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Hi, Bin looking at some of the mobile solar panels you can get for charging your phone on the go. Some seem quiet practical and strap onto backpacks etc.
Anyone have any experience with these? Do they work? How do they fare with our power hungry HD's?
I have Powermonkey eXplorer and it is so usefull! I had it with me on my trip to Bulgaria and for week I didnt have to use wall charger for my ipod nor Touch Diamond.
It requires lots of sun to charge from empty to full but it is very good if for example leaving on car hood (inside) to charge battery.
For straight solar panel -> phone or other device it is good for retaining or slowly charging device. When I was on beach I listened music almost all the time and it solar panel kept battery full always.
Remember, solar panel needs sun! Here Finland it is pretty useless except now that summer comes.
Bought mine from inkino.co.uk for 45£ and always keeping it with me when going little farther from wallchargers.
I have one as well. If your battery is near empty it will recharge to about 25% before draining completely, still enough to get you out of an emergency. You should know that it takes about 10 hours to charge using the solar cells but you can use a notebook USB port to charge it in about an hour. I would say definitely a useful device, I use it mostly if watching movies on my HD.
Thanks Guys, Are there any that will fully recharge the battery from dead?
I've seen some that come with a 1000mAh and you can get replacement batteries for bout £10.
Rekon its worth gettin one with a few batteries n charging each o them? I'm planning a trip where I'm not going to be able to charge the phone during the day, so charging a secondary battery would be useful.
If you dont mind messing with a soldering iron, you might want to try this out.
Not sure if it'll work on our baby, but it looks interesting and fun.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/800000/solar_powered_usb_charger_cheap_and_easy_to_make/
At least its cheap 8O)
Vey Nice! Maybe as a summer project just to see how well it works. Might try it out on my old wizard 1st
In the meantime! any1 else had any experience with the commercial ones? I'm worried they wont have enough clout to charge a touch HD
I've got the Power Monkey solar charger mentioned above but it only discharges my battery. I have never seen it recharge as it should. Probably not powerful enough.
How about the onion trick? Will be interested if that one works
Done It!
Hi, got an old garden solar panel given to me. Just hooked it up to a USB cable and voila!
Even managed to charge two phones at once!
Follow Link for Images
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/CarlBanbury/USBSolarCharger?feat=directlink
Hi,
Here is some information on free loader charger.
Free Loader charger absorbs the suns energy quickly and can store it as electrical charge for up to three months.
The Free Loader is 120mm long when fully extended, and 17mm thick, made of smooth aluminium. The solar panels slide out when you want to charge it, and can alternatively be charged via USB if the sun hasn’t got his hat on. Then you add on one of the various included adaptors, connect it up to your chosen device and voila- extra juice! It can run a phone for 44 hours, an iPod for 18 hours and a PSP for 2.5 hours. Apparently.
I've tried the Soldius1 and Solio units.
The Soldius1 is a foldable panel with no battery. That means it's a power source only in direct sunlight., so you'd have to carry them around or leave your HD where you leave the chargers.
Unfortunately, one of them wasn't strong enough to actually charge the HD. External power is detected, and the HD wil indicate that it's charging, but any power it thinks it has will appear to be drained in a couple of minutes, so it's just some voltage thing it measured rather than actual charge!
They're relatively cheap however, so i just bought two of them and made myself a cable that connects the two Soldius units in parallel, and this time it actually worked pretty well I put the HD nice and cool in the shade and put the two Soldius1 units in the sun with a USB extension cable, and they were able to charge the HD up to half its capacity in about 2 to 3 hours. Only thing is you'd have to get two of them and make your own cable like i did.
So even though this works, i didn't like the hassle with the working but poorly built cable, so i bought a Solio Classic as well. This is a collapsible charger that has three rotating blades that can form a flowerlike shape when unfolded. This one does have a battery pack, so if you charge it before you go it's even useful if you don't see a single ray of sun In addition, you can leave your Solio out in the sun while you run around with your HD and charge it overnight at the end of the day, since the Solio has been gathering its charge on its own.
It turns out that the Solio can charge the HD up to full capacity if the Solio was fully charged itself. However, i wasn't able to charge the Solio for more than half of its capacity during the day. I left it unattended, so there may have been shadows and clouds, and i only did this for two days (i drained its charge into the HD each time, so it started out empty both times). Then again, they weren't particularly sunny days, so you might get more out them.
In any case, if you live somewhere where there is a lot of sun you can do with the Soldius method if you don't mind fiddling with wires and cables. If you want a more compact unit and want the added advantage of having a backup battery pack, go with the Solio.
I just received my Rezound new yesterday, downloaded some apps from the market, and set everything up for normal use today. I got it off the charger this morning around 7:30am at 100% and its dead at 4:30pm. I would consider my use light today as I only used the web for maybe 10 minutes. I mostly did things like add contact shortcuts to my home screens and move icons around, and download maybe 2 new apps.
