Battery problems, quirks and issues: Read first.

[paranoid_android]

I'm also getting similar results (with both oem and 3rd party metrics). If I'm very patient, it does get to 100%, but it won't stay there long. Also:

did everyone start using the phone right away without fully charging? i have the same problem. i'm going to completely drain my battery today and then charge it tonight. see if that fixes the issue.

I doubt that you'll get much out of it. These are lithium ion batteries--in terms of their physical nature, they don't like to be drained fully unlike their NiCd brethren. But further, there are chips in most or all Li-ion batteries that prevents a truly full discharge.

So in answer to the 2nd or 3rd post, I'd also say that I don't think these are among the gadgets that need to be fully charged before use (but not entirely sure on that).

Source

 

[satinkzo]

I'm also getting similar results (with both oem and 3rd party metrics). If I'm very patient, it does get to 100%, but it won't stay there long. Also:



I doubt that you'll get much out of it. These are lithium ion batteries--in terms of their physical nature, they don't like to be drained fully unlike their NiCd brethren. But further, there are chips in most or all Li-ion batteries that prevents a truly full discharge.

So in answer to the 2nd or 3rd post, I'd also say that I don't think these are among the gadgets that need to be fully charged before use (but not entirely sure on that).

Source

I can't speak for everyone, but I think many of us undertand the li-ion difference, but what I think myself and others accomplished by "draining" our battery was that the meter itself was "trained" to be a bit more accurate. It's not perfect and definitely needs an update, but in my personal experience of running the phone till it turned off and would not stay on after restart, I've had great results and have learned how to read my meter better and my meter has become a bit more accurate.

 

[numus]

I can't speak for everyone, but I think many of us undertand the li-ion difference, but what I think myself and others accomplished by "draining" our battery was that the meter itself was "trained" to be a bit more accurate. It's not perfect and definitely needs an update, but in my personal experience of running the phone till it turned off and would not stay on after restart, I've had great results and have learned how to read my meter better and my meter has become a bit more accurate.

Wish i was in the same boat.. have done it twice now and still drops to 80% after 10 minutes off of the charger.. have had it plugged in for 2 hours with a usb cable and a ac/usb adapter.. phone is getting very very warm and battery meter is still showing it charging which i find impossible since it has been 2 hours on this charger after being plugged into the AC charger all night..

 

[paranoid_android]

what I think myself and others accomplished by "draining" our battery was that the meter itself was "trained" to be a bit more accurate. It's not perfect and definitely needs an update, but in my personal experience of running the phone till it turned off and would not stay on after restart, I've had great results and have learned how to read my meter better and my meter has become a bit more accurate.

That's not what I took away from most of these posts. Some people seemed to clearly indicate that their discharging exercises did indeed change the battery life, not merely the meter. No doubt, however, some also mentioned a change in the metering behavior. Ultimately, if it has in fact changed actual battery performance--and I have to say I'm still perplexed if it has--it can't hurt to go ahead and drain it.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think many of us undertand the li-ion difference

Clearly there are many on these forums who aren't technically savvy, so why not mention it?

 

[flyjbaker]

Just signed up to post so I can reply to this message. This analogy is inaccurate, If it was an estimate on the remaining time on your battery when under load then, the gauge should read in TIME left not the PERCENTAGE of the charge left on the battery.

Hey welcome to the forum. Glad I could drag you in... I would say your post is inaccurate. You can make a computer display whatever you want...time...percentage...range...MPG. I will say my analogy is somewhat innacurate as you rarely/never see the battery gain percentage points like I would on some of my past phones. Maybe it is programmed not to go up in percentage much like todays fuel guages ion cars. YOu remember when you could make your gas light go on and off while making sharp turns??? Doesn't happen anymore in newer cars. When that biatch comes on, it stays on.

