Another Battery Question...

kellygh5

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sorry. I noticed yesterday that the battery icon at the top of my screen does not match said level of battery remaining under settings. It is off by 10% right now. Is that a problem or do I just rely on my battery signal too much? Right now my battery looks full but is actually at 90%. Yesterday afternoon, the battery looked 3/4 full when it was at 50%. When the battery dropped in the red, it seemed kind of sudden, and settings said 20% remaining. I recently completed 2 full cycles of powering off to charge to 100%, drain to 15% (used settings to tell me actual battery discharge), and then recharged to 100% with the power off. Thanks for any input :)

BTW, I am using a G'Nex charger if that matters. My Maxx is a G'Nex replacement, so I do not have an actual Moto charger.
 

Sydman

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Yeah the battery icon is more relative than anything, I use the Beautiful Battery meter for mine since I hide the notification bar. The default one stays looking full until it gets to 80% then it goes down a notch, then moves again when it gets around 60 or 50 I believe.
 

Trash Can

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When the battery dropped in the red, it seemed kind of sudden

I believe Professor FoxKat once post a chart that shows this is normal.

BTW, I am using a G'Nex charger if that matters. My Maxx is a G'Nex replacement, so I do not have an actual Moto charger.

You might be able to find a Razr charger on eBay.

I'm sure he'll chime in on this, as well as the rest of your post.
 
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kellygh5

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Thanks y'all! Appreciate the helpful feedback. I regret not accepting the VZN moto charger (I told them didn't need it), but I'm learning. I've learned more about batteries, charging, & chargers in the past 2 wks than I have in my 1.5 yrs of reading Android forums/news :)
 

Trash Can

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Thanks y'all! Appreciate the helpful feedback. I regret not accepting the VZN moto charger (I told them didn't need it), but I'm learning. I've learned more about batteries, charging, & chargers in the past 2 wks than I have in my 1.5 yrs of reading Android forums/news :)

All of are here to learn. We're fortunate to have Professor FoxKat share his knowledge with us.
 

JohnnytheK

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Thanks y'all! Appreciate the helpful feedback. I regret not accepting the VZN moto charger (I told them didn't need it), but I'm learning. I've learned more about batteries, charging, & chargers in the past 2 wks than I have in my 1.5 yrs of reading Android forums/news :)

What does the charger have to do with it? As long as it's with in 10% +_ of the voltage and amperage of supplied unit. I use my kindle, Bluetooth, and a dual output cube from Walgreen. Never had a problem with my X2 and Maxx.
 

Trash Can

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What does the charger have to do with it? As long as it's with in 10% +_ of the voltage and amperage of supplied unit. I use my kindle, Bluetooth, and a dual output cube from Walgreen. Never had a problem with my X2 and Maxx.

You haven't had a problem.... yet. Or that you're aware of. Maybe you're damaging the battery/charging circuitry little by little and aren't aware of any long term effects? Or maybe you're doing no harm at all. Who knows, but why not use the charger that came with the phone and eliminate all doubt?

I'll never understand why some people will spend upwards of $600+ for a phone and insist on charging it with $5 knockoff, all the while a factory-supplied charger is included at no extra cost. To each his own..... :confused:
 

JohnnytheK

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You haven't had a problem.... yet. Or that you're aware of. Maybe you're damaging the battery/charging circuitry little by little and aren't aware of any long term effects? Or maybe you're doing no harm at all. Who knows, but why not use the charger that came with the phone and eliminate all doubt?

I'll never understand why some people will spend upwards of $600+ for a phone and insist on charging it with $5 knockoff, all the while a factory-supplied charger is included at no extra cost. To each his own..... :confused:

And then again maybe not. I have had PDA's, phones, and smart phones since '95 and have never ruineda battery. Again the voltages and amperage produced are within 10% of the included unit. I'll never understand how some people can buy a $600 phone and not be bothered to turn the charger over and read it's voltage and amperage out put. Jezze dude it's not magic or rocket science.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 

Sydman

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I have had PDA's, phones, and smart phones since '95 and have never ruineda battery.

That is like saying I have used AOL since 95 and it has worked with no problems so why change. The batteries these days are newer technology that go by a different set of rules, so the thinking needs to change. Yes you might be matching your voltage and amperage closely but you have no idea what if any damage you are doing.

With the batteries in these phones not being replaceable, yes I know Verizon would send you a "like new" replacement. But for one those "like new" replacements will never look as nice as my phone because I baby it more than I did when my son was born, and two why break something that is working properly when you could spend an extra 10 bucks or so and get the right charger and use it?

Like you already said we are spending 600 full price or 250 discount price for this phone, might as well treat them as such and get the proper accessories.
 

Trash Can

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And then again maybe not. I have had PDA's, phones, and smart phones since '95 and have never ruineda battery.

Yet. Past performance is not always the best indicator of future results.

Again the voltages and amperage produced are within 10% of the included unit.

I'm not an electrical engineer and readily admit that I don't know if a 10% tolerance is "good enough". There's been similar debates here before. Until I know for certain, I will stick with what's shipped with the phone.

I'll never understand how some people can buy a $600 phone and not be bothered to turn the charger over and read it's voltage and amperage out put. Jezze dude it's not magic or rocket science.

I'm glad you do. Many don't and just use whatever fits.
 

FoxKat

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I believe Professor FoxKat once post a chart that shows this is normal.