I came from a Droid 2 which got pretty awesome battery life running Liberty 3 and I'm wondering if my usage time is normal.
Total Time 8h 22m 33s
Display 80% (Time on 2h 45m)
Call Stand 5%
Phone Idle (Time on 5h 37m)
Android System 3%
Dolphin Browser 2%
Android OS 2%
Wi-Fi 2% (Time on 1h 38m)(I don't believe I was connected to any networks though)
Drop box 2%
The screen is what kills it along with LTE. If your screen was on for 2:45 that is why. The display sucks battery on this phone.
Thanks for the reply, I figured that was the case, but I still thought I would have gotten a little longer. I hope a custom ROM will help some with the battery life.
I am on stock rooted and don't really have battery issues. Typically I get 12-14 hours which by then I have easy access to power. If it is going to be a long day, I use the extended battery. It is not uncommon to still have charge left going into late at night.
I have the screen less than a third of the way on the selector and have Auto brightness turned off. Screen timeout is set to 1m but when I set the phone down, I have a widget called ScreenOff that I click to blank the screen. Primary reason for doing that is so I don't accidentally enter some app, but a secondary is that it turns off the screen before it would normally timeout.
When I am at home or at work, I use WiFi almost 100% of the time which due to strong WiFi signals there, (for me) uses less battery power than LTE.
Otherwise, I have LTE on.
Right now today, I am about 50% with 9h 12m of use. I fully charge nightly with the AC charger on my night stand so when I get up it is 100%.
I have an extended battery, but normally use the stock battery unless I know I am going to be away from the office for long periods of time.
I am not much of a game player, but I do watch short videos from time to time. I have streamed music, but don't normally. I get 10-20 calls a day typically and use my browser on a regular basis (reddit as well).
The camera is Awesome!
Unless your display was on max brightness and you were streaming HD movies. That's bad battery life. I get 2 times that even with autobrightness, maybe your battery isn't broken in yet
A good measure is 30minutes display time per 10%, and 1% per hour with 3G and normal sync scheduling... If your apps sync ever 15 minutes that will kill it, and 4G should kill it a little more than just 3G... Minor fluctuations are still OK, but you shouldn't have 15 minutes per 10% unless everything is basically on full blast
My battery life using the setup in my sig is usually very good.
I can easily make it through a normal workday listening to mp3s from my card/texting etc using the standard battery. My screen is set to 30%, screen timeout to 30 seconds.
I do like to stream audio however using iheart radio or Sirius radio online. If I do that, I'm lucky if I make it 4 hours on the standard battery (without ever turning the screen on) When I am going to do that, I use the extended battery and keep a 2nd one in my pocket. I have two external chargers I use so I always have spare fully charged batts.
I actually prefer the feel/weight of the phone with the extended battery and the HTCPedia cutout hard rubber case.. That gives me a better grip on the phone and I barely notice the weight difference when it is in a Jean pocket.
I guess it just depends on the actual phone itself. My phone charges everynight. I pull it off the charger at 6 am and by 10am the battery is dead. I have 3 batterys, and a wall charger that I carry around. I don't consider myself a heavy user either. No music or videos. Only text, gtalk, gmail and a phone phone calls that last a few min each. I only have google and exchage set to push. My 2 yahoo accts sync every 4 hours. I do have fecebook as well. Screen is very dim. This was all using rooted cleanrom.
I am now back to bone stock, with a CLNR phone that just arrived yesterday (due to connection problems with my computer) So maybe a stock rom unrooted will make a difference. Heres hoping!
Sad.....great phone, I love it!
con247 said:
The screen is what kills it along with LTE. If your screen was on for 2:45 that is why. The display sucks battery on this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This. I was playing "draw something " with friends today at work and even with a fully charged extended battery it only lasted about 3.5 hours with the backlight at 100% and oc'd to 1.7 GHz. But that was constant usage for those three hours.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
brando56894 said:
This. I was playing "draw something " with friends today at work and even with a fully charged extended battery it only lasted about 3.5 hours with the backlight at 100% and oc'd to 1.7 GHz. But that was constant usage for those three hours.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That game literally jumps out of your phone, and rips your battery in half. But its way too fun.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
Diff. Roms equal diff results for me. All of the ICS roms I've tried all keep my phone up time and awake time the same. Is anyone else having this issue? Due to this, I typically end up getting around 5 hours of life even if I leave my phone off for the duration of that time. It's annoying because I really want to stay on ICS but get double the battery life out of the GB Roms.
