By Battery technology has long been the subject of criticism toward OEMs. Battery life simply isn’t where we need it to be. Feature phones can go days with moderate use without needing to be charged. That’s the thing, though – we’re all into smartphones here. And these phones are just way too powerful to last more than a day with any real use.
This problem has been attacked for a while now, but NTT DoCoMo in Japan decided to go the another route: instead of finding ways to optimize battery life, why not shorten the time it takes to charge a phone? It won’t even take half an hour to charge a battery, they’re proposing – a quick 10 minute juice-up can get you going for the rest of the day.
This isn’t all that new. Other firms have shown prototypes of batteries with this functionality for a while, but NTT DoCoMo appears to be closer than the rest with a market-ready solution. Fears are that batteries’ overall life will die far sooner than they currently do and that the technology will be expensive (and unwieldy for use on the go).
Still, it excites us, a generation who moves around a lot and rarely has time to sit down and charge a phone for 2-3 hours in the middle of any given day. Bring it on NTT (even if other parts of the world likely won’t see it for quite some time). [Engadget]
As you said, I’m wary of the amount of recharge cycles the battery can take before its life is over. Hopefully they can prove me wrong though.
Batteries for my Nexus S 4G go for 16.00 for a 2 pack. I think I can recycle them if the life is even reduced by half.
where are you getting them that cheap?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-1500mAh-Battery-Charger-Samsung-Google-Nexus-S-4G-/270827076656?pt=PDA_Accessories&hash=item3f0e8d3c30
3 Batteries and Charger from Hong Dong. That is one entry of many. Cheers.
The average price I’m seeing on the web is about $35 each. If you have a magical source that’s letting them go for $8 each, please share. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say “omgwant.”
Magical Source: EBAY!!! I’ve bought a bunch of batteries for myself and for other acquaintances, never had any problems. In fact my new HTC Incredible 2 has never had an OEM battery inside of it. Only ones from Ebay. BTW, my favorite seller to get the batteries from is TUTTOIT. Shipping takes a week or two, but he’s always taken good care of me.
p.s. I’ve been told by a couple of people that these don’t work for Motorola phones, but I know they are all good for HTC and Samsung
Bingo. My OG Inc has batteries on Amazon for about $8 a pop. I bought 2 and a charge cradle. I’m a heavy user, so I can run through a battery in about 5-6 hours on a good ROM. That’s terrible….until I break out battery number 2. On rare occasion (usually if I’ve been doing backups and flashes on the go) battery 3 kicks in. Rarely do I find a day where I’m away from a wall/USB port for more than 15 hours.
Yami U need extras? I got 6 batteries and 2 chargers lying around from my OG Inc that won’t work in my Inc 2. I used to be able to go a day or two without needing an outlet.
Still doesn’t address the problem of what to do when there is no charging source available for extended periods of time (except for carrying additional batteries).
Well, do you spend more than 24 hours at a time away from a charging source? Keep in mind that the device shown in the video is an add-on battery. So when it runs out, your device goes back to its normal, standard battery. It’s definitely not an ideal solution (the current prototype looks like hell), but I’d say it’s a nice alternative to buying multiple stock batteries for your device.
i’m a little confused because my understanding from the video is that this is a battery pack. which means you aren’t charging/destroying your phone’s battery in 10 minutes, you’re charging the pack in 10 minutes. the pack then either powers or charges your phone.
the differentiation is made from 1:00 to 1:12 where he states the capacity of the device and says it can charge the internal battery by a 2 second long press of the button on the device.
You are correct. The idea is that this would be a usb-connected jacket with an external battery inside. However, the implication that we’re getting at with this is that the technology that’s charging this jacket prototype in 10 minutes might be applied to the phones themselves in the future. The jacket itself is still only a prototype, so either way, we’re looking at a lot of R&D before anything comes out of it.
I don’t need faster recharges, I need longer lasting batteries
If this is even remotely portable, does it really matter that much? Put this on and toss it in a bag as you go about your day, or car as you drive, and 10 minute later you are good to go with little inconvenience to you. Longer lasting would be the ultimate dream yes, but this is be a good stopgap till then.
EDIT: ah in a perfect world this would be applied to the phones them self so the portable aspect doesn’t matter anyways.
the best would be a longer battery with 10 min charging. So you get the best of both. So my point that this is a good step in the right direction is still valid.
I have long wanted a phone that has a tiny internal battery so I can swap batteries without powering off the phone. The internal battery only has to hold enough charge to keep the phone alive for a couple of minutes and it doesn’t have to be user-accessible. With an internal battery I can buy multiple batteries for my phone and go for days without having to power down or recharge.
Why didn’t I ever think of this! Yes, yes, a million times YES!
OMG yes i have always thought the same thing as well.
So basically you’re saying the phone will go into a state of hibernation until you change the battery? Hmm…
This is actually a really good idea. Patent it, quick!
Why cant it be a combination of things to enhance battery life?? Samsung keep adding LCD, AMOLED, Super Amoled etc, why not focus on the power these screens use, better signal reception etc and faster charging
Allay doesn’t accost the difficulty of what to do when there is no charging germ acquirable for prolonged periods of example
http://androidzphonez.blogspot.com/2011/10/anti-v10-android-network-toolkit.html
How about an add on battery that can run the phone for the few moments it takes to swap removable batteries?
Hydrogen is the answer to the problem.
http://dvice.com/archives/2011/01/desktop-hydroge.php
Someday they’ll figure out how to charge phones over wifi. I’m sure somebody will think of something…
I think it’s time to look back at Tesla’s wireless electricity towers for wireless charging. He nearly built one over 100 years ago, I bet we can build one now. If only JP Morgan had given Tesla the money he needed, we wouldn’t be needing extended batteries.
Yay! I’m not the only person that knows the history here! If only America didn’t favor his competition….
What is wrong with a car charger for on the go? Juice the battery up if you travel alot. Or here is something new…have a spare charger for the office! Maybe I should patent this idea?