Anyway, my Samsung Instinct was exactly opposite of this battery. It would show full charge all day and when you saw it coming off full charge, you had to take note as you were about at 15% when the fist bar was gone. You had about 30-60 seconds of talk time when you went into the RED.

 

[Naldonnis]

Does anyone know when the update is coming out? Because I charged the phone all night to 100% then when I woke up I took it off the charger where it dropped immediately to90% and I plugged it back up and laid down. I just now woke up and did the samething but it didn't drop but when I plugged it back in it dropped to 90%. I figure its a software issue with these battery meters and if I knew when the update was I would fill more comfortable about keeping this phone since my 30 day return policy is going to be running out

 

[flyjbaker]

Okay, I am gonna shake it up here. Doing full draining cycles we know is hard on the battery but it quite possibly may allow your battery to learn the upper and lower limits of it's "range". What about everything in between. I have noticed my battery(meter) becoming more reliable as I have done "random" chargings.....meaning putting it back on the charger at 50% or something other than a fully discharged state. Also taking it off the charger before it is fully charged....and then putting it back on the charger soon after that. I guess all I am saying is do it all....mix it up and the battery may be able to get it's total groove on.

Anybody else noticing this??? Everybody is so hung up on the "full charge/full discharge" thing. Use it like you would use it every day. Obviously, "proper care" of a Li-ion battery still suggests doing a full cycle once a month.

 

[avc]

Dear fellow frustrated comrades:

I am a new member (thank you for the future welcomes) who's been browsing the forum for a couple days now. I had been researching a solution or explanation for the battery issue for 3 days at no avail, which almost drove me to return this phone; however, I had limited choices as I didn't want a windows mobile phone, hated the blackberry tour, and needed support for MS Exchange (and didn't want to go back to the curve as the graphics weren't as good and the email took at least 15 minutes to be pushed through).

Anyway, I finally came accross a member that gave me the solution and I figured I would post my triumphant success with this method to see if it would help anyone else.

I was also suffering from battery depletion, to the point where it would only stay on for 4-5 hours with minimal usage. Finally, I tried a method that the member (sorry, can't remember the name) suggested and it worked!!!! I took it off the charger at 7:30 and at this time (11:30 am EST) I am sitting at 80% battery with the following usage: 5 texts, email being pushed through every 2 days, GPS on, looking through emails and played jewels for about 5 minutes. Here's how I did it:

Try plugging it at night with your regular charger and, in the morning when you wake up, just unplug the charger and re-plug immediately. Let it continue its charge while you get ready in the morning and you will see a significant change in your battery life. I guess there's a glitch with the battery meter and when it reaches 'full' according to the battery meter display, it stops charging your battery; however, when you unplug it, it will reset it and continue charging until it is, in fact, fully charged.

As I mentioned before, this method worked incredibly well for me and I hope it works for everyone else. I would still advise to keep an extra battery for travel and days where there's inevitable excess usage.

Let us know if this works for anyone else.

 

[Silverexpress]

Welcome to Battery University

 

[dkjones96]

I turned off that Weather widget and after restarting the phone I've been at about 70% at the end of every day since with normal texting, talking, and gmail syncing. I like the widget but it sucks the battery hardcore.

 

[Naldonnis]

I've tried both of those methods. I've turned the weather widget completely off and have it on my list on task manager to kill if it ever starts. I've also tried the unplugging and replugging it in. Did that today. made 2 phone calls last 20 minutes each and I'm down to 70%. That's insane in my opinion. I'm coming from a phone that I could browse the internet, text all day, and make phone calls and be lucky to ever hit half a battery by the end of the day. So to me I'm bringing the phone back because i've tried everything under the sun to make it work.

 

[avc]

I've tried both of those methods. I've turned the weather widget completely off and have it on my list on task manager to kill if it ever starts. I've also tried the unplugging and replugging it in. Did that today. made 2 phone calls last 20 minutes each and I'm down to 70%. That's insane in my opinion. I'm coming from a phone that I could browse the internet, text all day, and make phone calls and be lucky to ever hit half a battery by the end of the day. So to me I'm bringing the phone back because i've tried everything under the sun to make it work.