You might be able to find a Razr charger on eBay.

I'm sure he'll chime in on this, as well as the rest of your post.

You know I am a stout believer in staying with the OEM equipment.

Can another charger work (loose interpretation of the word), well...yeah.
Can another charger cause unknown problems that could reduce the effective usable life of the phone and/or battery, well...yeah.
Can another charger's inferior power filtering cause distortion of the data being transmitted from the digitizer causing erratic response and "ghost touching/typing", well...yeah.
Can another charger cause distortion of the voltages and current readings of the battery while charging, resulting in either under or (worse), over-charging of the battery, well...yeah (and there are examples to prove it).
Can another charger cause catastrophic failure, well...yeah.

All of are here to learn. We're fortunate to have Professor FoxKat share his knowledge with us.

:blush:

What does the charger have to do with it? As long as it's with in 10% +_ of the voltage and amperage of supplied unit. I use my kindle, Bluetooth, and a dual output cube from Walgreen. Never had a problem with my X2 and Maxx.

Can a charger that falls within a safe range of the recommended voltage (+/- 5% - not 10%), and minimum current requirements (at least enough to support the phone if charging while powered on, and still have some left over to actually "charge" with), suffice for a timeframe in a pinch and have little if any long-term detrimental effects (whether detectible or not), well...yeah.

Case in point for the last comment. Yesterday, I broke my own golden rule. My phone died with 0% and powered down itself. It was completely unresponsive to power button presses, and I had left my back pack home due to an unrelated issue, so I didn't have my charger with me. So I thought...no problem, I have a spare Motorola power/data cable at my desk plugged in at all times to do data transfer. I'll just plug in the phone and the USB port on my computer will charge the phone.

I plugged in and the white light came on solid on the screen. Nothing else. I pressed the power button while plugged in, the white light flashed briefly - then nothing. So I am worried now. I decided to leave it connected to the computer and see what happens. In about 20 minutes, the screen popped up the familiar red circle with the Motorola logo and I was relieved. It booted into Charge only mode, the large battery icon appeared and it first showed simply a big ?...and after about 5 seconds, it showed 5%. Whew! I was really scared for a minute. So I let it do its thing and continued with my work. By the time I left to go home, about 2 hours later, I unplugged the phone, pressed the power button and waited for it to boot..........................................................NOTHING!

Plugged it back in, this time NO WHITE LIGHT! Nothing...absolutely nothing.

So I called my wife to tell her my phone was dead and that I wouldn't be able to speak to her on the phone until I got to my car and dropped the phone onto the Motorola Navigation dock which is connected to the Motorola Rapid Charger Adapter (which charges at 5.1V +/- 5%, 1Amp Max - 1000mAh). 10 minutes later when I arrived at my car, started it and popped the phone onto the dock, NOTHING. I disconnected and reconnected, and again, NOTHING, no light, no icons, no boot, nunya!

So I proceeded to drive home. After 10 minutes into the drive the phone suddenly booted into Charge only mode and started with the ?, followed by 5%. I decided to let it do its thing for the entire drive home, another 20 minutes. Along the way, I kept checking...10%, 15%, 20%, waiting to see 25% but it never got there. I took it off the dock at home, walked in and plugged it onto the Motorola Wall Adapter, it booted into Charge only mode again and showed 20%. I left it and did some chores, came back 15 minutes later, now it's at 40%!

Why did I go into all this? To once again say to those who believe deep discharging to 0% is no big deal, that I almost lost my phone to a deep discharge and to a USB charge that failed. SO... I'm on my soap box. I will not recommend, nor agree to bless anyone who uses any charger other than the one supplied by the manufacturer, at least until the "Charger Standard" is implemented in the USA. If it's already in play elsewhere I can't say and if so, then I say use at your own risk.

I also say that if you can avoid it, don't let your phone go to 0% under any circumstances. It may be the beginning of the end for you.
 

Sydman

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Another thing to consider is when I first got my MAXX I followed the rules and never powered on the phone and plugged it in to charge. Thing is I didn't have a free outlet in my office at work, so I used the USB cable that came with the phone just without the AC adapter and plugged it into my ASUS laptop. I never got the big green charging battery icon, I left it on for almost an hour and it never got anywhere.

If I briefly pressed the power button it would just turn the phone on, so I immediately powered off the device and unplugged my VOIP phone and used the factory USB cable attached to the AC adapter and right away the green icon popped up and it started charging.

All of this to say that even if you are using the proper cable, the device you are trying to charge with may not work for you. And this is a brand new ASUS laptop with USB 3.0, so always be mindful of what tools you are using when charging your precious phone.
 

mattman5000

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Sooooo, back to the original question about why the battery indicator doesn't seem to match the actual percentage. That has bothered me also. I'm using one of the battery monitor app that shows 1% increments. Here is what I have noticed about how the battery indicator correlates to the actual percentage.

The indicator only has five positions: 100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, and 20%. The actual percentage is rounded to one of the 5 indicator positions as follows:

100 - 85 -> 100
84 - 65 -> 80
64 - 45 -> 60
44 - 25 -> 40
24 - 05 -> 20*

So you can see how far apart it can get at certain times. Like how the indicator still shows as full when it is actually 90% or less. Or how battery can be almost dead, but the indicator still shows 20%.

*I haven't actually verified this one. I can't seem to make the battery go that low dancedroid
 
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