A little tough Love about battery issues.

[kevm14]

Originally Posted by neilson

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

While we're on the subject:

The lithium Polymer battery

The lithium-polymer differentiates itself from conventional battery systems in the type of electrolyte used. The original design, dating back to the 1970s, uses a dry solid polymer electrolyte. This electrolyte resembles a plastic-like film that does not conduct electricity but allows ions exchange (electrically charged atoms or groups of atoms). The polymer electrolyte replaces the traditional porous separator, which is soaked with electrolyte.

The dry polymer design offers simplifications with respect to fabrication, ruggedness, safety and thin-profile geometry. With a cell thickness measuring as little as one millimeter (0.039 inches), equipment designers are left to their own imagination in terms of form, shape and size.

Unfortunately, the dry lithium-polymer suffers from poor conductivity. The internal resistance is too high and cannot deliver the current bursts needed to power modern communication devices and spin up the hard drives of mobile computing equipment. Heating the cell to 60°C (140°F) and higher increases the conductivity, a requirement that is unsuitable for portable applications.

To compromise, some gelled electrolyte has been added. The commercial cells use a separator/ electrolyte membrane prepared from the same traditional porous polyethylene or polypropylene separator filled with a polymer, which gels upon filling with the liquid electrolyte. Thus the commercial lithium-ion polymer cells are very similar in chemistry and materials to their liquid electrolyte counter parts.

Lithium-ion-polymer has not caught on as quickly as some analysts had expected. Its superiority to other systems and low manufacturing costs has not been realized. No improvements in capacity gains are achieved - in fact, the capacity is slightly less than that of the standard lithium-ion battery. Lithium-ion-polymer finds its market niche in wafer-thin geometries, such as batteries for credit cards and other such applications.

Advantages

• Very low profile - batteries resembling the profile of a credit card are feasible.
• Flexible form factor - manufacturers are not bound by standard cell formats. With high volume, any reasonable size can be produced economically.
• Lightweight - gelled electrolytes enable simplified packaging by eliminating the metal shell.
• Improved safety - more resistant to overcharge; less chance for electrolyte leakage.

Limitations

• Lower energy density and decreased cycle count compared to lithium-ion.
• Expensive to manufacture.
• No standard sizes. Most cells are produced for high volume consumer markets.
• Higher cost-to-energy ratio than lithium-ion

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-5.htm

I don't see any advantages for the use of Li-Poly in a cell phone. Although I did lol at the comment about 140°F. Maybe it IS perfect for the TP...

[Palladium]

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

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

You make a good point especially with regard to the screen. Version 0.2.0 should be finished in the next day or so (if debugging goes well), which has the following enhancements/options:

-Option to set minimum power state to allow the unit to drop to (i.e. Maintain full power state (i.e screen does not go off), Unattended (full power no screen), Standby (power saving mode) and sleep)
-Log Actual Data connection State (Active, Idle, cached etc)
-Average Current draw while on a Data Call & mAH consumed
-Average Current draw while on a phone call & mAH consumed
-Average current draw while NOT on a phone call & mAH Consumed
- Current Signal level (currently %, and dB (if I get it to work)

If anyone can think of anything else that would be helpful for diagnostic purposes, PM me with the suggestions....

[ScrapMaker]

Originally Posted by Palladium

You make a good point especially with regard to the screen. Version 0.2.0 should be finished in the next day or so (if debugging goes well), which has the following enhancements/options:

-Option to set minimum power state to allow the unit to drop to (i.e. Maintain full power state (i.e screen does not go off), Unattended (full power no screen), Standby (power saving mode) and sleep)
-Log Actual Data connection State (Active, Idle, cached etc)
-Average Current draw while on a Data Call & mAH consumed
-Average Current draw while on a phone call & mAH consumed
-Average current draw while NOT on a phone call & mAH Consumed
- Current Signal level (currently %, and dB (if I get it to work)

If anyone can think of anything else that would be helpful for diagnostic purposes, PM me with the suggestions....

