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25 hour charge, medium use, at 30%

Y

Yugami

Newbie
Update: Charge lasted 36 hours

Charging setups:
6ft microusb + laptop
6ft microusb + desktop
6ft microusb + carinverter
official charger

Recent charge history:
Friday night charged with laptop/6ftcord. Saturday went skiing with full charge (unplugged around 9am), died around 4pm.
Saturday night charged with official charger, Sunday went skiing with full charge, died around 4pm again.
Sunday night-Monday morning charged with official charger randomly.
Monday during day went back home, charged with carinverter/6ft, night charged with desktop/6ft.
Tuesday was playing with it a ton, used camera, don't remember charge status, plugged in with desktop/6ft at the end of the day.

Wednesday morning 7:30am unplug from desktop, streamed music in car
Wednesday 2pm 100%, played games, downloaded from market, browsed web
Wednesday 5pm 100%, made phone call, played games, browsed web
Wednesday 9pm 100%, browsed web, played games, random shit, passed out
Thursday 4am 70%
Thursday 6:30am 70%, went to gym, streamed music the whole time
Thursday 7:20am 40%, got back from gym
Thursday 8:30am 30%, streamed music to work
Thursday 5pm 20%, played videos during lunch, random browsing, streamed music home from work
Thursday 7:30pm 10%, blinking red, plugged it in


Explanation:
Lost official charger over christmas break. Bought a 6ft microUSB cord from Fry's. At first it could barely turn my phone on from dead charge, took a day to get it to charge up. Connection is bad, have to have it positioned a certain way, but this has gotten better partially on its own (seems to be getting broken in) and with me getting used to it.
I've been charging it with the methods listed at the top (least with official charger, i only was able to use a friend's during the ski trip). It has been sporadic, especially with the car inverter (which i used to charge my old 2005 samsung with a Li-ion battery that expanded). Sometimes it will get a quick charge that ends up being fake and dies really fast.
In all charge setups with 6ft microUSB cord charging is slow. Battery life had been pretty normal tho up until the ski trip.

I'm kind've confused about phone battery life and going to the mountains to ski. I've read about it a bit and have heard that the cold causes it to die off, but I have a feeling that it has something to do with all the signals at a ski resort. Tons of people with their cell phones, probably only one cell phone tower nearby, high powered walky talkies used by the employees. This must have something to do with the quick drain.

My only theory with this long charge is that maybe charging it in cold conditions helped it store extra charge? Anyways, pretty impressive in the end. Looks like this charge will take me til past lunch, maybe even the end of a second work day.
 
I only charge with the official charger. Indeed, I even bought another charger from Motorola so I could keep one at work. I've read in this forum and elsewhere that we're not supposed to use chargers from other manufacturers. I can't explain why this would be the case but I didn't want to press my luck.
 
Yeah, I've just been lazy and don't feel like pouring money into verizon for my stupidity of losing my charger. I payed $5 for this cord and it has kept me going. I'll be looking in to getting a new charger, but something that fits my needs. Of course they tell you to use their charger, more money for them. **** their reasons.

Main topic tho is this insane charge I've had. Gonna be going for over 30 hours with decent usage.
 
I use the MM dock at home connected to the power supply it came with as my main charging source, but I also have a Kensington 12v to USB plug thingie in the car with a 3 meter (I should get a shorter one someday) cable that I use to occasionally charge the phone. It provides enough juice to run the phone in the dock while navigating and still charges the battery.
 
I have used generic car chargers (proper power rating) and cables I bought off of Monoprice and all have worked fine. One thing that I have noticed is that my battery will die faster if I am out of service range for a long time. I think the battery gets drained quicker while constantly searching for a network. I normally put my phone in airplane mode if I go into the mountains near me.
 
*The only difference with chargers is how much voltage* they put out, and thus how quickly you get charged. USB (from a computer) charges at 5 volts, while the wall chargers are a bit more.*

*Edit: See below about amperage, I was wrong, mea culpa.

Although the voltage of USB is about 5 volts, it's not why the computer is slower to charge.


Still, a charged battery is a charged battery. Your choice of charger should not affect how long the battery lasts that day.
 
Just remember that standard USB will push out 500mah of power, while the official motorola one that came with your Droid pushes out 800mah or 850mah. If you can find a 3rd party one that puts out the same power go for it.

My old belkin iPhone USB charger for my car didn't cut it, with using navigation and music it at the same time the battery would actually still drain. And with the phone doing nothing it MAY have gone up 10% on a 30min drive.

With the moto rapid charger in my car, it still charges the phone when nav and the like are going on. And charges my phone a good 40-50% in the same 30min.
 
Yugami said:
Main topic tho is this insane charge I've had. Gonna be going for over 30 hours with decent usage.
Click to expand...

That's a good run. I get that also when I'm in a location with good signal strength, like my apartment. I can almost watch the needle move when I'm at work, though...where the signal strength is mediocre.
 
Wow the amount of incorrectness going on is amazing.

The difference in the chargers is the amperage rating (not voltage) measured in mA (not mAh--the unit for capacity or W--the unit for power). Ok, fair enough, the voltage may vary, but what affects your charge time and what brings about safety concerns is the amperage.

You will want to be careful using a charger with a higher current rating than say the standard charger (my droid came with an 850 mA wall charger). Providing too much current to a device can fry it, hence why devices come with instructions that say only use the factory provided cord. Of course, this is especially convenient too so the manufacturer can make you think you have to buy only their products. I would hope the Droid has the electronics inside regulate how much current it draws to charge the battery, in which case using a higher rated charger won't be dangerous, it just won't be beneficial either. But I didn't make the Droid, so I don't know how it handles that situation.

Using a charger that provides less current will just make it take longer to charge. That is, the supplied current affects the charge time, not the voltage. That is why USB is slower, it provides less current.

Your battery life is awesome though.
 
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