iPhone 3G External Battery

[FG Lurker]

Like many I have found the iPhone 3G's battery life to be.....disappointing. I have a car charger and that certainly helps but if I have to be away from the car for any length of time I usually end up with the "Less than 20% battery remaining" warning.

I dropped by the Shinsaibashi Apple Store on Friday and they didn't have any external batteries available. I guess Apple still thinks the standard battery is good enough on its own.

Undeterred I visited BIC Camera in Namba tonight and found several external batteries that claimed to be iPod Touch compatible and thus should work on the iPhone 3G as well. Then I found the Sanyo battery section... WOW! They have some serious portable batteries these days!

Although it made no claims to be iPod or iPhone compatible I decided I would take a chance and buy one of these for about 5400yen:



Sanyo KBC-L2S

When connected to the iPhone 3G with a compatible dock cable it works perfectly!

It is a 5000mAh battery so even the iPhone 3G should be able to get through a day of heavy push email and 'net access.

The only downside is that it takes 7 hours to recharge with the included AC adapter or 14 hours to charge via USB. Not something that you can top up quickly unfortunately.

I'll post a followup after using the battery for awhile and let everyone know if it is as good as I hope.

[Taro Toporific]

I'll post a followup after using the battery for awhile and let everyone know if it is as good as I hope.

Yes, ple-e-e-ease. I have a company iPhone waiting for me back in Chicago, but the poor battery gives me creaps.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I've heard some complaints too, but I've also heard from people that it's no worse than any other PDA/phone like the blackberry.

[Charles]

I've heard some complaints too, but I've also heard from people that it's no worse than any other PDA/phone like the blackberry.

Oh the battery life is DEFINITELY worse than any other phone. But I heard the explanation from some analyst or other (I forget who) and he nailed it:

"The battery life sucks because YOU CAN'T PUT THE DAMN THING DOWN!"

So if you want longer battery life, stop playing with it for 3 hours straight.

[james]

So if you want longer battery life, stop playing with it for 3 hours straight.

the exact advice i once gave to a female friend of mine who was also enamoured with certain gadgets.

[DrP]

One of my client's was complaining about the batt life. I took a quick peek - and saw that the WiFi radio was on almost full time. Don't know if Apple had the sense to put any i monitoring on the radio - but i do know that turning off his Wifi dramtically increased the batt life. My guess is they have alot of programming to do on this OS before its really ready for prime-time. Still very much immature. I'll wait 6mo or so - then get one from Docomo - it'll probably be a much better delivery than the SB one.

[FG Lurker]

I'll wait 6mo or so - then get one from Docomo - it'll probably be a much better delivery than the SB one.

Yeah, because Apple has let carriers dictate so much about the phone to date.

Assuming that Docomo does end up selling the iPhone (which for many reasons may not happen) the only difference between the Softbank and Docomo phones will be the network it is locked to.

[FG Lurker]

One of my client's was complaining about the batt life. I took a quick peek - and saw that the WiFi radio was on almost full time. Don't know if Apple had the sense to put any i monitoring on the radio - but i do know that turning off his Wifi dramtically increased the batt life.

Meant to reply to this yday but forgot. If you turn on wifi then it is active and searching for networks whenever the screen is active. When you turn off the screen the wifi radio shuts off after a minute or two, regardless of if it is connected or not. If he isn't using Wifi then shutting it off will increase battery life somewhat but I have no idea how much.

[FG Lurker]

I tested the eneloop battery out yesterday and it enabled me to use the phone as I usually do for a bit more than 24 hours without having to plug the phone into a computer or wall-socket charger. When the phone's internal battery got low I connected it to the eneloop battery to recharge.

I only made a couple of phone calls on the iPhone yesterday but I received a lot of email as usual (few megs worth via MobileMe), and used the web browser a fair amount. So quite heavy data use but not that heavy for phone use. Wifi was enabled throughout the day.

So far the eneloop battery is the best solution I have found that would allow me to get through a day with the iPhone without having to worry about battery life and/or being close to a charger.