I understand your frustration. Coming from a blackberry was also hard, especially adjusting to the touchscreen (I returned by storm because the keyboard was so freakin' annoying). Remember though, just because the battery says it is at 70%, it doesn't mean it is. The battery meter is completely out of whack, so it will show less battery than what you actually have. Do you usually go through the day being able to keep the phone at least on?

 

[xdavieexx]

my battery life dropped significantly today. I did a full charge over night and reconnect this morning while i was getting ready to get a full charge. In 2 hours I only read some news on the browser and 6 text messages i was down to 60%!

 

[methoderik]

Yeah my battery seems to have gotten worse, at least from what the meter is saying.

I did the whole full drain charge x2 a couple of weeks ago and that seemed to work very well. Over the past couple of days my battery has been draining fast. Some light texting and browsing and I am below 50%. I wonder if an application I have downloaded recently is screwing things up.

 

[gamorg02]

ok wow so i read through this entire post. very very useful info.

my battery was left on the wall charger all last night and today at work it died at about 3pm. unacceptable. there was no phone calls and maybe 30-40 texts.

i have my gmail account along with moxier running. i have since installed spare parts, taskiller and have been monitoring battery with spare parts (and previous quick settings)....

when i got home i had to make some calls and some other things but the phone has effectively been on the charger since 5:30pm (est). it has been off for some period of that and with using the usb and wall charger.

i cannot reach over 90%. i have seen the mV bounce between 4100 and 4200 where its seeming to stay at 4200 right now (on the charger). thats a lot more than 90% though. I wonder if they calculate it by potential max voltage (4300) and divide it by current (4200). which is actually more like 98% full.

i just took it off the charger(s) right now and saw the mV drop immediatley to 4000 and now its back at 4200. so i'll update in the next hour or so maybe.

i've also only had the phone since friday so i'm also going to try to condition it a bit. my g/f got the same phone at the same time and we are seeing similar results. mine has more apps tho.

 

[decalex]

Hey ppl, forgive me if this has already been addressed (thread getting pretty huge), but, does anyone else find it odd that the battery meter displays only in 10 percent increments- other than the 5% and 15% marks? I've done most of the battery draining and charging techniques, and regardless if it's more accurate than before, these 10% jumps stay constant. Just wondering what everyone else thinks here. I hope we get some kind of update soon. 1.5 seems to have less priority lately...

 

[satinkzo]

ok wow so i read through this entire post. very very useful info.

my battery was left on the wall charger all last night and today at work it died at about 3pm. unacceptable. there was no phone calls and maybe 30-40 texts.

i have my gmail account along with moxier running. i have since installed spare parts, taskiller and have been monitoring battery with spare parts (and previous quick settings)....

when i got home i had to make some calls and some other things but the phone has effectively been on the charger since 5:30pm (est). it has been off for some period of that and with using the usb and wall charger.

i cannot reach over 90%. i have seen the mV bounce between 4100 and 4200 where its seeming to stay at 4200 right now (on the charger). thats a lot more than 90% though. I wonder if they calculate it by potential max voltage (4300) and divide it by current (4200). which is actually more like 98% full.

i just took it off the charger(s) right now and saw the mV drop immediatley to 4000 and now its back at 4200. so i'll update in the next hour or so maybe.

i've also only had the phone since friday so i'm also going to try to condition it a bit. my g/f got the same phone at the same time and we are seeing similar results. mine has more apps tho.

Have you tried draining and then charging on a computer? For many (myself included) the lower milliamp out from the computer seems to help achieve the 100% and have it actually be accurate. I'm still experimenting but I am leaning lower MA helps with this phone's charging setup. I'm looking to potentially get a wall charger that outputs the lower 500ma that USB as opposed to the ones out that that all put out 1a. The included charger does 700ma.

