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extended battery

lilcdkey

Newbie
Hey guys, I just upgraded from the Captivate and overall I love the Atrix. It seems smoother, quicker, and overall more powerful. However, the battery on this phone (and the Captivate) seem pretty terrible. Especially for someone who is constantly on their phone like myself. Can anyone advise on a good, cheap, safe, extended battery? Thanks guys!

One more question :) Does the H+ near my signal bars mean that I'm on 4G? Also, is their anyway to run on 3G to save battery?
 
There are a lot of ripoffs out there claiming to have extended batteries for smart phones. In almost all cases they are the same size or frequently smaller than the stock batteries.

All the phones use LiPo batteries which is the best technology in mass production these days. The amount of energy you can get for a given weight and for a given volume is fixed for that technology. If you get an "extended" battery that is the same size and weight as the original battery, you are being ripped off.

There are actual extended batteries available for some of the phones. These are always physically larger and heavier and always require a new back. I am not aware of any for the Atrix, but they may exist or may become available in a little bit.
 
Check out my post for the extended battery I picked up from Seido in the Accesories board. Its a 3200 (I think?) mAh extended battery. I should have it in the mail and will write a review up for it when I break it in.
 
That cell is about double the volume (11mm vs 6mm thick) so it is quite possible that it could be 3,200mAh instead of the standard 1,800mAh. The price for this is that you do get to deal with the phone being 5mm thicker.

You do not need to "break in" a LiPo cell. You do need to allow the phone's power management system to learn the cell's actual capacity. The power manager can make a fairly decent guess if you charge the cell in the phone till it is completely charged. That is close enough for most people.

I am not familiar with the low level code in all the various phones, but it is possible that on some phones when you charge an unknown battery for the first time, the phone may prematurely report it as fully charged. It is therefore a good idea for the first charge to leave the phone on charge for a few hours past when it says the battery is full.

If you want to get really accurate, you need to drain the battery so the phone can record how much energy the battery actually delivered. Charge the battery fully then use the phone till it shuts off due to low battery. Do this without plugging in the phone or shutting it off after it is removed from the charger. Contrary to the BS you read in many places, it will not harm the battery. The phone is designed to turn off before the battery gets discharged to the point of harm. Then charge the battery till it indicates full and then a few hours longer. The phone now knows how much capacity the battery actually has and as a result the reported value is much more accurate.

The above procedures do not do anything to actually improve how much energy the battery can hold. All they do is allow the reported capacity to reflect reality much more closely.
 
Exactly my plan. Thanks for going into detail about it.

The battery arrived in the mail today and right now im in the middle of selling my other car but will write up my pros and cons of the battery when I get on a computer.

Stay tuned!
 
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