A little tough Love about battery issues.

[kevm14]

Originally Posted by mdodge

The tech for such small and powerful processors, high capacity memory cards, batteries..existed 10 years ago. But it wasnt cost effective enough to bring mainstream. So really these devices aren't the cutting edge of technology, they are just the most cutting edge of profitable technology in its field.

So the reality is that until the price is right for business, we really cant expect these devices to be perfect and or live up to every expectation we have. There should be improvements from model to model and I would say its a fair to say the TP is an improvement over the Mogul, which the TP was really the upgrade from.

This goes along with what I was trying to say. It is unfortunate, but to get the TP in a consistent state, meeting our expectations based on the specifications, it would be a lot more expensive. It's sad because it already is expensive, at least to me.

[kevm14]

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

A li-ion battery should NOT require a "break-in" period. The only thing you are doing by draining/charging the battery is calibrating the TP to give proper battery % readings. The problem that sticks out, is the fact that the phone stops charging. Most of us, from what I can tell, really aren't TOO mad about the battery life itself. I think it's okay, especially for what the phone is.

I think Li-Ion DOES require a break-in. I am aware of the calibration and I think the break-in is doing more than that, based on my experience with Li-Ion-powered devices without intelligent battery life reporting.

[kevm14]

Originally Posted by nuguy

has anyone even thought about... for a radio to work efficiently, the antena needs to be properly tuned.

Doesn't the TP have some kind of fractal-based internal antenna?

[dew.man]

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

Sounds like you have a magical Touch Pro. Most of us can't get the phone to charge at all, with use like that, (or much, much less.) So congratulations on your find. Hopefully all the rest of us can get our hands on one like that.

Most of us? Mine works fine as well!

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

I wish someone would write a test program that takes a TP, with battery at 100%, and then runs calculations, and measures battery % vs time vs heat vs voltage. Then we could compare apples to apples--rather than one objective review after another.

abcPowerMeter is a good start. I used it to measure current draw and tweak my phone config for optimum performance based on the apps/update frequency/etc.

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

I have a feeling many of us would gladly sacrifice a bit of performance to get the phone to stay cooler, and actually charge.

This has happened to me several times on my Pro. Some of us just appear to be really lucky...

You need to remember that in threads like these, you will generally not hear from the people who are not having the problems. So if you don't take that in to consideration, you may come to the conclusion that the majority of users are having a problem whereas they are not.

I bought my phone from Best Buy the Friday before they came out. It was a first batch phone, and while my battery life could be better, I am very satisfied. I can, and often do, drive with the iGo8/gps running and my battery level does not drop.

On one occassion, after going to my vacation property in the country and having the phone on all weekend with little to no signal half of the time, I found that the phone heated up quickly and the battery drained unusually quickly. After the soft-reset, all is good again.

With that said, I would like to remind you that we all already know that the phone is very sensitive to cell towers/coverage in terms of battery drain...

[lweisenb]

My battery now lasts about a day, with moderate use. But that is only with Bluetooth, Wifi, and GPS turned off. I think I noticed the biggest differant with GPS off (Settings/Phone/Services/Location setting). Before turning BT and GPS off mine would drop 10-15% an hour without use (yes I know the gauge might not be accurate but I never made it more then 6-8 hour without shutdown).

I also experience more lockups overnight using htc chargers then using motorola (which are only 550w). I also experience extreme heat and battery drain while on charger if I have GPS and BT on while talking on the phone.

As a side note, I also purchased from BB and my neighbor is manager for a larger BB. He said they sold 6 and received 2 returns from poor battery life, as well as 5 other people looking to return units from other stores because all the local stores are out of stock. They had 8 to start with. (sorry haven't talked to him in almost 2 weeks to hear an update).

[MadManX]

I figured since I have 2 TPs I should pipe in a little.

One of my TPs BLOWS... I can't get it to charge, it dies while plugged in... And it is freaking hotter that crap all the time. It rarely if ever says the battery is at 100% and even after sitting on the charger all night the battery reports 95%. I have had this one for almost 2 weeks and will be complaining about it torday.

My second TP was bought a week later (it was one of the back ordered phones)... And nothing. It works just fine. Funny thing is, the build date was 2 days older on that phone. I have since flashed the same OS on both (basically downgraded one to match the good one) and still the same problems.