 

[gamorg02]

Have you tried draining and then charging on a computer? For many (myself included) the lower milliamp out from the computer seems to help achieve the 100% and have it actually be accurate. I'm still experimenting but I am leaning lower MA helps with this phone's charging setup. I'm looking to potentially get a wall charger that outputs the lower 500ma that USB as opposed to the ones out that that all put out 1a. The included charger does 700ma.

only have let the battery die once, yesterday. i did the unplug/plug in method this morning and it showed fully charged both times

by the time i goto work, say 35-45 mins later it showed 80%. i have it currently on USB charging which should be done at some point here and i'll take it off and see where we are.

checked everything using spare parts and nothign was really using the cpu or GPS. network bar was full by android so that might be something to look into, but what was interesting was the weather channel app showed half the network usage that android did, i don't have the widget or anything.

i also ordered a spare battery and universal battery charger. supposedly its a 200 mA +/- 50 mA that would really bring the 'trickle charge' down in the mA range so maybe that will help?

 

[satinkzo]

Where did you order the battery and the low ma charger from?

 

[gamorg02]

Where did you order the battery and the low ma charger from?

battery:
OEM SAMSUNG ORIGINAL BATTERY FOR MOMENT M900 SPRINT NEW - eBay (item 390115144155 end time Dec-05-09 22:13:40 PST)

charger:
SAMSUNG M900 SPH-M900 Moment Universal Battery Charger-US, FREE Shipping, SAMSUNG M900 SPH-M900 Moment PHONE Universal Battery Charger-US

found the specs elsewhere not sure where.... only thing i can find now is on amazon it shows a similar one with 200 mAh +/- 50 mAh.

Can you compare mAh to mA?

 

[jayford00]

i cannot reach over 90%. i have seen the mV bounce between 4100 and 4200 where its seeming to stay at 4200 right now (on the charger). thats a lot more than 90% though. I wonder if they calculate it by potential max voltage (4300) and divide it by current (4200). which is actually more like 98% full.

I'm not sure how the battery percentage is calculated but I would assume it would be more of "full potential" compared to the "actual level" of the battery. Due mainly to the fact that current draw is gonna change throughout the phone usage. Powering the phone, GPS, widgets, apps blah, blah, blah... The current is gonna vary too much to give a reliable calculation.

 

[gamorg02]

I'm not sure how the battery percentage is calculated but I would assume it would be more of "full potential" compared to the "actual level" of the battery. Due mainly to the fact that current draw is gonna change throughout the phone usage. Powering the phone, GPS, widgets, apps blah, blah, blah... The current is gonna vary too much to give a reliable calculation.

agreed. i saw it bounce between 3900 and 4200 so far with no change to the %, so i was def wrong there.

just hit 80% at about an hour and a half of being off the USB charger. we'll see how it goes the rest of the day. @ work so real minimal usage. getting moxier and gmail emails with a few texts. thats about it.

spare parts shows nothing really being used at all.

& BT is off

 

[johnbarry3434]

found the specs elsewhere not sure where.... only thing i can find now is on amazon it shows a similar one with 200 mAh +/- 50 mAh.

Can you compare mAh to mA?

No mAh represents the charge capacity of the battery and mA represents the current magnitude.

 

[gamorg02]

No mAh represents the charge capacity of the battery and mA represents the current magnitude.

fair enough. could i put an ammeter across the terminals to read the mA its pushing? i have a cheap ammeter tho. it only does up to 200mA or on the 10A setting only down to hundredths.

 

[johnbarry3434]

fair enough. could i put an ammeter across the terminals to read the mA its pushing? i have a cheap ammeter tho. it only does up to 200mA or on the 10A setting only down to hundredths.

No, you would need to hook the ammeter up in series and if you measure across the terminals it would be like measuring in parallel. You could measure the voltage this way though.