extorian
05-21-2009, 04:13 PM
This is a review of the "4U™ 1600 mAh Slim Extended Battery" purchased from Fommy at http://www.fommy.co.uk/view-full-page.asp?skuno=81931 (UK), or http://www.fommy.com/view-full-page.asp?skuno=81931 (US).
You will note it gets a relatively poor set of reviews on Fommy's website, but this is because most of the reviewers are NOT actually reviewing the product. Out of 13 reviews, 9 are reviewing their experiences with Fommy's website (being out of stock, etc.), haven't even purchased it, or state they haven't actually tested the battery. Only 4 are actually reviewing the product itself after actually receiving it and trying it. However, even one of those rates it less because the one he got has MORE capacity than the one he ordered! If you average the 4 real reviews then it gets 4.5 stars out of 5.
The battery is the exact same size as the standard 1150mAh battery. The website shows a different 1600mAh battery to the one that actually arrived. The one I received states it's 1700mAh on the sticker on the back of the battery. Other people reviewing the product on Fommy's website also noted this discrepancy.
Here are some pics I took of what I actually received (click for bigger versions):
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4665/cimg0584.th.jpg (http://img41.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cimg0584.jpg) . http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/6925/cimg0585.th.jpg (http://img38.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cimg0585.jpg)
I ran the new battery through a few full charge/discharge cycles using it as I would normally to see if I actually noticed any obvious and significant improvement in its capacity over the standard battery. My initial feeling was that by the end of the day the typical power remaining was about the same as with the standard battery. Of course this is subjective... So, onto something a little more scientific...
For both batteries I fully charged them over night.
To ensure there were no outside influences, I switched off as many background apps/services as I could, turned off GPS, and activated Aeroplane mode (so Wifi, 2G, 3G, etc
are all off too). The Brightness was set to 40% just because that's what I usually have it set at. I kept the Watts app running, as this app records the battery level over time and is needed so that I can see a log of when the phone switched itself off when the battery ran out.
The morning after fully charging the battery, I started Neocore in Interactive mode, and at exactly 09:00 I unplugged the charger and left the phone alone until it switched itself off.
For those of you who don't know, Neocore is an app that shows off the 3D graphics capabilities of the G1 in an infinite loop, and it prevents the phone from sleeping. As such, it's ideal for draining the battery in a controlled manner, and would be analogous to playing a graphics intensive game on the G1 over that time.
Finally, I checked the Watts app to get the time that the phone switched off. As I'm relying on an interpretation of a graph to find the time the phone switched off, there may be an error of a few minutes either way, but not enough to significantly affect the end result.
RESULTS
Extended 1700 mAh battery lasted: 4 hours and 40 minutes.
Standard 1150 mAh battery lasted: 4 hours and 46 minutes.
As a side note, when I inserted the standard battery (which was already fully charged) after the end of the first test with the extended battery, the Watts app showed the power level on the graph at 68%, despite the phone's standby screen showing 100%. This is very interesting as if you take 1150 (the size of the standard battery) divide this by 68 (the percentage Watts showed) to give the value of 1%, and then multiply this by 100 to give the value of 100%, you get 1691, which is almost 1700 - the quoted size of the new battery.
I'll repeat the tests a few more times and I'll post back here IF any significant improvement is noticed in the extended battery after I've used it for a bit.
But, in summary, my advice would be to not bother wasting your money. If you want a true extended battery, your only real option are the ones that require a larger battery cover to accommodate them.
You will note it gets a relatively poor set of reviews on Fommy's website, but this is because most of the reviewers are NOT actually reviewing the product. Out of 13 reviews, 9 are reviewing their experiences with Fommy's website (being out of stock, etc.), haven't even purchased it, or state they haven't actually tested the battery. Only 4 are actually reviewing the product itself after actually receiving it and trying it. However, even one of those rates it less because the one he got has MORE capacity than the one he ordered! If you average the 4 real reviews then it gets 4.5 stars out of 5.
The battery is the exact same size as the standard 1150mAh battery. The website shows a different 1600mAh battery to the one that actually arrived. The one I received states it's 1700mAh on the sticker on the back of the battery. Other people reviewing the product on Fommy's website also noted this discrepancy.
Here are some pics I took of what I actually received (click for bigger versions):
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4665/cimg0584.th.jpg (http://img41.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cimg0584.jpg) . http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/6925/cimg0585.th.jpg (http://img38.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cimg0585.jpg)
I ran the new battery through a few full charge/discharge cycles using it as I would normally to see if I actually noticed any obvious and significant improvement in its capacity over the standard battery. My initial feeling was that by the end of the day the typical power remaining was about the same as with the standard battery. Of course this is subjective... So, onto something a little more scientific...
For both batteries I fully charged them over night.
To ensure there were no outside influences, I switched off as many background apps/services as I could, turned off GPS, and activated Aeroplane mode (so Wifi, 2G, 3G, etc
are all off too). The Brightness was set to 40% just because that's what I usually have it set at. I kept the Watts app running, as this app records the battery level over time and is needed so that I can see a log of when the phone switched itself off when the battery ran out.
The morning after fully charging the battery, I started Neocore in Interactive mode, and at exactly 09:00 I unplugged the charger and left the phone alone until it switched itself off.
For those of you who don't know, Neocore is an app that shows off the 3D graphics capabilities of the G1 in an infinite loop, and it prevents the phone from sleeping. As such, it's ideal for draining the battery in a controlled manner, and would be analogous to playing a graphics intensive game on the G1 over that time.
Finally, I checked the Watts app to get the time that the phone switched off. As I'm relying on an interpretation of a graph to find the time the phone switched off, there may be an error of a few minutes either way, but not enough to significantly affect the end result.
RESULTS
Extended 1700 mAh battery lasted: 4 hours and 40 minutes.
Standard 1150 mAh battery lasted: 4 hours and 46 minutes.
As a side note, when I inserted the standard battery (which was already fully charged) after the end of the first test with the extended battery, the Watts app showed the power level on the graph at 68%, despite the phone's standby screen showing 100%. This is very interesting as if you take 1150 (the size of the standard battery) divide this by 68 (the percentage Watts showed) to give the value of 1%, and then multiply this by 100 to give the value of 100%, you get 1691, which is almost 1700 - the quoted size of the new battery.
I'll repeat the tests a few more times and I'll post back here IF any significant improvement is noticed in the extended battery after I've used it for a bit.
But, in summary, my advice would be to not bother wasting your money. If you want a true extended battery, your only real option are the ones that require a larger battery cover to accommodate them.