Joe_T said:
Diff. Roms equal diff results for me. All of the ICS roms I've tried all keep my phone up time and awake time the same. Is anyone else having this issue? Due to this, I typically end up getting around 5 hours of life even if I leave my phone off for the duration of that time. It's annoying because I really want to stay on ICS but get double the battery life out of the GB Roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On Scotts CleanRom 3.6, with fairly heavy usage (hour of solitaire, hour of browsing xda, texting, 30 minutes of phone calls) I can get about 10 hours before needing a charge again. Before I updated to 3.6, which has the 3.8v battery fix, I could only get about 5 or 6 hours of similar usage. I don't recall if prior versions had my awake and up times the same, but I haven't noticed it recently.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA
Screen is the sole battery killer for me.
I Am Marino said:
Screen is the sole battery killer for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same here and i never get consistent battery life. one day it will be dead in 9hrs and like today im going on 22hrs. just not overall consistent.
I Am Marino said:
Screen is the sole battery killer for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I take it you don't stream audio like I do??
I just got my Rezound yesterday, and have noticed a surprisingly poor battery life. I did all my setup yesterday, and fully charged the battery over night. After unplugging it this morning, I listened to music off the sd card for about 45 min, browsed the net for about another 45, then stopped using it for a while. I noticed the battery was about halfway through, so I plugged it in to my car charger and did some more Internet stuff. However, after checking the battery info, I realized that even plugged in to the car charger it was consuming more power than it was taking in. I finally had to turn it completely off and let it charge to get the battery from yellow back to green.
This is the same charger I used for my Droid X, so I know that it is working...
Sent from my HTC Rezound using xda premium
I've been running BAMF ICS v0.9 for a few days, and the other versions before that. I get 12-14 hours with 4G on, and 20-23 with 4G off....I keep the screen on 40% brightness
Watch your clock speeds if you are on ICS. They constantly Max out, both cores. That's where your battery life is going.
Sometimes data flickers for me on random days, that's the only thing that wears my battery down fast. But I can still go through the day have 40ish percent left. If it doesn't flicker I can go through through day with about 50% left. And if in on Wi-Fi most of the time I have nore than that left over. And that's with using the phone for a couple of hours with the display on.
Trying ineffabilis with DSBs 1.1.3 kernel and undervolt it some
for me, battery life killers can be streaming audio (sirius xm or espn radio) and definitely jelly wars. Phone will die on extended battery in about 4 hours of continuous play.
Otherwise, normal usage, I get 10-16 hours of use on my extended battery before swapping it out (use 2 extended batteries).
4g definitely runs the phone hotter than wifi (about 20 degrees hotter for me)
The only time my phone gets around 95 degrees is if it's on a charger and I'm watching a movie, and it takes about an hour for it to feel warm, which could even be caused from me holding it the whole time. 4G doesn't get my phone any hotter than 3G Or Wi-Fi. Guess every phone is different though. least we get signal xD
platinumrims said:
The only time my phone gets around 95 degrees is if it's on a charger and I'm watching a movie, and it takes about an hour for it to feel warm, which could even be caused from me holding it the whole time. 4G doesn't get my phone any hotter than 3G Or Wi-Fi. Guess every phone is different though. least we get signal xD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thought I was done with heat after I got my replacement phone but the 4G hotspot Cooks! 120 is now a daily ordeal.
KORM via the beast known as the Rezound.
Anyone find a charger that can actually charge the phone while using the GPS? I have a modified charger with the center pins tacked together and the Samsung genuine car charger, neither of which can keep up with the drain.
Anyone have positive evidence that their charging solution will at least maintain battery life while GPS + screen are running?
I'm at a loss and tired of spending money on chargers that aren't up to the task.
Thank you.
I have the Samsung car mount that comes with a Samsung car charger. Not sure if that's the same charger you have, but I've used it on a road trip so far and it definitely maintains and charges a little. 14 hours of driving btw.
I attempted to call Samsung Accessory support this morning to find out if that charger is different than the basic charger and they were giving me the run around. I didn't want to spend $XX on another charger unless I knew it had a higher output.
Can you give me the spec's on it?
I know the basic samsung charger only puts out 750mA.
I have used numerous chargers in the car while running GPS and none of them actually seem to charge the device; they just keep it "treading water".
Truth is, with the screen size being what it is, and likely both cores firing at full capacity, I don't think it's entirely realistic to expect the thing to charge while doing something so data intensive as GPS; especially, when you consider that your data signal can and will vary WILDLY while driving through different places, which absolutely and invariably will stress the battery even further, contributing to drain whether plugged in or not. That's a lot of work for a relatively small device to handle.
Just my $.02 coming from a mix of experience and common sense.
-Ryan
Guy above you says that his does.
Hell, I'd be happy with treading water, way better than the steep downhill fall I've got going on.
Can limit processor speed by throttling it manually with my OC kernel or by enabling the saving mode the phone has innately. Can reduce data by switching off 4G.
It doesn't need those things to run as a GPS. The GPS itself doesn't seem to eat much battery at all but I realize the screen is huge. However, how can this be a viable device if we can't figure out a way to make it WORK?
