Being used to the relatively endless battery lifetime of a BlackBerry, changing to an Google Android came as a bit of a shock; out of the box I was only getting about 8 hours of usage from a 100 % charge. A familiar tale for a lot of men and women I'm sure... After some (well, a couple of weeks) of fine-tuning I was able to reliably get about 36 hours from the battery but it nonetheless meant I had to charge the phone each and every day to be sure I'd not get a flat battery at an crucial 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 very next day it arrived in the post, and it was easily popped out of the product packaging. The first thing I noticed was that Mugen suggest the battery be completely charged for no less than 12 hours ahead of initial use. It truly is then suggested the battery is allowed to drain totally prior to recharging again. This really should be repeated for the initial few charges. At first we thought this was baloney, but on investigating further it's really to allow the handset to reset it's battery level sensor for the higher capacity battery.
On very first charge re-charge (right after the initial 12 hour charge), it seemed to take *ages* for the telephone to tell me the battery was full. Subsequent charges on the other hand seem to be much quicker (about 90 minutes compared to nearly 3 hours at very first). This can be apparently quite standard and is just the phone performing an overcharge for a new battery.
Soon after a couple of full cycles, we decided it was time 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 times. They were as closely as possible *identical* to each other with just the batteries becoming distinct.
Performing identical tasks on both, the first thing noticed was with the Mugen powered phone, the extended batteries remained at 100% for just over 6 hours while the stock battery had dropped one notch following just 4 hours.
Three hours later under very high load (each phones streaming from Spotify over a WiFi connection) The stock phone had dropped to 50% where the Mugen was holding strong at 80%.
The next test was a couple of hrs of video gaming, eventually leaving the stock battery at 12% whilst the Mugen was at a healthy 45%.
Lastly we set up the video cameras to record HD video, and right after just 15 more minutes the stock battery gave up the ghost and then the phone died, The Mugen phone nonetheless had 30% of it's capacity left, pretty much precisely what we would expect when thinking of the additional capacity.
Both phones were then charged up again for a stand by test.
Under very light use, along with no WiFi or GPRS and notifications set to hourly, the stock battery managed a acceptable 38 hours ahead of the telephone went into emergency mode, the Mugen however held up for a very usable 52 hours ahead of 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 very next day it arrived in the post, and it was easily popped out of the product packaging. The first thing I noticed was that Mugen suggest the battery be completely charged for no less than 12 hours ahead of initial use. It truly is then suggested the battery is allowed to drain totally prior to recharging again. This really should be repeated for the initial few charges. At first we thought this was baloney, but on investigating further it's really to allow the handset to reset it's battery level sensor for the higher capacity battery.
On very first charge re-charge (right after the initial 12 hour charge), it seemed to take *ages* for the telephone to tell me the battery was full. Subsequent charges on the other hand seem to be much quicker (about 90 minutes compared to nearly 3 hours at very first). This can be apparently quite standard and is just the phone performing an overcharge for a new battery.
Soon after a couple of full cycles, we decided it was time 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 times. They were as closely as possible *identical* to each other with just the batteries becoming distinct.
Performing identical tasks on both, the first thing noticed was with the Mugen powered phone, the extended batteries remained at 100% for just over 6 hours while the stock battery had dropped one notch following just 4 hours.
Three hours later under very high load (each phones streaming from Spotify over a WiFi connection) The stock phone had dropped to 50% where the Mugen was holding strong at 80%.
The next test was a couple of hrs of video gaming, eventually leaving the stock battery at 12% whilst the Mugen was at a healthy 45%.
Lastly we set up the video cameras to record HD video, and right after just 15 more minutes the stock battery gave up the ghost and then the phone died, The Mugen phone nonetheless had 30% of it's capacity left, pretty much precisely what we would expect when thinking of the additional capacity.
Both phones were then charged up again for a stand by test.
Under very light use, along with no WiFi or GPRS and notifications set to hourly, the stock battery managed a acceptable 38 hours ahead of the telephone went into emergency mode, the Mugen however held up for a very usable 52 hours ahead of 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.
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