200 mins).

I was thinking of getting a dock for it so I can plug it into that when I get home to always keep it topped up.

the wifes galaxy s is brand new and is lasting about 12 hours between charges :eek: thats with lots of fiddleing though and email always on sync

If you do get the Desire HD, if it's on Orange then root it and flash another ROM as Orange's is crap. My new one seemed a little sluggish and when I checked my Linpack score I only got 3.7. Battery didn't last long either. I've rooted and flashed a different ROM, still with HTC Sense and all the features I had before, but without the Orange bloat. Phone is much smoother and Linpack score is now 44. I'll let you know what difference it makes to battery life.

If I could find a smilie with something whooshing over the top of it's head I would post it here.
I was with you till you suggested rooting the phone:D
I think I'll probably go with t-mobile or vodaphone, will I need to do anything? I just want to call people, do a bit of surfing and play angry birds.

The problem with mAh ratings is they are not always equal.

One battery manufacturer may give its "typical" or "average" mAh ratings. Whilst another will give its absolute peak mAh rating in ideal test conditions. The latter will always give a higher rating.

Not only that, the mAh is how many milliamp you can draw in an hour before it is flat. "How" flat is open to interpretation. Being Li-ion batteries; they should not be deep discharged and so often have a cut-out circuits to prevent them being drained past a below a set point. An unscrupulous battery manufacturer may rate the battery without this safety circuit active. Or they may use the ratings of each individual cell before they are assembled to make a battery. Naturally this will give a higher mAh value than the end user will get to experience.

Additionally, mAh does not take into account the non-linear characteristics of the battery's voltage over the complete discharge cycle. Now, typically, Li-ions are very good because they can maintain their rated voltage right up until they are virtually flat, but a lesser quality Li-ion battery may suffer voltage drop sooner than a high quality one. So whilst it mAh rating maybe the same or higher, you could indeed find the phone shuts down sooner due to the excessive voltage drop.

Finally, self-discharge: This again reduces the usable capacity of the battery and isn't reflected in the mAh rating. Typically a good Li-ion battery will have very little self-discharge. But a poor quality one may well do (possibly due to the parasitic drain caused by the incorporated safety/monitoring circuitry).

In short: When comparing mAh ratings, you may not always be comparing like for like as there are more factors to how a battery performs in real world use: Can't beat user reviews IMO.

Get the phone from Carphone Warehouse (I believe Phones4U are the same) as they do unbranded/unlocked phones. I'm with Vodafone and got my Desire HD as an upgrade but through CPW. No service provider bloatware on mine. :thumb:

I haven't bothered to *root* mine either - haven't had the need yet as all my requirements are met by existing apps or stuff from the market. There's a thread on here regarding Android apps which may help ....

Dave

I have a desire HD and put it on charge every night, touch wood it hasn't gone flat yet, I also have an in car charger but I have probably only used it once or twice, when I use the sat-nav which is on the phone

I mentioned on another thread somewhere, battery life in Smartphones is shocking. My samsung galaxy S lasts the day just. It syncs email all the time (I get a lot of email), has WiFi on most of the time.

What seems to kill it is the screen, so leavining it on all night collecting emails doesn't drain the battery that much, but as soon as I start to repond or I check each email that comes in the battery starts to drain quite rapidly. The battery monitor on the screen also says that 97% went to the screen ...

Steve

Root the device, flash a decent rom.

Setup a profile (overclock widget is good) to UNDERCLOCK the phone when the screen is off, and scale the performance once the screen is on (mine fluctuates between stock speeds and overclocked speeds when required)

Save battery = simples



I think i got 36 hours from mine when testing (with wifi on constantly) and around 8 hours of that was with the screen on, playing the odd game, browsing the net, etc etc.

This is from an older HTC Hero that struggled to last a day when i first got it (switch on at 7am, dead by 7pm)

yes the Desire battery is crap. charged at night at home, i have an in car charger and a usb cable in work. i am lucky if i see 1 day from a charge. then again i do have everything in wifi, gps yada yada.

A few quick changes will help loads Steve

Unless needed, change from 3G to 2G, the phone will otherwise constantly seek a 3G signal over 2G, it kills the battery.

Turn off background data, :) all those apps change this setting frequently ;) then you have the world and its app, syncing data every 2 seconds

I went from 16hrs battery life to 8 days :)

Mart

How do you change that setting , I cant find it ? (3G to 2G)

how can you change the sync time of say email on a galaxy s

on my nokia i can pick when it looks for mail even pick a time scale

I got my desire z from phones for you. Orange didn't even do it and wanted to charge me £90 for the old desire.

Got the z for free in phones for you still with Orange and no crap orange software on the phone either.

Not sure you can do exact times but on my DHD (running 2.2.1 - the *upgrade that's been removed* for the DHD) I can go to Mail > Menu >More > Settings > Send & Receive > Update schedule. I can then define a 'peak time' and 'frequency for sync'ing' from there. Dunno if it's the same on the Galaxy ...

Dave

My poxy Blackberry is only lasting a day now, new battery in it as well, wifi off, Bluetooth off, not sure why, any ideas, used to last 3 or 4 days, Curve 8900.

Maybe it got 'Smarter' Smart uses a lot of battery.