I hope that camaroz28 can get back to me on this.
fellstar said:
I attempted to call Samsung Accessory support this morning to find out if that charger is different than the basic charger and they were giving me the run around. I didn't want to spend $XX on another charger unless I knew it had a higher output.
Can you give me the spec's on it?
I know the basic samsung charger only puts out 750mA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no writing on it at all so I have no idea what it's output current is.
As an aside, I've heard of a lot of people just getting a small DC->AC converter and then using the original wall charge adapter to charge in the car.
There are two very good posts about this very topic.
This one recommends a charger:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1538341
It also has a link in the OP to the other post about charging the Note.
camaroz28 said:
There is no writing on it at all so I have no idea what it's output current is.
As an aside, I've heard of a lot of people just getting a small DC->AC converter and then using the original wall charge adapter to charge in the car.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can confirm that your phone will charge, albeit slowly, with the provided adapter that comes with the Nav mount?
I'm not a big fan out DC to AC car adapters.
lactardjosh said:
There are two very good posts about this very topic.
This one recommends a charger:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1538341
It also has a link in the OP to the other post about charging the Note.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only did a couple quick searches for "GPS Charging" before making this thread, and didn't find that one!
Thank you guys.
fellstar said:
You can confirm that your phone will charge, albeit slowly, with the provided adapter that comes with the Nav mount?
I'm not a big fan out DC to AC car adapters.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, after driving for 7 hours, my batter went from something like 52% to 60%. Don't remember the exact numbers, but it went up. This was while switching between google navigation and an app called "GPS HUD" with Pandora running in the background. Data was mostly HSPA/HSPA+ except for the beginning and end of the trip where I was in LTE cities.
camaroz28 said:
Yes, after driving for 7 hours, my batter went from something like 52% to 60%. Don't remember the exact numbers, but it went up. This was while switching between google navigation and an app called "GPS HUD" with Pandora running in the background. Data was mostly HSPA/HSPA+ except for the beginning and end of the trip where I was in LTE cities.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again Camaroz28.
Maintain a fully charged spare battery in auto
Tried about every auto charging fix I could find on this forum. Still get about 2% per hour discharge. I'm routinely in and out of my car 8-10 hours a day so end up with a dead battery. My fix (not elegant but works) is to maintain a fully charged spare battery in my van using a charger for extra batteries.
Of course could not do this with my iphone which is now relegated to my grandkids for games and music.
I love this forum. Great help to me.
yogidad said:
Tried about every auto charging fix I could find on this forum. Still get about 2% per hour discharge. I'm routinely in and out of my car 8-10 hours a day so end up with a dead battery. My fix (not elegant but works) is to maintain a fully charged spare battery in my van using a charger for extra batteries.
Of course could not do this with my iphone which is now relegated to my grandkids for games and music.
I love this forum. Great help to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same, I actually have 3 spare batteries and a spare battery charger. I don't want to have to fool with changing my battery in the car though. I've already ordered the charger from the other thread, should have it by Saturday to try that puppy out.
I'm an engineer, and I travel quite a bit.
The GPS software you use makes a huge difference. If you want the phone to charge, don't use Waze. During a test one day, Waze plugged in drained more battery than Navigon did while unplugged. Mine charges with Navigon and Pandora running simultaneously. I haven't tested Google Navigation yet, I'm going to do that today. The charger I use is a 2.1A Belkin AutoCharger made for iPhones. I'm using a USB extension cable with manually shorted data pins. I get 800-something mA out of it, unfortunately not the full 1000 the stock wall charger puts out. Running an inverter in the car with the stock charger I can get Waze to charge, but that's just not worth it for me. Too much gear in the just to charge a phone.
I was I just wondering has anyone used their note for a long distance drive. the reason I ask is because using my stock charger or Any one as a matter a fact my Battery still drains even while.plugged.in.and pretty fast maybe 1 percent every 6 minutes if not Sooner.just wanted to know if anyone has the same problem?
Galaxy note LTE
Go ahead and get yourself one of these babies, and you're set
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Vehi...Q9CA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339221289&sr=8-1
Long story short, it's shorted so that the Note receives more power. Someone can explain it to you in a more verbose fashion, but rest assured, my Gnote still charges slowly up, even when running google maps, music, and screen brightness on high.
demonchild1786 said:
I was I just wondering has anyone used their note for a long distance drive. the reason I ask is because using my stock charger or Any one as a matter a fact my Battery still drains even while.plugged.in.and pretty fast maybe 1 percent every 6 minutes if not Sooner.just wanted to know if anyone has the same problem?
Galaxy note LTE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use my note for 2-3 hours drives each week, and here's the key....if you're comfortable with your GPS app like I am, its a breeze, and an awesome solution. But there are a few key things. 4g is a battery drain enough on its own. Add that to the fact that you'll be driving through multiple cell zones, often with 3 or more cell sites in each one, and the note will he speaking to all of them. That alone will eat your battery like Michael Jackson ate children (all celebs are cannibals...ya know?), so there are two options for the battery issue.
