Original Battery - Replace it, or stick it out to a new phone?

[PaleGringo]

Greetings and good afternoon, all.

So my wife picks up a pair of TBolts at launch back in March of 2011 I believe. She had an issue with hers, and gets a replacement. Mine has continue to run more or less fine, and here I am, nearly 28 months later with a battery that can barely make it through 8 hours without getting a charge:



Of course, we picked these phones up at the tail end of Verizon's unlimited plan, so any upgrade at this point will probably bump us over to a 2GB/month plan. My wife is salivating at getting a Samsung Galaxy S4, and I'm leaning towards possibly getting a Windows phone. Or, we could pick up any number of replacement batteries on Amazon or anywhere else, but I don't really think that the aging cell is the chief problem. My leading suspicion is that it has much to do with the "Awake" time, even though I make few calls, receive fewer, and text when needed. I have no doubts that this has been asked by some other user already, so if somebody could kindly redirect me to a thread or solution for this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you kindly, in advance.

- PaleGringo

 

[pc747]

You can get a replacement battery for the tbolt for cheap now. I still have my tbolt and I have a few batteries for it. I believe the decision has to be something you and your wife sit down looking at your budget and decide what is the best course of action. With that said if you can hold out a few months you can probably get the s4 on a bogo (buy one get one free) deal. Verizon like to do the back to school deal to kick start the fall sales.

 

[pc747]

As far as the awake time if you are diligent enough to remember just turn off auto sync especially during times when your phone is mainly sitting in a desk or pocket.

 

[bweN diorD]

you are defiantly on the down swing of your batteries life if you have been charging it daily on average.
its obviously up to you how badly you want a new phone. i would suggest just getting a battery for $7 New HTC Thunderbolt 4G BTR6400B Battery Verizon | eBay
if your not sure about a new phone, not like its a huge expense to help you decide.

hope that helps


(i type too slow lol)

 

[Miller6386]

Couple things. You will gain a TON of life by figuring out what is keeping that thing awake! Did you take/get the ICS update? That had known kernel issues of keeping the phone awake....

As far as batteries if you are going to get new batteries I would opt for the Rezound battery as they lasted even longer..

Suggested from Beer Tent Capital of the World.

 

[PaleGringo]

Sorry about the extended AFK; it's picking up to our busy season here. Wanted to get you caught up on what I have been working on.

So after some initial tweaking, I managed to get the phone to survive 9 hours without any changes in my usage habits (next to no usage, steadily dying)


(12 July 2013)

I'm not sure what the difference in "Awake" was about, but I think it is the WiFi radio. Anyhow, a few weeks went by and my phone started doing this thing where it had plenty of charge, suddenly turn off, tell me that the battery is dead, instantly turn off and so on. The graph looked interesting so I screencapped it:


(19 July 2013)

 

[PaleGringo]

Sorry about that... keyboard decided to stop working halfway through a sentence.

So time progresses and yesterday was another prime example of what DOESN'T work on my phone. I slept, woke up, unplugged my phone (starting the graph), took one phone call, picked up some lunch, started a timer, and went to watch a YouTube video (less than 2 hours since unplugging it). Phone shuts off, dead, won't start back up - turns off before the boot is complete. Get back to my car, charge it on the drive to pick up some chicken for dinner, drive home (the two charging intervals), and stays on but relatively unused and in standby while connected to my home wireless all day. In the evening, I take the battery out to look at what kind it is, put it back in and it starts up... at 14%. Here's the graph of the whole day:



I've come to the conclusion that my phone is probably OK and the battery is definitely shot. I picked up a trio of HTC Rezound batteries on the cheap (I hear they work better than Thunderbolt batteries) and will post up a graph of that when it comes in after it gets primed.

Thanks all for the suggestions. I appreciate you guys! dancedroid

 

[PaleGringo]

Couple things. You will gain a TON of life by figuring out what is keeping that thing awake! Did you take/get the ICS update? That had known kernel issues of keeping the phone awake....

As far as batteries if you are going to get new batteries I would opt for the Rezound battery as they lasted even longer..

Suggested from Beer Tent Capital of the World.

Yeah, I did download the ICS update the day it came out. I was greedy and wanted to breathe new life into my phone, but it feels a lot like bloatware. I'm convinced this phone CAN run like a champ but probably needs to be 'refreshed' in the ways of Android.

Android version: 4.0.4
HTC Sebse Version 3.6
Software Number: 7.02.605.10.710RD

 

[iRenegade]

I finally got the extended battery after trying the rezound battery. Night and day, going the whole work day with moderate use and much longer on stand by. The increased size and weight is not noticeable after a few days.
I also had a huge issue with lag, and 2-5 minutes delay in dialing after the ics update. After much avoidance, I did a factory reset a couple of weeks ago. I should have done this month's ago! My TB is perfect now! Use mybackup pro, screen shot your home pages, and all you need to do is reinput some settings and logins. I lost data from some games. That's it!