# Decisions



## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

Since this is a Thunderbolt forum I figure I know the answer many will give.

I'm weighing two possible options.

1. Purchase 2x HTC Rezound 1620 batteries (I don't like 3rd party batteries)
or
2. Take Verizon up on the early 2 year upgrade and get a Nexus at 2 year pricing? - Probably with a second battery

Let me know your thoughts.

I feel that I can almost justify it by selling my Thunderbolt and Droid 2 (wife's old phone). I was almost hoping that I could get a 4g device that would make it through an entire workday in 4g coverage but it probably won't happen. Some days I may be able to barely make it but others I'd be swapping batteries.

Let me know your thoughts, however stupid this question may seem being posted in the TBolt forums.


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## jr313 (Jun 10, 2011)

A 4g phone that'll last a whole day won't happen. Unless you get one of those extended batteries with the hunch backs. 4g is a battery killer even my daughters phone who has a metro pcs Samsung indulge can't make it thru the whole day on one charge. I'd suggest buying the nexus when available don't know how good the battery life will be tho it does have a bigger screen, but I will be purchasing it as soon as its available.


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## cuguy (Jul 13, 2011)

You could always switch to 3G only when not using data intensive apps... which is to say almost everything unless you are planning to download files in the gigabytes. Just my 2c, and 4G definitely murder all standard size batteries


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## feedhead (Jun 10, 2011)

jr313 said:


> A 4g phone that'll last a whole day won't happen.


Solid 4G here, running CM7 with moderate use I can go all day at work easy ... that said I'd wait for reports of how those two newcommers fair with battery use.


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## idkwhothatis123 (Aug 4, 2011)

Yeah stock, no chance of all day. Rooted with UV and CPU tweaks, definitely. Regardless of device.


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## Jaxidian (Jun 6, 2011)

michaelkahl said:


> I'm weighing two possible options.
> 
> 1. Purchase 2x HTC Rezound 1620 batteries (I don't like 3rd party batteries)
> or
> 2. Take Verizon up on the early 2 year upgrade and get a Nexus at 2 year pricing? - Probably with a second battery


Just to make sure I'm understanding your question properly, are you saying you're going to either buy the Rezound + 2 spare batteries or the Nexus + 1 spare battery? Otherwise, why would you just buy 2x Rezound batteries? I'm a little confused...


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## R1Lover (Oct 23, 2011)

Jaxidian said:


> Just to make sure I'm understanding your question properly, are you saying you're going to either buy the Rezound + 2 spare batteries or the Nexus + 1 spare battery? Otherwise, why would you just buy 2x Rezound batteries? I'm a little confused...


Ya I'm confused as well, I go to bed with 80% on my thunderbolt.... so I'm not seeing the battery issues that you are... and if I was.. that's why they make chargers lol


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

The Rezound batteries fit in the Thunderbolt and are a 15% increase in capacity.

I'm on my phone all day and have days where my battery is down to 5% by 1:30pm.

For those who go to bed with 80% I'm happy for you. That's not feasible for me unless I sleep 22 hours a day.


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## XxNLGxX (Jul 9, 2011)

I'm in the same boat, most days I have to charge once a day. I'm on the road all day so my signal changes by the hour. Some days I get 12 hrs some days I get 4 lol.

On wifi all day and minimal use I can take it off the charger at 7am, and go to bed at 12am with the battery at about 75%. But that's not using the phone much at all


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

XxNLGxX said:


> I'm in the same boat, most days I have to charge once a day. I'm on the road all day so my signal changes by the hour. Some days I get 12 hrs some days I get 4 lol.
> 
> On wifi all day and minimal use I can take it off the charger at 7am, and go to bed at 12am with the battery at about 75%. But that's not using the phone much at all


Wifi helps so much...to bad my new job doesn't have it. My last job had Wifi available...actually I administered it. I may have had my own private network








Got 20mbps down and up, so it was more consistent than 4g.


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## Jaxidian (Jun 6, 2011)

michaelkahl said:


> The Rezound batteries fit in the Thunderbolt and are a 15% increase in capacity.
> 
> I'm on my phone all day and have days where my battery is down to 5% by 1:30pm.
> 
> For those who go to bed with 80% I'm happy for you. That's not feasible for me unless I sleep 22 hours a day.


Okay, that makes more sense. Thank you. 

Where can I read more about this? I had no clue...


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

Jaxidian said:


> Okay, that makes more sense. Thank you.
> 
> Where can I read more about this? I had no clue...


I just happened across the info in a forum somewhere. I can't remember where unfortunately. If you Google it then it should come up. HTCPedia has some in stock.


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## mcmillanje (Jun 6, 2011)

I'm pretty sure the galaxy nexus has a non-removable battery/back....

Good to know about rezound battery in thunderbolt. Thanks for the info.


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## Jaxidian (Jun 6, 2011)

mcmillanje said:


> I'm pretty sure the galaxy nexus has a non-removable battery/back....


Wrong

http://www.phonearena.com/image.php?m=Reviews.Images&f=name&id=101284&name=Samsung_Galaxy_Nexus_Preview_Design_06.jpg&caption=Battery+compartment&title=_img_title_&popup=1

The NFC is built into the Nexus and has had several photos taken of it.


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

I just finished reading an Anandtech Article and it had some interesting battery numbers. I visualized the numbers to help illustrate what the article says. If I get the 1620, just bump these numbers by 15% for a best case scenario. I reference Bionic numbers because it is LTE and pulled some of the best numbers of all Android devices. Remember it has a 25% higher capacity battery than the Thunderbolt does. Looking at the Samsung Numbers in the article really worries me. The Galaxy S2 was decent but the Galaxy Nexus is using different hardware so it's tough to compare. Looking at the Droid Charge the numbers aren't too reassuring, but I digress. Let's continue on with the numbers.

