I have this phone and the original battery is rated at 3.6v and 900mAh.
There are after-market batteries rated at 1200mAh, which is better, I figured. So I ordered one.
The new battery says 3.7v. I figured, that isn’t much. Try it.
Normally, I would expect a new (uncharged) battery to take 8-12 hours to charge fully, right?
Anyway, the phone said it was fully charged within 2-3 hours. The first charge did seem to last a long time, though. At least compared with the old battery that was dying. But not 30% longer than a brand-new OEM battery, I don’t think.
So what should I expect here?
Will it harm the phone?
Is it actually getting a full charge in such a short period? Or is it fooling the phone and never getting fully charged, so that I wasted my money in trying for a longer-lasting battery?
If it isn’t getting fully charged now, will its peak voltage decay over time so eventually the phone charger will treat it as a 3.6v battery and charge it longer?
How does the phone know when the battery is charged, anyway?
I think that’s enough questions for now…
Thanks for any info.
(By the way, I did find this thread so I also contacted the folks recommended there. But I thought I’d try here, too.)
It helps if you tell us what kind of battery it is. NiCad and NiMH function differently than a lithium ion battery. If it’s NiCad or NiMH, you are goign to want to deep discharge it a few times (use it till it’s dead, then fully charge.) This will help get rid of “charge memory.” If it’s lithium ion, don’t do that. Lithium ion batteries are better functioning if charged early and often. Ideally, you should actually keep it at about 40% to prolong overall battery life, although for most people, only having a battery that lasts 40% as long as it should it not that useful.
Why would you think it would take 8-12 hours to charge? I’ve never seen a cell phone battery that wasn’t fullu charged after jsut a few hours. Even lithium ion abtterise, which cannot be fast-charged like NiCad and NiMH, only take a few hours to charge fully.
Did your old phone ever take 8-12 hours to charge? You see that instruction on cordless phones since they use a trickle charger but pretty much all modern cell phones use fast chargers.
Oh, don’t sweat the 3.6v/3.7v thing as it is is certainly a rounding error in how the battery was labelled. Single cell Li-Ion batteries are normally labelled 3.6v. NiMh and NiCad are nominally 1.2v per cell so three cell packs are normally labelled 3.6 as well. I’m not aware of any othe battery chemsistry that is close to that nominal voltage so it has to be one or the other.
A 3 cell NiCd or NiMh pack would be 3.6V, where a single Li-Ion or Li-Po cell would be 3.6/3.7V. The charging requirements for the different chemistries are quite different, be sure you are using the correct charger for your battery chemistry.
Which is basically what Padeye just said :smack: except that I was mainly trying to emphasize the importance of being certain your charger is compatible with the new battery. If you had a 3 cell NiMh and replaced it with a single cell Li-X, your charger will not have the correct charging algorithm and could possibly damage your battery, your phone, or in an extreme case start a fire (lithium batteries are nasty beasties when not properly charged).
I’ve never seen a cell phone battery that wasn’t fullu charged after jsut a few hours. Even lithium ion abtterise, which cannot be fast-charged like NiCad and NiMH, only take a few hours to charge fully.