Option one: Turn off mobile data completely, and use one of the many offline mobile GPS apps out there...start your route with mobile data on to pull down traffic data, and to route you around traffic jams, construction, or accidents...I use Navigon, and its the only app I've seen that can do all of this seamlessly. For other reasons too, Navigon is the best. It shows the speed limit, and warns you about red light cameras, or gives you audio warnings if you're going a certain preset amount over the speed limit. Also, when your driving on the toll way looking for an exit, it displays a HUD like visual representation on which lanes are okay to be in. Instead of just saying "stay right" it'll show you a picture of the toll way with 4 lanes...and 3 of them might have arrows in them, while the other has an x-mark in it. There are multiple voices and a dons, and once you download the maps, you're finished. In just 1.8 gigs, I can have a complete map of the whole contiguous United States and Canada.
This is the best software option for me. I've tried solutions that are free, and even for iOS, the graphics and design is better with navigon than Tom Tom or Copilot. Its well worth the 40 dollars, but you can often buy a region....say, the Midwest, the east coast, or the west coast for cheaper. Or you can wait for it to go on sale, and grab a North America or USA & Canada, or USA and Mexico Combo for 20 dollars. Whenever I've looked, its been on sale about fifty percent of the time.
Next, the battery options, you can do what I do, and use a travel battery pack that will charge a second battery without the phone having to be plugged in, and without the awkward cable setup that comes with mounting a plugged in phone, or keeping one on your lap.
Since our phones charge extremely slow from a car/cigarette port while using them, I find this to be the best option for staying juiced.
Secondly, its possibly to keep your battery at a certain level, or even charge it at a slow rate if you use good practices: know your route in general, and get familiar with the general outline of your route. After about an hour of using the app, you'll become confident in the solution enough to work on audio instruction alone. Use a headset--a wired one preferably...Bluetooth sucks in every way possible...its short range, it eats batteries like al roker ate funnel cakes, and it is terribly unstable and difficult to use, even for the jedi-minds here. Its improved somewhat over the years...but the goal here is to use a reasonable amount of power. Download your podcasts or music over wifi before you leave, and save power by only using the screen when you need to.
With a headset, my podcasts going, and my phone in 2g mode, I've found that my phone actually charges with the screen on its lowest setting (seeing any screen in the daylight is almost impossible for any device, no matter how powerful, or premium, or expensive it is, but using g it like this at night isn't an issue), and the audio is playing through the onboard speaker, or I'm playing music through the device via headset. I can sometimes even stream audio and use the speaker....though its not really loud enough to hear over almost any car going 55 MPH.
Make sure your car charger is rated for 1.0 amps, or 1000miliamps..at least. I don't know if the note can pull more or not...but even in the worst case scenario, if you had the travel battery pack (which, for thirty dollars gets you a wall charger, an additional stock OEM battery (none of the voodoo-magic extended battery crap that actually gives you worse battery life, under or over powers your phone, or only lasts 100 charging cycles), and a external battery case which will fit into any pocket you have (unless you wear skinny jeans....ew.), and will charge any note battery)) if you're phone died and you forgot to place your extra battery on the charger, in about 20 minute or so, you'd Be powered back up with enough juice to get you going again. After you placed your battery in the charger and plugged it in.
Lastly, you could get a power inverter from amazon or best buy (I would never buy some cheap Chinese version from amazon. I'd buy a brand name one from walmart or radio shack or even best buy) and you'd be able to charge your device at home/wall speeds.
Just using a few tricks, you'll never need to replace or run out of battery, and its likely you'll never even use a percent. But doing dome things with any phone will ensure you either don't make it to your destination, or that when you do arrive, you do so at 1-2%, of even worse....0%.
I think the Note charger travel pack is the best thing since sliced bread. I don't ever plug my phone in anymore. I bring the battery pack with me, and use a collapsing wall plug with a retractable micriusb cable to plug the pack in and charge my second battery...this means I can just plug my extra battery pack in at Barnes and nobles, my friends, etc...while still using my phone. I can even plug the pack into a computer and walk away. Which is great for long days at work, and means I can use my note 24/7 and never ever have to worry about battery life.
Sorry for the walk of text...and my goofy disposition. Its late and I'm so tired that I'm slap happy. But, to summarize, every device has it's shortcomings, but by spending only thirty dollars...I found away around the only real problem with the device--battery life.
The device is amazing in every way now.
I stopped using my $1300 laptop when I got my TF101 a year ago, and I stopped using my tablet for anything but reading and one fishing game since I got my phone.
AMAZINN!
Yeah I've noticed that my note charges indefinitely with that charger. My mom has one in her car and I thought I was crazy at first thinking that it charged my phone faster than stock.but I noticed that using that charger in her car no matter what I did using GPS and on lte the phone would still charge.when I turn my phone off and let it sit it's like magic.my phone charges really quickly.are there any threads that can explain more in dept why this happens with this charger?
