battery life increaser ***Huge***

[Lat]

a) It's bad to discharge your battery completely every time; topping off li-on batteries helps reduce cycles and will give it a longer life

b) USB ports provide a maximum of 500mA, and your wall charger likely provides something like 2000mA. The higher amperage one will charge your phone faster, but reduce the lifespan of your battery (heat, etc). Please note that's reducing the LIFESPAN, not the immediate charge.

c) If you really want to be anal, for different test conditions, you have to use the exact same programs and monitor current draw with a program such as acb Power Monitor. It's not likely that you do that, so that pretty much makes any observations invalid, as it'd be based upon your useage (programs, backlight dependant on light sensor, etc) of the day.

[TurboFool]

Originally Posted by Lat

c) If you really want to be anal, for different test conditions, you have to use the exact same programs and monitor current draw with a program such as acb Power Monitor. It's not likely that you do that, so that pretty much makes any observations invalid, as it'd be based upon your useage (programs, backlight dependant on light sensor, etc) of the day.

That's the point I was trying to make. The closest you could do is approximate the results by running the phone for a week one way, and carefully documenting the amount of time it was used each day and how long the battery took to reach a certain level each day, then averaging out those two figures over the entire week. Then repeat the process for another week with the other charging method. It's not precise, but hopefully the week's worth of results would put it through a wide enough variety of usage styles that it'll cancel out any unusual usage patterns that would invalidate the test.

It's the best you can do without precise tools like the ones you mentioned, not to mention a control group of multiple phones with multiple users and blinding the user from what charging method was used to prevent subconscious observations or usage patterns that could skew the results.

[blue4shizzle]

Originally Posted by TurboFool

That's the point I was trying to make. The closest you could do is approximate the results by running the phone for a week one way, and carefully documenting the amount of time it was used each day and how long the battery took to reach a certain level each day, then averaging out those two figures over the entire week. Then repeat the process for another week with the other charging method. It's not precise, but hopefully the week's worth of results would put it through a wide enough variety of usage styles that it'll cancel out any unusual usage patterns that would invalidate the test.

It's the best you can do without precise tools like the ones you mentioned, not to mention a control group of multiple phones with multiple users and blinding the user from what charging method was used to prevent subconscious observations or usage patterns that could skew the results.

man.. like i said earlier, when its all said and done, you will find that none of these "so called tricks" will make a difference (or at least one worth bothering with anyway) in your phones life span. i keep saying how the battery has its limitations, and regardless of any way you decide to charge it, it will put out pretty much the same thing.

[TurboFool]

Originally Posted by blue4shizzle

man.. like i said earlier, when its all said and done, you will find that none of these "so called tricks" will make a difference (or at least one worth bothering with anyway) in your phones life span. i keep saying how the battery has its limitations, and regardless of any way you decide to charge it, it will put out pretty much the same thing.

Very likely that yes, the OP's trick would not accomplish anything. Charging the battery slower won't affect the charge of the battery (although it WILL affect the lifespan of the battery, and this is known), and obviously won't affect the lifespan of the phone (the battery is a separate item). Other things you've claimed couldn't work, though, have some evidence to the contrary.

[tentostoys]

With my 6700, I would charge up the battery by connecting it to my mac while I was traveling and the led would eventually indicate a full charge, and the phone would say 100% battery as well - then I would make one 5 minute phone call, and drop right down to 15% it was crazy. Since then I always use the wall charger. Maybe it has something to do with the way macs handle USB. USB devices get a max of 500 mA it is true, but they should have to negotiate with the host to request that high amount of current. I've been told that windows generally doesn't follow that part of the protocol (and therefore a lot of devices don't), but macs do. Anyway I just looked at the htc wall charger, and it says the output is 1 A (1000 mA) and 5 V so it is at least twice the current.

[esqueue]

Originally Posted by SprintTouch08

yeh this makes no sense, and there are far too many variables- mainly the inaccurate battery meter. This is like saying filling up on 92 octane gas in your v6 give you more mpg then 89, its both gas in the end no matter how the tank gets filled its full. The battery is full no matter how you charge it, its not going to lead to longer life by the manner in which you do it.

Please don't use bad car analogies. A car that has a high compression and is designed for higher octane will get horrible mpg on lower octane whether it is a 4 cylinder or a v12. Most newer cars with approximately 10:1 compression ratio or higher will dummy timing to reduce pinging if a lower than recommended octane is used. Gas isn't just gas. A higher octane rating means that it takes a little more to get it fired. This keeps high compression engines from pre-detonating. You will see no gains and possibility a mpg loss is you have a low compression engine.

I hate when people say gas is gas. Anyway, back on subject...I guess.

These threads are filled with so much false information about lithium batteries that it is ridiculous. Lithium batteries themselves don't NEED drain cycles to help performance. Doing this multiple times is actually bad for a battery. Some manufactures recommend a complete drain only when you thing that the reading is off then this calibrates the battery to get better readings.

