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MUST READ - Testing Aftermarket extended batetries

Trying to see what experiences others have had w/these aftermarket batteries

  • Have aftermarket battery, it lasts like it should

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • Have aftermarket battery, does not last like it should

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • Have Motorola Extened Battery, it lasts longer than any

    Votes: 7 70.0%
  • Total voters
    10
R

robersml

Newbie
Here's the deal. I liked the Motorola Extended Battery, but still wanted more power because even that one lasts only 9 hours w/data turned on, so I bought two others. Those seemed to die quickly, I was frustrated as shit, so I did a test, here are the results:

I wanted to conduct a test between aftermarket batteries for my Bionic, to see IF these batteries, although cheap, really were worth it and LASTED longer. Results? They're definitely not worth it. Especially the Z-Cell, which performed the worst

3 batteries were:
Motorola OEM extended battery, 2760 mAh
Z-cell battery, 3600 mAh
Generic extended battery bought for $12 off eBay, 4200 mAh

The test:
Loaded and played 15:00 HD Youtube video (Kevin Hart Grown Little Man part 3) w/4g connection, Mobile hotspot feature on

Motorola OEM drained 7% (193 mAh), Z-cell drained 9% (324 mAh), Generic drained 8% (336 mAh)

Do a little proportion with each battery (7%/15min = 100%/?min), and these batteries would have lasted:

2760 mAh OEM motorola extended battery: 214 minutes
3600 mAh Z-cell extended battery: 167 minutes
4200 mAh Generic extended battery: 197 minutes

Conclusion,
You can make your own conclusion, but its hard for me to believe these batteries really will last longer with the test I just did.... Im sticking with the Motorola Battery for now

Hope this helps somebody... like I said, I just needed something that would last all day, and instead of somebody else having to buy 3 batteries to figure it out, I wanted to publish what I did so maybe it will help out somebody else in the process.

I have no affiliation with any of these batteries or companies, just simply trying to spread knowledge. If anyone else has had different results/experiences please let me know

Cheers,

mark
 
Honestly, I wouldn't even risk putting a 3rd party battery in my device. There are to many reports of overheating as well as actually damaging the phone for me to even run the risk.

It used to be from what I understand, that battery life could be measured, not in hours, but in minutes and charging was more than an overnight affair (I would have hated having a phone then if that was the case). Then we got to the point when lithium ion batteries came out that phones would charge in a couple of hours and last days. I remember going 3 or 4 days between charged and that was with talking a LOT on my phone.

Now however, we have turned our phones into essentially pocket computers. This has the result of taking us backward in battery life per charge. Is it worth it? Well, depends on the person really and what they want to do with their phone. Me personally, yes it is.

Hopefully one day soon we can have batteries that will power these devices for days between charging, but I have a feeling once that happens we will just make the phones do even more to bring us right back to where we are.

But in my opinion, these devices cost to much to risk putting some 3rd party battery in them all in the hopes of getting a few extra minutes of time out of them, and usually they don't even deliver any more.
 
yessir your welcome, you know some people "claim" to have gottten 24 hours + off these $10 batteries but i just dont know how.. esp. with this test
 
robersml said:
Here's the deal. I liked the Motorola Extended Battery, but still wanted more power because even that one lasts only 9 hours w/data turned on, so I bought two others. Those seemed to die quickly, I was frustrated as shit, so I did a test, here are the results:

I wanted to conduct a test between aftermarket batteries for my Bionic, to see IF these batteries, although cheap, really were worth it and LASTED longer. Results? They're definitely not worth it. Especially the Z-Cell, which performed the worst

3 batteries were:
Motorola OEM extended battery, 2760 mAh
Z-cell battery, 3600 mAh
Generic extended battery bought for $12 off eBay, 4200 mAh

The test:
Loaded and played 15:00 HD Youtube video (Kevin Hart Grown Little Man part 3) w/4g connection, Mobile hotspot feature on

Motorola OEM drained 7% (193 mAh), Z-cell drained 9% (324 mAh), Generic drained 8% (336 mAh)

Do a little proportion with each battery (7%/15min = 100%/?min), and these batteries would have lasted:

2760 mAh OEM motorola extended battery: 214 minutes
3600 mAh Z-cell extended battery: 167 minutes
4200 mAh Generic extended battery: 197 minutes

Conclusion,
You can make your own conclusion, but its hard for me to believe these batteries really will last longer with the test I just did.... Im sticking with the Motorola Battery for now

Hope this helps somebody... like I said, I just needed something that would last all day, and instead of somebody else having to buy 3 batteries to figure it out, I wanted to publish what I did so maybe it will help out somebody else in the process.

I have no affiliation with any of these batteries or companies, just simply trying to spread knowledge. If anyone else has had different results/experiences please let me know

Cheers,

mark
Click to expand...

There are several extended batteries on the market - the last one you bought I'm willing to bet will die inside of two months - fake Chinese-made batteries with generic names have been a problem on eBay since my D1 days.

The Z-cell is not a quality battery either.

