The wait for a suitable extended battery for the G1 is finally over. I picked up the $42.95 Innocell 1400mAh battery from Seidio.com and I’m happy to report that the promise of 15% longer battery life seems to be legit.
The battery itself is a smidge larger than the standard 1150mAh battery that ships with the G1 and the 1200mAh battery that I picked up on eBay about a month ago. It should be, too, as it’s gotta cram all that extra juice in there somewhere.
It fits in the phone just fine, though, no replacement shell necessary. Surprisingly, I could feel the weight difference at first, but it’s not noticeable enough to really drastically change anything over the long haul. I don’t notice it any more.
Without having actual equipment to test the battery, I can tell you that it definitely “feels” like I’m going substantially longer between charges. I still need to recharge every night if I’ve been using the phone moderately throughout the day, but watching the meter go from green to yellow to red is a much slower process now. There’s no more looking at my phone at noon and seeing that the battery’s halfway gone already. With moderate usage – checking e-mail every hour or so, some light web surfing, a voice call or two — the phone tends to make it until the early evening before getting into the more-than-half-gone range.
As for heavy usage, I sat out on the beach while on vacation and cranked the brightness all the way up so I could see the screen (I usually have the brightness turned all the way down). I then read short articles on the web, using the data connection about every five to ten minutes for a little over three hours before the battery meter went red at around 15%. Now this was using EDGE data, not 3G, as my location wasn’t covered with high speed data, so keep that in mind. I’ve also used the new battery in 3G areas and it still seems to be a noticeable improvement, although I haven’t tried any aggressive drain tests yet.
All in all, the phone feels more “normal” now. Usage seems to be more in line with battery life, whereas before I’d be like, “What? The battery’s dying already? I’ve barely used the thing today.” Now it’s like, “Ah, I just surfed the web for a half hour straight and played a game of Baseball Superstars and the battery’s a little over a fourth gone — seems about right.”
I’m still conditioning the battery and I haven’t put the phone through any vigorous video or audio testing yet, so I’ll update this post if I come by any more interesting data. As it stands now, though, the $43 seems to have been a worthwhile investment.
Innocell 1400mAh Extended Life Battery [Seidio.com]
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