This Seidio Battery is an excellent battery that does everything just like the last 5 extended life batteries I have purchased for other phones I have owned. It has more than twice the life of my OEM DROID battery. The problem with the DROID that everyone here is talking about is related to how the Motorola firmware handles battery consumption. The firmware measures voltage used, and is programmed only to measure the OEM battery size. When you put in the fully charged Extended Seidio Battery, and use the DROID, it incorrectly assumes your battery is dying, when actually there is way more juice left. If you have purchased this battery, I would reccomend downloading an APP called BATTERY LEFT. Over a matter of a few days, it will calibarate the true extended battery percentage, based on data collected from a few full charge-discharge cycles.
I LOVE MY EXTENDED SEIDIO BATTERY!! Motorola is the true culprit here! Seidio Innocell 2600 mAh Extended Battery for Motorola Droid
So I bought this battery when it came out from Seidio. I have had their stuff before and they have all been great. When I got it, charged it overnight and turn my Droid on, it all seemed normal until I realized that it was running out of juices just as fast if not faster. After a couple of cycles, the issue persisted, so I gave them a call. This is what I got from support:
1. Fully charge the battery after each drain -- because the battery exceed the amount that the Droid's firmware can handle, you will need to charge it beyond the green bar. Meaning that after your Droid "thinks" that is full, you need to leave it in there for an additional 2-3 hours to fully charge the battery.
2. Rebooting -- now this is a biggie, because of the firmware, you might find the battery meter reading 40-50% halfway through the day. You will need to restart the droid, once you do that, you will get an accurate reading on the meter. you will only need to do this once, because subsequent rebooting will give you consistent and accurate readings.
After following this regiment from them, i have been achieving better battery life! I am a heavy user and the OEM battery barely gets me through the afternoon. With this battery, I could easily get through a whole day and then some! The battery door isn't really bothering me at all. Matter of fact, having the battery door making watching Youtube easier because you can prop the phone against the door without anything else. Typing is also improved because now the Droid fits firmly in my hand!!!!
Follow this, you will get better battery life, period.
UPDATE 3-30-10: The Battery just stopped working after 2 months. It got buggy this week and just quit.
2 months is not a reasonable product lifespan. My OEM battery I bought from Amazon is fine. I recomend purchasing the OEM battery. They cost less than 1/2 the price of the Innocell battery on Amazon.
Origional Review
I enjoy my Droid phone and with my usage, I go through batteries quickly. You can conserve power by turning off options you are not using (Bluetooth, 3G, Screen Brightness, GPS, Wi-Fi, Checking Email) I got this extended life battery and a spare OEM battery at the same time. The battery did have some of the initial issues that were described by other reviews but the battery eventually worked properly.
The Good
It is nice having one battery that outlasts the OEM battery. It was very frustrating to have my phone die on me and not be in a position to charge it. I don't seem to get twice the life from this extended life battery, but close to it.
The Bad
The battery does not fit in my Motorola car dock, which I use all the time. It also doesn't fit in my desktop charging dock which I also like to use. The additional bulk is not noticeable in a jacket pocket. It is noticeable in snug jeans front pockets.
Conclusion
I am happy with the purchase. I choose my battery according to what my use will be. If I'm going to be in my car I use the OEM battery. If I am out and about all day, I use the extended battery. It is nice to have options. I still bring my OEM spare battery when I don't want to take the chance of having a dead phone.
Unlike our I-Phone friends we have the ability to pop in a new battery. ;-)
It looks a little ugly but it hasn't made my phone any thicker than a Treo or Blackberry. The best part is how it allows for so many new ways to grip the phone. The VERY best part is that I can permanently turn on GPS, full sync, full brightness, etc and still get a full day's use with no charger involved - I still have roughly 20% battery life before going on charge prior to bedtime. Warning: stock desk/car docks do not work when this battery is installed, but the great part is that Seidio makes custom versions of each specifically to support this battery (and they're sexy!).
I received the product (ordered direct from Seidio) and the initial experience was great. As everyone else has already mentioned, the droid doesn't recognize the true capacity of the battery and you have to go through the reboots or install the "Battery Left" app on the droid to see the true capacity.
It worked great for the first 4-5 weks, after which I started seeing a decline in performance of the battery. It went from 2 days running under normal use down to 1.5.. Here I am 7 weeks later and now it's worse than my stock droid battery.
Customer service is horrible. They don't even acknowledge that the problem could be in the battery stating this battery has no known issues. Stay away.
