"Charge Opportunistically" vs Removable Battery

[MotionMan]

I use Mophies. Protective case and backup-battery-on-demand in one.

Nunchuk not found.

MotionMan

 

[Nec_V20]

You can charge my 5,000mah charger with it, lol!

 

[JimmiG]

Another plus to removable batteries are that you can easily replace... the battery.

The battery is a consumable, therefore I want to be able to replace it. Forget about day to day use, you can't replace your internal battery with a battery pack. True, most people update their phones often, but the time is coming where current phones will be good enough for years, and at that point I bet the thing driving many people to upgrade will be because their internal battery is hosed.

This is the biggest argument for replaceable batteries, IMO. Li-Ion batteries begin to degrade after only one year while a good current smartphone should last you 2-3 years.

However looking at videos and pics online, it seems taking the back cover off the G2 at least, is quite easy. It's almost like a removable back cover. Makes you wonder just how few millimeters they actually shaved off, because once removed it looks like any other phone with a removable back cover:
http://androidfannetwork.com/2013/09/23/the-lg-g2-has-a-removable-back/
Looks like they just made the back cover harder to pry off...

With early phones like the Nexus One, being able to swap batteries mid-day was essential because the phone wouldn't make it a full day on one charge. However my LG G2 lasts an average of 20 hours on one charge, according to GSam battery monitor. Of course with heavy use, it's probably possible to kill it in 4-5 hours, but who wants to squint at a tiny screen for 5 hours non-stop?

 

[WelshBloke]

I use Mophies. Protective case and backup-battery-on-demand in one.

Nunchuk not found.

MotionMan

They are pretty chunky and expensive for a 1500mAh battery ($79).

 

[Fingolfin269]

Soon we will start getting detained by the TSA for "stealing electricity".

 

[MotionMan]

They are pretty chunky and expensive for a 1500mAh battery ($79).

I just got one for my iPhone 5 on sale for $35.

MotionMan

 

[WelshBloke]

I just got one for my iPhone 5 on sale for $35.

MotionMan

That's a pretty good deal. :thumbup:

 

[SpongeBob]

This is why I love my Maxx HD. Never even have to worry about battery. Just charge when I am sleeping. I can probably count on one hand the amount of times its ever even dropped below 40% in a day over the last 13+ months.

 

[ponyo]

That's a pretty good deal. :thumbup:

He left out the refurb part. Still a decent deal. It's the best solution to iPhone sealed battery problem.

 

[SunnyD]

My problem with non-replaceable batteries isn't the day to day usage, but rather the lifespan of the phone. My wife's Droid 4 is still a completely usable phone, and in fact just about the best phone I can get get for use on PagePlus especially given her preference of having a physical keyboard. The battery life on it has gotten absolutely terrible over the last several months, and guess what? It's not user replaceable. In fact, it's one phone that is so consumer unfriendly in terms of replacing the battery, that I pretty much HAVE to get her a new phone sometime within the next 3 to 6 months at the current rate her battery is decaying.

A battery pack isn't going to solve this issue. I'd gladly sacrifice a couple hundred mAh in a phone to be able to replace a battery so as not to end-of-life a phone that is still completely usable otherwise.

 

[bearxor]

Really? It doesn't look that hard.

It looks like they use some adhesive for the battery, so the recommendation is to use something to pry it up as opposed to trying to pull it up, but i imagine it's nothing that twenty minutes and a hairdryer couldn't help you get past.

 

[Zaap]

Yeah if you're the DIY type then "non user serviceable" often doesn't apply to you.

Heck a Galaxy S3 screen replacement sure as heck isn't user-replacable but damned if that stopped me from doing it.

 

[mnewsham]

Yeah if you're the DIY type then "non user serviceable" often doesn't apply to you.

Heck a Galaxy S3 screen replacement sure as heck isn't user-replacable but damned if that stopped me from doing it.

This, anyone with moderate tech hard ware experience shouldn't have too much trouble doing basic replacement stuff, even if it is for something not strictly user replaceable.

 

[SunnyD]

Really? It doesn't look that hard.

It looks like they use some adhesive for the battery, so the recommendation is to use something to pry it up as opposed to trying to pull it up, but i imagine it's nothing that twenty minutes and a hairdryer couldn't help you get past.

I was pretty sure the D4 battery was the one that was glued down to pretty much everything with copious amounts of pretty much epoxy. Maybe it was one of the later Droids (Maxx maybe?) that has me confused now. I have to go back and double check. I do recall it being one of them that basically amounted to trying to remove the battery equated to physically destroying the phone.