[tsperez]

Originally Posted by esqueue

Please don't use bad car analogies. A car that has a high compression and is designed for higher octane will get horrible mpg on lower octane whether it is a 4 cylinder or a v12. Most newer cars with approximately 10:1 compression ratio or higher will dummy timing to reduce pinging if a lower than recommended octane is used. Gas isn't just gas. A higher octane rating means that it takes a little more to get it fired. This keeps high compression engines from pre-detonating. You will see no gains and possibility a mpg loss is you have a low compression engine.

I hate when people say gas is gas. Anyway, back on subject...I guess.

These threads are filled with so much false information about lithium batteries that it is ridiculous. Lithium batteries themselves don't NEED drain cycles to help performance. Doing this multiple times is actually bad for a battery. Some manufactures recommend a complete drain only when you thing that the reading is off then this calibrates the battery to get better readings.

Yeah... what he said... about both engines and Li batteries.
Off topic again... my motorcycle (Honda ST1300) has a problem with one of the knock sensors. (btw, cars don't know what kind of gas is in the tank. They use knock sensors to detect a knock or ping and to prevent engine damage they retard the ignition timing to prevent pre-ignition). Once I am under way and at high speed (large advance) my FI system light comes on and I see drops of mileage anywhere from 6 to 10 mpg less! "Normal" mileage at 75+mph is 46 to 51 but when that little light comes on I not only see the difference, I can feel the bike let up. Honda has been working on my problem for about a year now.

Back on topic... I try not to let my battery get too low. I just purchased a car charger to help me with that.

And as they say in the car industry... your mileage may vary.
tsp

[jds580s]

I have to admit I'm not as disappointed with the battery life in the Pro as I thought I might be. I was coming from an Apache with the 1800mah extended battery. The battery was 2 years old so it's life was partly used up, but my Pro lasts about as long. I don't make many calls but have moderately heavy data usage. I noticed the battery life improve (non scientifically) over the first few weeks of break in too.

[Palladium]

Originally Posted by blue4shizzle

my thing is, the ONLY reason why it takes so long to charge while connected to the usb, is because the screen is on.. and what is the biggest thing that causes our battery to drain?? <ding ding> the lcd screen.. so obviously the reason it takes longer to charge is simply because you have that lcd screen on during the process. there is no such thing as proper way to "top off" a batter, or technique of charging it. i dont think some of us are looking at this from a very logical/scientific standpoint. of course we all would like to improve our battery life.. but thinking of wild ways to charge it wont really change a thing. face it, we have a 1350 mah battery.. that is its limit. you wont be able to get a magical extra boost from it just from the way you charge it. it will depend on usage, settings, and what rom you are using. but the idea of charging it from a usb instead of a wall charger is definately not going to make a difference.

Let's hit the inaccuracies one at a time.

1) the biggest battery drains are (in order, DOCUMENTED)
Cellular Radios--- 400-700 mA
Wifi Radios 300-400 mA
Bluetooth Radios 200-300 ma
GPS Receiver 200-300 mA
Backlight 100 mA
LCD Screen 10-20 mA

2) the charge time is slower on USB because you have HALF the charging current available (500 mA on USB, 1000 mA on the HTC Charger)

3) I am not talking about charging with the backlight since most people will not change the default for it to power down after 60 seconds of inactivity on AC power.

4) There appears to be an issue when the unit is allowed to sleep in that it does not draw additional power from the charger USB after the charge cycle is completed, and begins to discharge the battery. In my opinion losing 10-20% of your battery capacity is significant.

[Baffles]

Okay, lets get a few things straight here. There seems to be a lot of stupidity in this thread, false information, guessing, whatever.

First of all, the reason you were to discharge till it shuts off every so often then charge fully has nothing to do with the battery itself, but the electronic calibration of the fuel gauge. The reason you seem to get better battery life after doing it is because the percentage it reads is more accurate after doing so. There are no mysterious chemicals in the battery or 'gunk' from manufacturing that have to be broken down.

As far as the USB port goes, USB ports top out normally around 500mA, versus the wall charger which puts out 1 amp. So it gives you half the power. However, power output doesn't mean too much, because li-ion batteries have to be charged specifically. As the battery gets fuller, the charge rate must be decreased, which is why the last 20% or so always takes the longest. A slow charge versus a fast charge doesn't really affect the battery 'conditioning' or whatever, it just pushes the battery more to its limits while charging. The only effect this has is long term usability being affected.

Lastly, these batteries are fine to "completely drain." The phone shuts off long before the battery is even close to being deeply discharged. Running it until it shuts off doesn't run the battery flat, it just runs it to the low end of its useful cycle, so there isn't much more damaged caused by a full cycle than if you only drain it half and recharge it.