Suggestions for prolonging battery life on a single charge?

Most big battery phones I've seen have been pretty budget-minded. Apparently manufacturers think everyone who can afford premium wears skinny jeans. Most of those aren't available in the U.S. either, most are in Asia.

Maybe the idea is if we can't lose weight, we can live vicariously through our insanely thin phones...?

 

checking now to see if my replacement Big Honkin' Battery's initial performance was a fluke (where it ran 34 1/2 hours and still had 23% charge) -- ran it down to 1% yesterday, put it on my wall charger (not in the phone) ~8pm, and it's still there. It has easily been making it through an entire 12-to-14 hour day, but not as good as that first time.

 

I just did another deep discharge to test my setup. Made it 66 hours with the case having 2 lights on, but no longer being able to maintain charging the phone (it would cut out shortly after starting). The phone was nearly full, so I probably would have made it to 72 hours, but it was bed time so plugged it in over night. Very happy with this setup. Will continue to top off every other night (36 hours without a charger).

 

Just thought I'd mention that, 4 months in, I am still loving this. It feels completely normal to me now and I really don't get many odd looks from folks. They seem to assume it is some variant of an Otterbox. I've had the phone out of the case maybe twice since I got it and both times the phone felt so flimsy I thought it would either pop out of my hand or I'd crush it. Felt really uncomfortable. And it does fine in my left front pants pocket, even my jeans.

The thing that I find most interesting is that thinking about whether my phone is charged enough or not has completely left my awareness. I just don't think about it. I always have enough juice for whatever. I never even check it anymore.

 

Yup. It's liberating. I rarely even think about how nice multiday battery life is anymore unless I contemplate a new phone and remember my last couple. It's the exact opposite of Ive's Apple-splaining (with apologies) years ago that we love to use our phones because they're so light and thin and if they had bigger batteries instead, we wouldn't like using them and thus wouldn't need bigger batteries in the first place, so 'trust us and don't worry your pretty little heads about battery capacity.' I didn't think I would really love my Z Play unless/until a keyboard mod arrived, and I will love it more then but it's already beloved.

 

A sad tale... and then something a little crazy.

Went on vacation this week to the Adirondack mountains in New York where the battery case was really going to get to show what it can do because our friends' cabin has no electricity. And, indeed it did show what it could do. Was wonderful... until it died. Right on the 8th month mark. A couple of reviews on Amazon has reported exactly this. But not many. The way it died is the 4 lights came on and wouldn't go off and it simply stopped charging the phone. The button on the back no longer did anything. I hoped if I disconnected it, it would just discharge and maybe return to normal, but two days later nothing has changed.

Although I can't imagine it being responsible, I did do one thing with the battery case I had never done before. Because I was going to be days without electricity, I hooked it up to my car charger whenever I ran an errand into town in order to top it off.

It only has a 6 month warranty and although I emailed ZL customer support, I am not expecting much.

But here's the crazy thing. I became so dependent on it and it was so wonderful while it worked, I am seriously contemplating ordering another and taking the chance that I will get a good one. This is like having a zero point module (Stargate) and I am totally addicted to having it to depend on. Maybe that is Zerolemon's plan... addict Americans to a 6 month battery subscription.

By the way, this is the same trip where my wife fell into a bog with her Moto Z droid Play in her back pocket. Have filed the insurance claim on that. May need to look into battery insurance.

Tough week for electronics in the Hook household.

 

Okay, call me crazy. Ordered it from Newegg directly this time so I'm only dealing with Newegg. Although acknowledging the manufacturer's 180 day warranty, they claim to offer one year on parts and labor, which might be wrong, but I'll hold them to the wording if something goes wrong again. Also claim to offer 3 day shipping via Fedex. We'll see.

Cannot. Live. Without. It. (The 6p on it's own does not have great battery life).

I know. It's truly sad, the ravings of a power addict.

 

OMG!!! Is the Z Play okay??? I mean, uh, is your wife okay?

The battery thing sounds very reasonable to me. That probably doesn't bode well.

 

Yeah, I remember a time when Hook would proudly brandish his devices naked. I mean, the device is the naked one in this picture. Don't know about Hook, though. Don't want to know either.

Hi Hook! I imagine your wife's fall had no major consecuence other than the phone?

 

My wife is fine. She wanders out into bogs to shoot photographs. The Z alas is dead. We are probably going to replace it with the Z2 equivalent. We'll see if the insurance "full coverage" is really full coverage.