 

[sm625]

Not only should phones have removable batteries, but they should also have a small lithium coin battery so that you can change the main battery without having to power down.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Not only should phones have removable batteries, but they should also have a small lithium coin battery so that you can change the main battery without having to power down.

Actually, it's the fact that you have to power off to change the battery that negates much of the benefit of battery swap so, for me, this only adds to my feeling that the built in battery should be big enough to eliminate the need.

I'd argue that even though Android phones have gotten better over the last few years as far as battery life is concerned they are still underweight in battery capacity to the tune of about 30% on average. Since the battery makes up about 30% or the phones volume increasing the battery by 30% would, at worst, increase phone volume by about 9%. So, for a phone that's 8.5mm thick that would be equivalent to increasing the thickness by about 0.8mm. In reality, there is more than enough room in a modern 5" class phone for the larger battery without making the phone any bigger.


Brian

 

[WelshBloke]

Actually, it's the fact that you have to power off to change the battery that negates much of the benefit of battery swap so, for me, this only adds to my feeling that the built in battery should be big enough to eliminate the need.

It takes...what? 20 seconds to pull the battery out, put another in and boot.

Those 20 seconds negate all the use you'd get out of that?

Personally I'd rather have a big (3500 mAh or so) battery and not need to change it, but when I do need to change it I dont think "Hmmm I could just turn my phone off for twenty seconds and have a fully charged phone or I could let my battery die... Yeah I'll let it die".

 

[TuxDave]

It takes...what? 20 seconds to pull the battery out, put another in and boot.

Those 20 seconds negate all the use you'd get out of that?

Personally I'd rather have a big (3500 mAh or so) battery and not need to change it, but when I do need to change it I dont think "Hmmm I could just turn my phone off for twenty seconds and have a fully charged phone or I could let my battery die... Yeah I'll let it die".

The time lost exceeds the absolute time for a reboot. If someone told me to reboot my computer and it would only take 2 minutes for the reboot, I have to wrap up everything I was doing, reboot, and get everything back up and running.

But if you say 20s vs 3-4 minutes doesn't change the argument, that's fine. I'm just pointing out why time loss isn't equal to the absolute reboot time.

 

[Zaap]

Sooo.... I should have to tether my phone to something for several hours...

... to save myself 20 seconds of swap time?


Oookay.

 

[zerogear]

They are pretty chunky and expensive for a 1500mAh battery ($79).

See, while those things are tempting, the form factor makes it ever only fit one phone. Seems like a bit much for a one-off battery. (In terms of phones)

 

[MotionMan]

See, while those things are tempting, the form factor makes it ever only fit one phone. Seems like a bit much for a one-off battery. (In terms of phones)

I keep my phones for 2 years, so having a battery/case that fits that phone is not a big deal. Plus they add to the resale value if you sell them with the phone.

MotionMan

 

[Brian Stirling]

Sooo.... I should have to tether my phone to something for several hours...

... to save myself 20 seconds of swap time?


Oookay.

No, what I've done and thankfully not had to do very often, is plug it in while driving to/from lunch or while I'm at my desk. The phone is still usable while plugged in and I've seldom needed to have it plugged in for more than an hour and more typically 30 minutes.

Again, the better way is to have a larger battery and not need to charge or swap, but if I have to charge I charge.

I've owned phones with replaceable batteries and phones with soldered in batteries and could count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of times I actually swapped a battery.

I had the SGNexus and it wasn't great for battery life so I wound up getting the larger battery which helped.

I wouldn't tout this as a great thing and scoff at the idea that "opportunistic charging" is somehow the solution to dead batteries and once again, give me a bigger battery, inside my phone, and be done with his 99% of the time.


Brian

 

[Zaap]

That's all fine and good (and basically everyone can do the same thing, swappable battery or not. Dead charge to fully charged in 30 minutes is... well, that's a feat) but I'm of course responding to the silly notion that a 20 second swap somehow negates the benefits of swapping out a battery.

There's a serious disconnect in logic sometimes with this particular discussion. (As well as mSD cards, another concept that seems to bamboozle some folks for reasons I'll probably never understand.)

 

[godl!ke]

What's so bad really about powering down? Is your phone running Win98?

If you really think that powering down "negates much of the benefit of battery swap" then you need to reevaluate the entire issue. In this world, all benefits are accompanied by trade-offs.

For the price of powering down, I get a fresh battery nearly instantly, as well as carefree phone usage. And for the price of risking running out of juice on an atypical day of usage, you get a nice unibody. Neither choice is inherently superior. It's up to the individual to decide what group of benefits he values more.

 

[openwheel]

I don't like having to power down in order to gain more juice. A battery pack is more useful imo