Used to the relatively infinite battery life of the BlackBerry, transitioning to an Android came as a bit of a jolt; out of the box I was only receiving around eight hrs of use from a complete charge. A common story for a good deal of men and women I'm sure... After some (well, fourteen days) of adjusting I managed to reliably get about 36 hours from the battery however it still meant I had to charge the telephone just about every day to be sure I would not have a flat battery pack at an essential time.
I decided it was time we evaluated one of the Mugen extended batteries I had learned about.
I spoke to our pals at MobileFun and asked for the Mugen Power 1800mAh android battery for the Desire S. The next day it arrived in the post, and it was easily popped out from the packaging. The initial point I noticed was that Mugen recommend the battery be fully charged for no less than 12 hours just before initial use. It is then advised the battery is allowed to drain totally just before recharging again. This really should be repeated for the first few charges. At first we believed this was baloney, but on investigating further it is in fact to permit the handset to reset it's battery level indicator for the greater capacity battery.
On first charge re-charge (soon after the initial 12 hour charge), it seemed to take *ages* for the telephone to tell me the battery was full. Subsequent charges having said that seem to be significantly quicker (about 90 minutes compared to nearly three hours at initial). This really is apparently rather typical and is just the phone performing an overcharge for a brand new battery.
Right after some full cycles, we decided the time had come to test the battery with some times comparing it to a Desire S having a stock battery pack.
Both phones were reset with new email accounts and twitter feeds, each had been set to identical notification update periods. They had been as closely as attainable *identical* to each other with just the batteries becoming different.
Performing identical tasks on each, the initial point noticed was with the Mugen powered telephone, the extended batteries remained at 100% for just over 6 hours where the stock battery had dropped 1 notch immediately after just 4 hours.
3 hours later under fairly high load (both phones streaming from Spotify over a WiFi connection) The stock telephone had dropped to 50% where the Mugen was still at 80%.
The subsequent test was a couple of hrs of video gaming, eventually leaving the stock battery at 12% even though the Mugen was at a healthy 45%.
Finally we set up the video cameras to record HD video, and after just 15 more minutes the stock battery gave up the ghost and the phone died, The Mugen phone still had 30% of it's capacity left, pretty much exactly what we would expect when thinking of the extra capacity.
Both phones were then recharged up once more for a stand by test.
During pretty light use, with no WiFi or GPRS and notifications set to hourly, the stock battery managed a reasonable 38 hours prior to the phone went into emergency mode, the Mugen nevertheless lasted a really usable 52 hours just before emergency mode!
To summarize then, the Mugen is about 30% improved under heavy load and about 45% far better under light load; impressive figures indeed, contemplating the low price of the battery I'm astonished HTC don't fit these as standard.
I can't suggest Mugen batteries highly enough, specially if like me you're continuously annoyed by the poor battery life of your Android device.
Characteristics: Capacity - 1800 mAh Exceeds all OEM batteries. Lithium Ion technology. 1 year warranty.
Why Acquire? Extended battery to ensure that you need to be concerned about your battery less. Among 30% and 45% More power than the original battery. You'll be able to still maintain the stock battery as a spare for extended trips. Made with Mugen power cells. No battery memory effect.
Why Not Buy? If you are content with day-to-day charging. Should you be a very low use owner.
I decided it was time we evaluated one of the Mugen extended batteries I had learned about.
I spoke to our pals at MobileFun and asked for the Mugen Power 1800mAh android battery for the Desire S. The next day it arrived in the post, and it was easily popped out from the packaging. The initial point I noticed was that Mugen recommend the battery be fully charged for no less than 12 hours just before initial use. It is then advised the battery is allowed to drain totally just before recharging again. This really should be repeated for the first few charges. At first we believed this was baloney, but on investigating further it is in fact to permit the handset to reset it's battery level indicator for the greater capacity battery.
On first charge re-charge (soon after the initial 12 hour charge), it seemed to take *ages* for the telephone to tell me the battery was full. Subsequent charges having said that seem to be significantly quicker (about 90 minutes compared to nearly three hours at initial). This really is apparently rather typical and is just the phone performing an overcharge for a brand new battery.
Right after some full cycles, we decided the time had come to test the battery with some times comparing it to a Desire S having a stock battery pack.
Both phones were reset with new email accounts and twitter feeds, each had been set to identical notification update periods. They had been as closely as attainable *identical* to each other with just the batteries becoming different.
Performing identical tasks on each, the initial point noticed was with the Mugen powered telephone, the extended batteries remained at 100% for just over 6 hours where the stock battery had dropped 1 notch immediately after just 4 hours.
3 hours later under fairly high load (both phones streaming from Spotify over a WiFi connection) The stock telephone had dropped to 50% where the Mugen was still at 80%.
The subsequent test was a couple of hrs of video gaming, eventually leaving the stock battery at 12% even though the Mugen was at a healthy 45%.
Finally we set up the video cameras to record HD video, and after just 15 more minutes the stock battery gave up the ghost and the phone died, The Mugen phone still had 30% of it's capacity left, pretty much exactly what we would expect when thinking of the extra capacity.
Both phones were then recharged up once more for a stand by test.
During pretty light use, with no WiFi or GPRS and notifications set to hourly, the stock battery managed a reasonable 38 hours prior to the phone went into emergency mode, the Mugen nevertheless lasted a really usable 52 hours just before emergency mode!
To summarize then, the Mugen is about 30% improved under heavy load and about 45% far better under light load; impressive figures indeed, contemplating the low price of the battery I'm astonished HTC don't fit these as standard.
I can't suggest Mugen batteries highly enough, specially if like me you're continuously annoyed by the poor battery life of your Android device.
Characteristics: Capacity - 1800 mAh Exceeds all OEM batteries. Lithium Ion technology. 1 year warranty.
Why Acquire? Extended battery to ensure that you need to be concerned about your battery less. Among 30% and 45% More power than the original battery. You'll be able to still maintain the stock battery as a spare for extended trips. Made with Mugen power cells. No battery memory effect.
Why Not Buy? If you are content with day-to-day charging. Should you be a very low use owner.
About the Author:
Find outmore about extended batteries and moreways to extend your soon you should check out the Purple Toad website.. Free reprint available from: Android Extended Battery Review.