Galaxy note LTE
Jamesyboy said:
I use my note for 2-3 hours drives each week, and here's the key....if you're comfortable with your GPS app like I am, its a breeze, and an awesome solution. But there are a few key things. 4g is a battery drain enough on its own. Add that to the fact that you'll be driving through multiple cell zones, often with 3 or more cell sites in each one, and the note will he speaking to all of them. That alone will eat your battery like Michael Jackson ate children (all celebs are cannibals...ya know?), so there are two options for the battery issue.
Option one: Turn off mobile data completely, and use one of the many offline mobile GPS apps out there...start your route with mobile data on to pull down traffic data, and to route you around traffic jams, construction, or accidents...I use Navigon, and its the only app I've seen that can do all of this seamlessly. For other reasons too, Navigon is the best. It shows the speed limit, and warns you about red light cameras, or gives you audio warnings if you're going a certain preset amount over the speed limit. Also, when your driving on the toll way looking for an exit, it displays a HUD like visual representation on which lanes are okay to be in. Instead of just saying "stay right" it'll show you a picture of the toll way with 4 lanes...and 3 of them might have arrows in them, while the other has an x-mark in it. There are multiple voices and a dons, and once you download the maps, you're finished. In just 1.8 gigs, I can have a complete map of the whole contiguous United States and Canada.
This is the best software option for me. I've tried solutions that are free, and even for iOS, the graphics and design is better with navigon than Tom Tom or Copilot. Its well worth the 40 dollars, but you can often buy a region....say, the Midwest, the east coast, or the west coast for cheaper. Or you can wait for it to go on sale, and grab a North America or USA & Canada, or USA and Mexico Combo for 20 dollars. Whenever I've looked, its been on sale about fifty percent of the time.
Next, the battery options, you can do what I do, and use a travel battery pack that will charge a second battery without the phone having to be plugged in, and without the awkward cable setup that comes with mounting a plugged in phone, or keeping one on your lap.
Since our phones charge extremely slow from a car/cigarette port while using them, I find this to be the best option for staying juiced.
Secondly, its possibly to keep your battery at a certain level, or even charge it at a slow rate if you use good practices: know your route in general, and get familiar with the general outline of your route. After about an hour of using the app, you'll become confident in the solution enough to work on audio instruction alone. Use a headset--a wired one preferably...Bluetooth sucks in every way possible...its short range, it eats batteries like al roker ate funnel cakes, and it is terribly unstable and difficult to use, even for the jedi-minds here. Its improved somewhat over the years...but the goal here is to use a reasonable amount of power. Download your podcasts or music over wifi before you leave, and save power by only using the screen when you need to.
With a headset, my podcasts going, and my phone in 2g mode, I've found that my phone actually charges with the screen on its lowest setting (seeing any screen in the daylight is almost impossible for any device, no matter how powerful, or premium, or expensive it is, but using g it like this at night isn't an issue), and the audio is playing through the onboard speaker, or I'm playing music through the device via headset. I can sometimes even stream audio and use the speaker....though its not really loud enough to hear over almost any car going 55 MPH.
Make sure your car charger is rated for 1.0 amps, or 1000miliamps..at least. I don't know if the note can pull more or not...but even in the worst case scenario, if you had the travel battery pack (which, for thirty dollars gets you a wall charger, an additional stock OEM battery (none of the voodoo-magic extended battery crap that actually gives you worse battery life, under or over powers your phone, or only lasts 100 charging cycles), and a external battery case which will fit into any pocket you have (unless you wear skinny jeans....ew.), and will charge any note battery)) if you're phone died and you forgot to place your extra battery on the charger, in about 20 minute or so, you'd Be powered back up with enough juice to get you going again. After you placed your battery in the charger and plugged it in.
Lastly, you could get a power inverter from amazon or best buy (I would never buy some cheap Chinese version from amazon. I'd buy a brand name one from walmart or radio shack or even best buy) and you'd be able to charge your device at home/wall speeds.
Just using a few tricks, you'll never need to replace or run out of battery, and its likely you'll never even use a percent. But doing dome things with any phone will ensure you either don't make it to your destination, or that when you do arrive, you do so at 1-2%, of even worse....0%.
I think the Note charger travel pack is the best thing since sliced bread. I don't ever plug my phone in anymore. I bring the battery pack with me, and use a collapsing wall plug with a retractable micriusb cable to plug the pack in and charge my second battery...this means I can just plug my extra battery pack in at Barnes and nobles, my friends, etc...while still using my phone. I can even plug the pack into a computer and walk away. Which is great for long days at work, and means I can use my note 24/7 and never ever have to worry about battery life.
Sorry for the walk of text...and my goofy disposition. Its late and I'm so tired that I'm slap happy. But, to summarize, every device has it's shortcomings, but by spending only thirty dollars...I found away around the only real problem with the device--battery life.