The Moto OEM Extended battery is a work horse - it can usually give more than 60% increase in battery time that you would not expect, given that the battery is not even a 60% increase in capacity. I have a pair of them and an external battery charger - I'm good even if I watch Netflix continuously on 4G for 10 hours a day.

Some reputable companies also make extended batteries for the BIONIC that might be worth looking at for testing, but those get pricey quickly.

Finally, how did you calculate the actual mA used, from the percentage?
 
johnlgalt said:
There are several extended batteries on the market - the last one you bought I'm willing to bet will die inside of two months - fake Chinese-made batteries with generic names have been a problem on eBay since my D1 days.

The Z-cell is not a quality battery either.

The Moto OEM Extended battery is a work horse - it can usually give more than 60% increase in battery time that you would not expect, given that the battery is not even a 60% increase in capacity. I have a pair of them and an external battery charger - I'm good even if I watch Netflix continuously on 4G for 10 hours a day.

Some reputable companies also make extended batteries for the BIONIC that might be worth looking at for testing, but those get pricey quickly.

Finally, how did you calculate the actual mA used, from the percentage?
Click to expand...


Yep, they said they would send me another one (of the 4200 mAh) because this one was bad and theirs should last longer so we'll see

All I did was just take the % used from the battery and converted to total mAh that were used. So with the Zcell, it has 3600 mAh in the battery, it drained 9% in the test, so 9% of 3600 is 324. Is that on par with a pretty reliable test you think?

Here are the #'s for all 3
7% drain for the Motorola (193 mAh)
9% drain for the Zcell (324 mAh)
8% drain for the Generic (336 mAh)
 
johnlgalt said:
Also, on GB with good settings, you can easily get 24 hours on a single charge on hte Motorola battery - see this thread: http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-bionic/450328-bionic-extended-battery-awseome.html

And specifically my post http://androidforums.com/motorola-d...nic-extended-battery-awseome.html#post3516353

Those screen captures are from my phone Getting well over 38 hours on a single charge.
Click to expand...

hey what do u mean GB with good settings?? I must not have my Bionic tuned perfectly yet and still have work to do if others are getting all-days use with HEAVY internet use. If I leave my data connection on (gets mostly 4g), mine lasts about 9 hours with normal use..... help!!

Also my phone is rooted, has a cpu tuner app, so I basically never have the phone in performance, only in "good" mode, which it tops out at 800mhz I think, and is in "extreme powersave" when screen off.
 
robersml said:
Yep, they said they would send me another one (of the 4200 mAh) because this one was bad and theirs should last longer so we'll see

All I did was just take the % used from the battery and converted to total mAh that were used. So with the Zcell, it has 3600 mAh in the battery, it drained 9% in the test, so 9% of 3600 is 324. Is that on par with a pretty reliable test you think?

Here are the #'s for all 3
7% drain for the Motorola (193 mAh)
9% drain for the Zcell (324 mAh)
8% drain for the Generic (336 mAh)
Click to expand...

I was wondering if something like a charge measure app could be more accurate in terms of telling you exactly how much battery is used. Also, is that % difference from 100 or is that from a standard reading before and after the video is played?

robersml said:
hey what do u mean GB with good settings?? I must not have my Bionic tuned perfectly yet and still have work to do if others are getting all-days use with HEAVY internet use. If I leave my data connection on (gets mostly 4g), mine lasts about 9 hours with normal use..... help!!

Also my phone is rooted, has a cpu tuner app, so I basically never have the phone in performance, only in "good" mode, which it tops out at 800mhz I think, and is in "extreme powersave" when screen off.
Click to expand...

Well, I mean barely using the phone at all during that test. When I first bought the batteries, I could easily get 30+ hours, but now, I have 6 Google accounts on my phone, all of which are synchronizing mail,contacts, drive, etc., plus dropbox, FB, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, FourSquare, etc.

Good settings would be to limit those apps from updating at times when you know that you will not be using them, so they are not taking memory....Screen brightness settings, using WiFi more than cell data (which, I admit, is another reason my battery life has gone down - sine I got 4G in my area I rarely ever use WiFi anymore b/c my 4G connection is just friggin awesomely fast).
 
That is a reading from 80%. The Motorola and the Generic were at 80% when started and the Zcell was at 75. I figured they were close enough
 
Ok, that's good then. It means that your testing is reasonably objective.

The higher end extended batteries will probably out perform the Motorola one, but i just use the Motorola extended battery. Er, batteries, i have 2 of them and an external charger.

I'll admit also, the batteries were already 5 months old when i got 4G in my area, and i just found out today that my work area now also had 4G, so this will be interesting to see how my batteries hold up.
 
The only aftermarket extended batterys I ever thought about buying (from back in by blackberry days) are from Seidio as they are usually high quality products. However theirs adds a lot of bulk to the Bionic in a very ugly block shaped back.
I am very happy with Motorola's OEM extended battery for the Bionic and ordered two more of them when they cut the price in half @ the Verizon store. Also got the external battery charger.
 
Here is some tests and information that I think would also be helpful.
Use a good analytical balance and measure each batteries weight. You are going to need more stuff to get more output, is it really there?

Battery voltage over time graph would show the power available, manufactures could be measuring their batteries with different loads and voltage limits.
 
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