battery question

[jonmchugh]

I listen to ESPN radio while I'm at work at my desk and have it charged into my computer all day. How come the battery decreases when it's charging? It only does this when using ESPN radio. If I listen to music the battery just charges or stays the same. Is it just from the app or is something wrong with my phone. The battery only drains while charging when I'm using ESPN radio.

Thanks!

 

[doogald]

Try plugging the phone into an AC outlet rather than cabled to your computer. ESPN radio is probably making the phone work hard (i.e., use a lot of battery), and the USB port is not pushing enough charge to overcome the drain on the battery.

You could also try a different USB port. Some ports are low powered. This is particularly possible if you are plugged into a keyboard USB port, or a USB hub. But even some USB ports on computers are lower powered than others.

 

[jonmchugh]

Try plugging the phone into an AC outlet rather than cabled to your computer. ESPN radio is probably making the phone work hard (i.e., use a lot of battery), and the USB port is not pushing enough charge to overcome the drain on the battery.

You could also try a different USB port. Some ports are low powered. This is particularly possible if you are plugged into a keyboard USB port, or a USB hub. But even some USB ports on computers are lower powered than others.

okay thanks. I will bring my ac charger with me and see if that works any better. thanks for the advice.

 

[Podivin]

When you're listening to music all what's drawing down the batter is the player app, whatever it takes to pull data from the SD card, and pushing the speaker..
When you're listening to the ESPN either the 3g or the wifi radio (whichever it is you're using) is active in addition to everything listed above (I'm assuming that the ESPN data is spooled to the SD card before getting played - I could be wrong about that). If you have to play ESPN a bit louder than the music then there go an extra erg or two also.

While I find it mildly surprising that you actually lose charge on the battery while plugged, it makes sense that ESPN has more battery draw than music.

 

[jonmchugh]

just an update my batter is now at 59%. I started the day with like a 90 % charge. I have been listenining to ESPN radio using the ESPN radio app since like 9am this morning (now 2:15pm) and I have lost almost half of my battery. Tomorrow I will try and use my ac charger and see if that makes any difference.

 

[jonmchugh]

Well I had my phone charged in overnight with a full battery last night. Plugge my Eris into the same USB port in my computer at work as yesterday, and its remained at a full charge all day. been listening to ESPN radio since like 9am. Wiered isn't it?

 

[erisuser1]

Well I had my phone charged in overnight with a full battery last night. Plugge my Eris into the same USB port in my computer at work as yesterday, and its remained at a full charge all day. been listening to ESPN radio since like 9am. Wiered isn't it?

Not weird at all.

The USB 2.0 port specifications limits devices to 500 mA of current @ 5 volts - 2.5 Watts. The AC charger can provide 1000 mA of current @ 5 volts - 5 Watts.

The Eris' RF power amplifier chip has a max continuous power spec of 2.0 Watts. Right there, that could be 80% of the power from the USB port (depending on how far you are from the tower)... and of course, the rest of the phone (display, application processor, RAM, etc) need juice too.

So - 5 Watts of charging power is enough to keep the battery charged, but 2.5 Watts is not enough.

Streaming music across the 3G hardware burns up a fair bit of power - way more than playing music from the SD card.

(If you really want to get the Eris hot, run it in WiFi tether mode and stream music to the client PC - then 2 radios plus the application processor will be running full bore. To be fair though, the WiFi radio probably only burns about 200 mW)

eu1