The device is amazing in every way now.
I stopped using my $1300 laptop when I got my TF101 a year ago, and I stopped using my tablet for anything but reading and one fishing game since I got my phone.
AMAZINN!
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Thanks I will definitely look into navigon.just out of curiosity when using navigon off line from gps how accurate is it?.what I envy iphones for is their quick triangulation on google maps without gps.while Androids need gps to get any where close to where I am.to lead me somewhere
Galaxy note LTE
Not exactly true. If you have your location services enabled then google maps will find you almost instantly within a certain range. I have yet to even use my gps yet on my note with maps and for the first time it has me shown within a quarter mile. Distance will vary with the amount of towers close by.
Navigon uses the gps. It should show you within a few feet if you are out in the open sky. Just the same as any other gps app. And I second Navigon. I have tried Sygic and Ndrive also and have found Navigon to be by far the best.
Edit: Just went outside to test the GPS for the first time. Damn this thing was quick. Connected in under 30 seconds.
Traditional 500mA car chargers just won't cut it.
Buy a power inverter and use the stock or similar 1.0A/1000mA charger and you will be able to use GPS/Bluetooth/4GLTE with screen on and still charge the phone! One warning though, the battery will get very warm with all of this running. But it will charge despite the heavy use.
bulldog212 said:
Traditional 500mA car chargers just won't cut it.
Buy a power inverter and use the stock or similar 1.0A/1000mA charger and you will be able to use GPS/Bluetooth/4GLTE with screen on and still charge the phone! One warning though, the battery will get very warm with all of this running. But it will charge despite the heavy use.
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Yeah I know that .the note is too power hungry for 500 mah chargers. when using that motorla charger listed above in my cart and using my phone with gps and lte I have seen temps as high as 129
Galaxy note LTE
Drove from Maine to Camp Lejeune, a marathon drive of about 15hrs with Navigon, and Bluetooth audio running the entire trip. I am using the Samsung car dock, and the phone stayed fully charged the whole trip.
Been very happy with the samsung car dock, price was good too.
What stinks is that the Motorola charger you posted about, the one I have, puts out 850Mah to the phone. And even that is still not enough to charge while in use. In fact,, it doesn't even maintain..... Does this phone really use that much energy to operate?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
Agoattamer said:
Not exactly true. If you have your location services enabled then google maps will find you almost instantly within a certain range. I have yet to even use my gps yet on my note with maps and for the first time it has me shown within a quarter mile. Distance will vary with the amount of towers close by.
Navigon uses the gps. It should show you within a few feet if you are out in the open sky. Just the same as any other gps app. And I second Navigon. I have tried Sygic and Ndrive also and have found Navigon to be by far the best.
Edit: Just went outside to test the GPS for the first time. Damn this thing was quick. Connected in under 30 seconds.
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Yeah that's exactly what im talking about , within your location services settings if you disable the gps function and go to Google maps and click try and find my location . Their is a huge blue halo in which you could possible be your location which doesn't help when your somewhere unfamiliar. Im not a ios fan to say the least but in that aspect i find their google maps much more consumer friendly in every day usage. I used my mothers iphone while she as at work for directions for deliveries at the restaurant i work at because it was so quick to show me the route i needed and find me while my note would take maybe 15-30 or so seconds to find what i needed. Although iphones dont have turn by turn which was annoying at times looking down at a small 3.5 in screen
Im using Navigon now. Even though the lastest Navigon let you start the app, HOWEVER WITHOUT DATA it doesnt accurate. You still need GPS+data to make it works.
Side note: Anyone know any ISC Rom now works with Navigon?
Sent from my AT&T Galaxy Note™ - please forgive any typos
I had this prob too!
I bought an Energizer car charger that doubles as a wall mount charger. The key is it charges @ 2amps all the time. I NOW have a positive charge while driving at normal screen brightness AND GPS AND streaming Radio on 4g.
Im %99.9 sure you can do the same as long as your car mount charger is geared for 2 amps (Most are NOT)
There is another thread in here somewhere that address the charing aspects of the G-Note.
First off, they suggest getting a charger, that has two USB slots, one is a 1Amp and the other is 2Amp USB, so then you have 2Amps charging.
Does not really get to that much, so you need to buy a USB direct charge adaptor, which allows for the Note to charge in HIGH charge like at home, rather then trickle.
Works great for me,
XDA is no longer worth my time.
Something else to take into account is the USB cable you are using with your chargers. If it is a data cable it will not charge at full capacity, you need to have a USB cable that is for charging only, it has the two line for data shorted. This make a huge difference. Even if you have the 2 AMP charger you will have issue with a data cable when charging.
have a look at this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1671083
I use a Rocketfish charger in the car and on a two hour road trip using GPS all the way and all phone services active it ended up about 5 or 6 percent higher than when I started the trip.