You should make an option to do a "standardized test." Where the phone goes into a test mode, for, lets say 30 minutes. Perhaps you can have the user call some 1-800 number so it stays connected.

I'm just thinking of something that can be compared across the boards... I assume you cannot make your program call a number, but if you could, or at least instruct a user to dial some looping/non-disconnecting phone number, that would be awesome.

I know of no number like that, so I usually call up my voicemail, which requires my input... I wish there was a number to call to just listen to music.

I guess we could just call the IRS

Seriously though, a test that activates BT/disc, turns brightness up. Checks that your battery started at 100% (or is on the charger,) and does other things, like keep it from dimming/going into power-save modes... Then have the program call a number, or have the user do it, and then take measurements for 30 minutes or whatever. I think that would give some kickass results/information.

I would be more than willing to run something like that. Anyone know of a looping/etc phone number we can call?

P.S. you might want your test to close down all background processes, including ActiveSync, just to make the playing field a bit more even.

[DexterDawg]

Great thread and I'm glad this is stickied. There are a lot of first time users here that are trying to compare their battery life to their flip phone. One other comment about charging not keeping up with usage. The 700WX did that also and since that was never fixed then I doubt this issue will either. The battery life is acceptable given all the facts.

[ScrapMaker]

Originally Posted by DexterDawg

Great thread and I'm glad this is stickied. There are a lot of first time users here that are trying to compare their battery life to their flip phone. One other comment about charging not keeping up with usage. The 700WX did that also and since that was never fixed then I doubt this issue will either. The battery life is acceptable given all the facts.

It's not really that the charger can't "keep up," that we are worried about. Many phones are like this, unfortunately. What I hear of mostly, is that the phone heats up on the charger, during use, and STAYS hot, and prevents the battery from charging at all. Your phone can go from 100% to 0% in an hour or so--while plugged in.

This is something that most business users cannot deal with. I really hope this new replacement does not suffer from this glaring defect.

[feetfirst5]

I had a bad battery issue when I first purchased the phone. It drained within the first hour. I realized I had been charging the TP using the usb cord and my computer. I also noticed that the battery was not fully charged in the morning after charging using the usb computer cord. I have now started putting my TP on the house charger at night, and battery seems to be fully charged in the morning and lasts most of the day with regular phone use.

[Nagual]

Originally Posted by feetfirst5

I had a bad battery issue when I first purchased the phone. It drained within the first hour. I realized I had been charging the TP using the usb cord and my computer. I also noticed that the battery was not fully charged in the morning after charging using the usb computer cord. I have now started putting my TP on the house charger at night, and battery seems to be fully charged in the morning and lasts most of the day with regular phone use.

I recently rediscovered use of the wall charger too, and it does seem to make some difference. If nothing else, at least it's much faster than the computer connection.

[Big D5]

Thanks everyone for posting your thoughts and mostly for taking the time to read my OP it is a little long. This thread has served its purpose and since the traffic has died down I am going to remove it from the sticky list. I will add it to the FAQ so if someone would like to review it will be easier to find. Again thanks everyone for posting.

[Bill Cordray]

I am a Sprint Authorized Representative and have had my TP for 15 days. I totally agree with you on the use of batteries on any pda. We are asking the battery to do a lot of work and it is a very small power source. My TP stops charging intermittently and it get very warm when charging or with extensive use and I use it constantly. I have contacted our HTC rep and he replied with not having heard of this issue but will check into it and update me. I am replacing the battery this afternoon at the suggestion of our Sprint Tech, here in Indy. I will test it for a few days and update on Monday with my experience.

[Nagual]

Thanks for the due diligence Bill. Eagerly awaiting your further input.

Coming from a non-smartphone the battery life did surprise me for a little while but I'm learning to live with it. Our electronics are advancing so fast and unfortunately power sources just can't keep up...no free lunches (at least not yet).