[UPDATE after several charge / discharge full cycles and learning more about this unique battery]
I used to power off and on the phone to get it back into the green several times on one charge of this battery but I have a new usage strategy that is much easier. Basically I know how long this battery works on my phone first - it'll be 1.5 to 2.5 days if I don't leave the screen running alot. Now I simply ignore the battery meter when it drops to 5% RED on the first day because that is the lowest it can go (even though we know the battery has 50%+ charge left in it). The phone will operate fine at 5% battery with the blinking red dot. As time draws near for a charge based on knowing when it's really close to about 20% from all the experimenting when I used to power it off/on to get a reading on the battery, then I put the phone on its original motorola charger overnight. I always use the charger that came with the phone because it shakes hands with the phone and delivers more current than USB is specified for giving a rapid charge to full. The fact that it's taken way more than 1300 mAH from the battery and is at 5% will keep the charger going strong all night. The next morning it is at MAX without ever messing with the power button - just knowing about how long its been is sufficient to get the extra life and anytime you need to know for sure how much is left, power it off and back on for a semi-accurate read on the remaining power.
The only time I cycle the power to find out what the real battery level is is if I am doing something critical or running a new app.
This battery should not be drained dead-dead because it will be hard to charge (i.e. you need to power off the phone's radio with airplane mode and tap the top button to dim the display) - knowing when it is dead dead is hard too because motorola's "bean counter" approach to telling you how much life you have left is a bad way to deal with oversize cells.
Should you find that you REALLY got your hicap battery down to a REAL 5% (by turning the phone off and back on while plugged in and getting a 5% or less battery capacity) you will need to modify the normal plug it in charge proceedure so that enough power is available to recharge the cell. Turn off the radio by using airplane mode. Force dim the display all the way down and turn it off once you finish. Kill any apps running that are battery hoggs (life360 for example). Use the genuine motorola cord and charger (not a PC or mac usb port) because they are designed to provide more power to the droid for charging than a normal usb port is required to provide. Now let it charge OVERNIGHT and a little bit more if you can afford the time
Next morning it will obviously read max on the bat, but all night long there was a trickle charge going into the battery which brought it back to 2600 mAh give or take. Leaving it connected will continue to add charge. All li-ion batts benefit from sitting on the charger beyond their "full" voltage simply because that little bit of trickle current does keep putting a little more charge into the cell. I have a 13,000 mah, 14.8V cell and a specially designed charger for it. From near empty it takes 3 days to charge where the charger goes "green" from "red".
I don't use the last "real" 20% off this cell and I can use the normal motorola charging proceedures. The problem stems from the fact that the battery can be 20% or 80% full and read 20% on droid's meter in both cases (and one more in between). I have used it for 3 days down to 5%, which now I would only do in an emergency. If I'm on my last discharge where it reads accurately I'll be looking for an outlet at 50% and have it on charge by 20%.
This sounds complicated but after a while it is simple and you can just charge it every night. Battery life is one of droid's shortcommings - this product gets you a full day and then some extra. At least droid users *can* pop in a fresh cell when needed!
(below was my first impression of this battery having read how to use it and the shortcommings)
Droid does. Yes indeed. Charging batteries is done by leaving the charging voltage on the battery for as long as possible (as long as plugged in) - so charging this cell is a no brainer.
Droid calculates discharge. Therein lies the problem. Droid under "about this phone" --> "battery usage" keeps track of every mAh used and where it went. This is nice to see what apps are really sucking the battery dry, but it's also how droid knows how much power is remaining, and it assumes 1300 mAh is the battery capacity. But with this attached, 2600+ is the capacity.
Example - last night I forgot to plug Droid in. I had charged the Innocell fully yesterday. This morning I was at 5 percent and had a red light. I did what the other reviewer said. Turn off droid and restart it (it thinks I swapped batteries, something Iphones can not do). Turned back on and I had 80% left based on voltage, not tabulated accounting of power used. Yes, overnight I used 95% of 1300 mAh, but I had > 1000 mAh onboard which showed up as 80% full.
The next release of the o/s needs to have a field where you key in your mAh if they continue using the tabulation method of power management. As the 1300 mah cells age they will only hold 1000 mah and that must be accounted for. Also advancements in technology will produce thin 1500 mah cells which need to be entered into the droid. For now, this saved today because my phone is still running 30 hours since I last charged it. Anyone with a droid knows 30 hours is a long time on one battery!
Cons: - the phone won't fit in the dock with this battery and cover attached. Oh well. - Motorola - Battery - Droid - Motorola Droid'
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