Hello, new guy here. Thanks for having me here.
Did a search for the issue, but none thread found comes close. I did an update on Monday (24.03.2014) OTA to 4.3. Of course it failed - forgot to do factory reset before that so what I got was famous samsung screen with blue LED on. Long story short, managed to recover. I had all the usual after-update-battery-drainage issues, but after tweaking and forcing shut a lot of stuff it is much better. Except for screen.
When I use phone with screen on, the battery level drops almost visibly. I would estimate it at 1% for 1.30 mins. What's more - when I use Google Maps Navigation in my car, the phone loses charge even when plugged to the charger (old trustworthy TomTom USB, rated at 1000ma). Slow - about 1 percent for 7-8 minutes, but still. Oh, and phone gets very hot then. With screen off (power button or automatic off after 30 sec) the battery life is awesome and it charges like a sponge. even with constant H/H+ internet connection, audiobook player with headphones on and of course phone services. Comparing to "before update" its much better. Of course it may be due to lot less freeware (read: adware), but it is better.
However, screen is a killer in this deal.
60 hrs uptime, 15h 15min on battery, 47% of it screen usage. Next is Device Idle with 13%. During that time screen was up about 5h total, of that 3h while plugged to charge. I also went through two audiobooks totaling 20 hrs, browsed net (heavy with the downloads - 3gb total) for 2h, used Kingsoft Office for 2h and navigated with google maps for about 4h, did about 3.5h calls, emails check every 10 min (just headers), some texts and camera. All times approximated, but fairly accurate.
Phone is 1,5 years old, is and always was stock. Bought in UK, used in UK, locked with H3G (Three).
Does anyone have some advice? Tips? Tricks? suggestions? Much appreciated.
Thanks,
Adam
What you have is normal, you need a new charger is all and probably a new battery. 5hrs screen on time from a full battery is the best you can expect..
boomboomer said:
What you have is normal, you need a new charger is all and probably a new battery. 5hrs screen on time from a full battery is the best you can expect..
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Thanks for quick reply.
Well, since my SGS3 is 16 months old I would say that max screen for me would be bit less than 4h. Battery was used and abused (had message about it being too hot for charging a few times etc.), but right now it is more like 2h on scree time. And NOT charging while navigating is new. Started right after update. And this not charging issue is of supreme importance. I've a roving job over quite large area so I'm driving a lot. And sat nav is a must. And since it's draining battery even on charge it worries me as phone is used extensively - technical chats, calls, online and offline documentation etc.
Anyway, will change the charger. Battery... Have half a year till end of contract, so will think if I need the expense.
Oh, one more thing. On Monday my SanDisk 32gb SD died - that's why I updated. Wasn't sure which gave. I had unexpected unmount message with this card. Could this issue use more battery as well? different card now.
Thanks again.
Sd card issues will drain battery. Charging stops when the battery reaches 50°C so if you are navigating and don't point an air vent at the phone it will overheat and stop charging.
Batteries last six months before capacity is reduced, after 16 months you will be lucky to have 50% the original capacity, less if it has ever overheated.
boomboomer said:
Sd card issues will drain battery. Charging stops when the battery reaches 50°C so if you are navigating and don't point an air vent at the phone it will overheat and stop charging.
Batteries last six months before capacity is reduced, after 16 months you will be lucky to have 50% the original capacity, less if it has ever overheated.
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Oh, that I know. I'm hard on batteries, but not in phones. None of my phones ever had failed battery pack, but laptops... all of them. But that's not the issue.
Battery is essentially low energy chemical reaction, so obviously it will be degrading. No issue there. That's why I'm not shooting for max parameters and not worried about it, especially since update phone lasts more. Waaay more.
I changed chargers and it's the same (I have two more never used TomToms and one Tortoise rated at 2 Amps). So i'm starting to think that the issue is not batter, charger etc. I think Google Maps on navigation (which uses simultaneously Screen, GPS and internet) also goes on max on CPU and GPU. that's why tere is overheating and not enough power for everything.
So it looks like software issue. Google maps in particular. Do another factory reset? Everything is up to date. Or maybe I overlooked something?
Partial solution found
Hi all,
Sorry for late update, but was out of the country and all that.
Thanks for suggestions. They were useful to solving most of the issues.
First, changed cables, not chargers. cleaned also contacts in the socket of the phone, so battery gets charged well and fast all the time. And is even better after couple of cycles of full discharge/full charge.
Probably because of having less "apps for free" it is simply phenomenal - normal sync (incl. emails), normal gsm, heavy music listening - takes about 5-7% of battery charge per hour, depending on signal strength. It is much worse when working with screen on, but still good - about 5-6 hrs of gaming for example.
There is still issue of excessive battery drain while using google maps, but this may be software issue. will be uninstalling/reinstalling it soon. Should help.
Will inform on that one as soon as status changes.