Seidio's 3200mAh battery for Nexus One: the results are in
By Chris Ziegler 
posted April 1st 2010 6:11PM
posted April 1st 2010 6:11PM
By comparison, we typically get around 11 hours on the Nexus One's standard 1400mAh pack with the same usage pattern, so the 30:15 figure falls actually outdoes the 2.3x capacity boost the Seidio cell should offer by a bit. Obviously, your results will vary depending on how you use your phone, but regardless, we can definitely verify that you'll see significantly more life out of a charge using this kit than you will with the phone's OEM battery and we think you'd be able to eke a full day's use out of it no matter how hard you pushed it -- it's really just a question of whether you can tolerate the $70 asking price and the huge soft-touch hump.
Well, it is good to see it is great at what it is supposed to do :)
I don't think I am away from a wall outlet nearly long enough in single stretches to justify the price and huge size increase this thing brings though :P
Seidio does it again. Their innocases are amazing
My problem is that I can't use the nifty neoprene case if I get that big battery.
@victor BTW...why it matters. The fabric liner inside wipes the screen clean and slows down the under-glass dust crawl.
Can you do a stress test with playing (looping continuously) an HD movie? (With one battery, and then the other.)
It would be interesting to see the *exact* time difference with the same movie, and all other things being exactly equal. A true scientific method test with only 1 variable changed (battery).
That's weird! That does not match up with the Desire review @ Engadget AT ALL. Please edit where needed and/or care to elaborate?
This is what I mean:
"[story about intense use] this way we managed to squeeze six hours out of the battery, which is coincidentally what we got from the Legend and the Nexus One as well. We also did tests based on a more realistic usage -- same background apps, occasional web browsing on WiFi and no or little music playback -- and this got us two more hours."
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/01/htc-desire-review/
@nomistake
to make my point some more clear: six (6) plus two (2) makes eight (8).
"By comparison, we typically get around 11 hours on the Nexus One's standard 1400mAh pack with the same usage pattern,"
Difference = three hours (3) for 'basic use'. That's a lot for a smartphone in my book anyway.
@nomistake Well, we've got a lot of variables there, not the least of which is the fact that Richard and I probably have very different usage patterns -- that's why I wanted to emphasize my relative performance between the 1400mAh and 3200mAh packs, since my usage stays basically constant.
I would buy the battery if the phone came out on the big red. I think it's all fake.
@Distant
All fake?
If you get 11 hours out of the OEM battery with a similar usage pattern, how much of that 11 hours is standby? Does it scale proportionally?
Anyway while I am very impressed with the N1's low-power-laptop-like performance and functionality, I am still getting used to it's low-power-laptop-like battery life, but I doubt I would want to double its thickness with a battery like this.
Awesome review Chris.
@MGDdrinker Thanks, but I wouldn't really call this a review -- I actually bought this for my personal Nexus One and just wanted to drop a quick line on the results I saw. A review would include a more detailed analysis, but the bottom line is this: the Seidio will easily double whatever battery life you're seeing out of the OEM battery.
I bought the Seidio 2800mah battery literally the day they became available. They've discontinued it and now offer the 3200 mentioned here.
It really does take away your concerns about running out of battery life during the day, no matter how heavy a user you are, but at a terrible cost in aesthetics. The case it comes with is really ugly. It really is, and I wish they'd made it in the same color as the phone.
I could get over the looks, but it's poorly fitting as well, with a very large gap at the bottom between the case and the phone that allows dust/lint to get into the phones internals much more easily than the stock back. The camera lens is also not covered with protective lens like the stock backing is, putting your lens at risk of damage, and adding yet another dust/lint entry point. I thought perhaps I got a bad case, but Seidio sent me a replacement, and it fits as poorly as the first. The pictures in this, and the original article, don't really show how poorly the case fits, but I've got some shots you can check out of the fit in my picasa public albums at: http://picasaweb.google.com/distortedloop/SeidioNexusOne2800mahBatteryCase?feat=directlink
I do like the extra heft that the extended battery adds. It makes you feel less likely to drop the phone.
If you can get past the looks and aren't concerned about the gap catching on things in your pocket or letting too much dust into the internals, this is a great way to address battery concerns. In the end, mine stays at home most of the time - I just plug in during the day, and carry an extra stock-sized spare battery in my pocket when I'll be away from a plug for too long.
@DistortedLoop
I need a good case for mine as I *ALWAYS* feel like i'm going to drop it when I'm holding it. The lighter toned parts on the side are slippery most of the time, i've gotten SO close to dropping it on more than one occasion with a heart-in-throat feeling as I was able to keep it from falling. I wish they would have thought about this when designing it. Give use a decent looking phone, but one I can actually hold on to while walking down the street without feeling like I'm about to drop $300 at any moment would be nice.
@DistortedLoop
BTW.. regarding your picassa gallery.. I think we now know who Mr. BlurryCam is!
@hfm Well, you kind of lost me with the "who Mr. Blurry Cam is" comment, LOL. I'm not sure what you mean by it, but I guess some of them are blurry. I could delete the blurry ones, there are enough in sharp focus to make my point anyways.
I guess the autofocus on the Canon PowerShot SD800 I used to take those snapshots doesn't have much depth of field in that close...
If you had wifi on the whole time and you were within range of a signal, it definitely takes much less battery power to use wifi than 3G, that probably gave you a bump in battery time that you would have not seen without wifi..
I'd actually be very interested in a similar performance comparison, but with Seidio's 1600 mAh "extended battery" which is the same size as the 1400 mAh one supplied by HTC. With the 1600 mAh one, you can keep the original (very nice) back, although obviously you're only getting a modest increase in run time.
I get about 10 hours of use from my N1 with light use, including a few voice calls, a half-dozen sms messages, wifi off, and screen at about 40% brightness. If an update to Android (maybe froyo 2.2? I can hope!) manages to improve battery life by an hour, and the 1600 mAh Seidio gave me another hour, I could go a full 12 hour day away from a plug, which would be great.
As it is now, I usually let it nurse off my laptop's USB port for an hour after lunch, which recharges it enough to get me another 6 - 8 hours out of it.
Where are the "carbon nano-tube cathode" lithium cells we read about a year or so ago? The ones that would triple energy density? That's what I really need!
I wish they would have something like this for the HD2, would be nice! =)...