I have also started running an app to monitor power and battery temprature. When the phone stops charging the battery temprature is usually pretty resonable (about 88F), and other days it will get well over 90F and still charge fine. Its the Radio the gets FREAKIN HOT... My fist TP will not run an entire night not on a charger, it is very unrelieable during the day, and its plugged into a PC 90% of the time (and only charging 25% of that time) I can't even make long calls.

IMO there is a major QC issue with these handsets... Having one that never gets unreasnably warm and one that will make you very uncomfortable to hold, let alone stick to the side of you head. I can contest there is a problem with these phones and I don't think it is battery related. I think it is radio related.

I will be getting back with Sprint today since this TP was to replace my under par Mogul... And at this point, my old 6700 was more reliable than both.

-MadManX

[blasphemous_prime]

I also can't wait until Seidio comes out with extended batteries as well, but I do also have 2 TPs and the same car charger which I used for my Mogul before for those occasional road trips, which I don't mind swapping batteries from time to time. C'mon Seidio... Make something happen already.

[ScrapMaker]

Originally Posted by kevm14

I think Li-Ion DOES require a break-in. I am aware of the calibration and I think the break-in is doing more than that, based on my experience with Li-Ion-powered devices without intelligent battery life reporting.

I've never heard of Li-Ion even having a memory. That was supposed to be the whole point of these batteries... I've never read a manual or anything that says to "condition" a Li-Ion battery..

Originally Posted by dew.man

Most of us? Mine works fine as well!

abcPowerMeter is a good start. I used it to measure current draw and tweak my phone config for optimum performance based on the apps/update frequency/etc.

You need to remember that in threads like these, you will generally not hear from the people who are not having the problems. So if you don't take that in to consideration, you may come to the conclusion that the majority of users are having a problem whereas they are not.

I bought my phone from Best Buy the Friday before they came out. It was a first batch phone, and while my battery life could be better, I am very satisfied. I can, and often do, drive with the iGo8/gps running and my battery level does not drop.

On one occassion, after going to my vacation property in the country and having the phone on all weekend with little to no signal half of the time, I found that the phone heated up quickly and the battery drained unusually quickly. After the soft-reset, all is good again.

With that said, I would like to remind you that we all already know that the phone is very sensitive to cell towers/coverage in terms of battery drain...

Looking at the polls, most people seem to have battery/heat issues... That's what I was going by. Plus all 4 that I have owned have had this problem

Originally Posted by Palladium

I have not done a hard reset but still experience the heat issue, and have from day one (it's something I've learned to live with while I reasearch WHY it gets hot)

What kind of calculations do you want it to run? My battery log prog will keep a complete log of power draw, voltage, and battery temperature. and system events. I modified it to let the unit go to sleep, but my original version keept it in full power mode with the screen off. I could dump in a routine to do some heavy calculations the entire time and put in the option to enable or disable that feature. I have run some of my calculation intensive software while logging, and never see over 230mA of battery draw, (i.e. the application processor/WinMo side seems quite efficent) Where I have seen the heavy battery draw is with the transmitter. Which is why I am conviced that the issue lies in the radio ROM. (Since LG uses the RFT61xx series transmitters on many of their handsets (eg vx8300/8350) without major reported issues)

It would be nice if it was just a more standardized test. Like it asks you to dial your voicemail or something, and then it does stuff like keep the screen on, or something. Just to keep everyone's test more comparable.

Just food for thought--is all

[neilson]

Li-Po > Li-Ion. Simple as that.

[kevm14]

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

I've never heard of Li-Ion even having a memory. That was supposed to be the whole point of these batteries... I've never read a manual or anything that says to "condition" a Li-Ion battery..

I recently bought a cordless tool set, and it uses Li-Ion batteries. I could have sworn that I had noticably more capacity after the first one or two charge cycles. However, after research it would appear that the exact type of Li-Ion is not the same. Still, I have heard this before. So I did more digging. I found this:

Preparing new lithium-ion for use

Unlike nickel and lead-based batteries, a new lithium-ion pack does not need cycling through charging and discharging. Priming will make little difference because the maximum capacity of lithium-ion is available right from the beginning. Neither does a full discharge improve the capacity of a faded pack. However, a full discharge/charge will reset the digital circuit of a 'smart' battery to improve the state-of-charge estimation

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-12.htm

So there you go. You are right, according to this source which appears to be good.