Below is a table showing numbers from the tBolt.








Notice that to get decent battery life out of this phone you NEED wifi. The last column shows that we get 4 minutes and 45 seconds of talk time per minute. By comparison the Bionic gets 6 minutes and 33 seconds for every 1% battery life. (That's CDMA only, no LTE for the Bionic). Looking at the article you'll notice that ANYTHING with LTE turned on just annihilates the battery. Keeping LTE turned off would yeild a 27% boost in browsing time but with numbers this bad I'm not sure that it'd be worth it. The Bionic at least provides a 60% boost in browsing time by disabling the LTE radio.

Below I compare Web Browsing Times









Bar Graph illustrating Web Browsing time for Thunderbolt









Bar Graph showing the benefit of a 1620mAh battery









Bionic Numbers in Comparison









Finaly Big Bertha :-( She's not popular but she can help get me through the day. I usually only throw her in as a backup battery.









I know that rooting, slapping a ROM on there, undervolting, and managing radios are all methods for improving these numbers. The problem is I have enough to worry about so I don't want to worry about this as well. I posted a thread in this forum before looking for tips. I tried Gingeritis 1.07 on CDMA and actually made it through a day on battery only, but I forcibly kept myself from using the phone as often and honestly haven't been able to re-produce the results. Anymore I keep my phone plugged in at my desk most of the day, kinda sucks if I have to go out into the field all day long. Then my battery doesn't stand a chance :-( Good thing I carry Bertha lol


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## Jaxidian (Jun 6, 2011)

Have you ever calibrated your battery? Also, you will never reliably get an accurate representation of what your battery life is until after you run a configuration for at least a few days. Day 5 battery life is almost always better than days 1-3. There are many technical reasons for this but calibrate and give it 5 days before you judge it.


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

Jaxidian said:


> Have you ever calibrated your battery? Also, you will never reliably get an accurate representation of what your battery life is until after you run a configuration for at least a few days. Day 5 battery life is almost always better than days 1-3. There are many technical reasons for this but calibrate and give it 5 days before you judge it.


I have calibrated my battery yet I still find the results inconsistent. There is just no possible way for me with my usage habits to get through an entire day. I'm a heavy user consuming around 3-5gb data a month normally and hitting 10gb in a heavy month. 4g is much faster than my home ISP upload speeds (768kbps) so I upload photos and video over 4g. 
Realistically I won't be happy with battery on any 4g device. I just need to figure out the best route from here. My only hope is that the Razr or Nexus are using a new LTE chip that is more efficient. That's not likely to happen.


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

So I've been reading Razr reviews and the battery gets mixed reviews. Some say its fantastic, others say not so much. Some of the numbers I saw thrown around don't seem much better than my TBolt. I really need to wait on word about the Nexus, but for the moment I'm leaning towards getting two 1620 batteries. My battery has probably lost some capacity plus with a 15% bump on top of the lost capacity I could see some decent gain.


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## arh2o (Aug 16, 2011)

Does the Rezound battery really fit inside a Thunderolt? If so, awesome news!! I'll be buying one as soon as they become available.

Edit: looks like they are already available: http://shop.htcpedia.com/htc-rezound-standard-battery-1620-mah.html

Will this fit in the thunderbolt?


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

I hear that it will. That's not confirmed. I'm going to order one to find out.


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## restinbeast (Aug 9, 2011)

I totally understand wanting to get the best battery life.

But when it comes to any phone out now, or in the foreseeable future, by far the best option is to get an extra battery and an external battery charger. I bought both items very cheaply on Amazon and am able to use my phone all day with no problem.

The key is having the external battery charger so that you can simply slip a fully charged battery in your pocket on the way out the door.


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## thisismalhotra (Sep 14, 2011)

Why not just buy an Innocell aftermarket 1700mah battery which is made for thunderbolt and is slim to fit in the original back cover.


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## arh2o (Aug 16, 2011)

michaelkahl said:


> I hear that it will. That's not confirmed. I'm going to order one to find out.


Cool, let us know if it works! I'll be def ordering one if so.


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)

arh2o said:


> Cool, let us know if it works! I'll be def ordering one if so.


The Rezound battery works! It's a little bit thicker than stock but does not inhibit the case. Everything snapped in place like normal and my 4g signal is as strong as ever.

I stopped by Verizon today. My data has been dropping, especially while tethering. They said its a well documented issue and swapped my sim card. They said recent updates don't play nice with certain sims. Either way, I asked about Rezound accessories and extra batteries. Turns out they had three in stock so I picked one up!

I'll try to post picks later and report back on performance.

NOTE: if the sim fixes my dropped data that will improve battery life too I'm sure, but I can at least report the effect this battery and sim swap have on my daily mileage.


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## idkwhothatis123 (Aug 4, 2011)

michaelkahl said:


> The Rezound battery works! It's a little bit thicker than stock but does not inhibit the case. Everything snapped in place like normal and my 4g signal is as strong as ever.
> 
> I stopped by Verizon today. My data has been dropping, especially while tethering. They said its a well documented issue and swapped my sim card. They said recent updates don't play nice with certain sims. Either way, I asked about Rezound accessories and extra batteries. Turns out they had three in stock so I picked one up!
> 
> ...


Fits stock back or extended battery back?


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## michaelkahl (Jul 25, 2011)




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