Why would my phone lose power while charging?

Hello Everyone,

I’m just curious. I have a Samsung Note 2 and woke it has a big beautiful screen that I’m able to do things like watch Netflix on it eats power fast. I have two batteries, but occasionally will be out of power. Last night I only had 8% Barrett left so I plugged it into the wall charger. I was bored so while it was charging I watched a movie on it. To my surprise the Barry, even though being plugged into the charger continued to lose power, dropping about 1% every ten minutes.

I don’t understand. I would think that at the very least the battery would hold at 8% and not continue to lose power. Surely the charger provides at least as much power as the battery. What’s going on here?

Mods, please fix the title. It should read Why, not Went. Thanks

Obviously the charger can’t keep up with the the power being used. It could be a weak charger. Possibly a new one would help.

A few times I’ve had my phone plugged in, but it wasn’t really charging. I noticed that the battery icon didn’t have the lightning bolt charging indicator.

Another thought: You might have a lot of other apps running in the background. I reboot my phone about once a week. I think it keeps it from discharging as quickly.

For very high draw applications like watching video this is not necessarily the case. If put under stress a large phone or tablet battery can easily spit out power faster than a trickle charger can put it in.

I gotta say that’s some truly awful spell-checking or voice recognition in the OP. A little proofreading would have been more courteous to the rest of us.

Are you using the charger that came with the tablet, or some generic one?

Often the factory charger is a lot more powerful than the cheapo junk we all end up buying from the $5 tub by the cash register at the convenience store. If you’re using a cheapo charger that would explain its inability to keep up with video playback.

Combination of old eyes, big thumbs and not nearly big enough screen. My apologies, I left my glasses in the other room. Also, i use swype where you move from letter to letter on the keyboard. I hate getting older, so much. My apologies.

This is kinda like comparing apples and oranges.
Your battery provides roughly 4V (depending on state of charge), and has some total capacity. The phone draws as much current as it needs in order to do it’s job, until the battery runs out.

The charger is providing a constant 5V, and has a max instantaneous draw - likely somewhere between 100mA and 2A, depending on the setup. But it can do it forever.

If the video player on the phone takes more power than the charger can provide, the phone will end up using some from the battery. If the phone doesn’t need everything the charger can provide, it will charge the battery with the extra.

Also, I’m slightly fibbing on a few details, to keep it simple.

Sorry to be overly hostile. I’m lost without my readers too. The only good thing I can say about increasing age is that it beats the alternative. Although I’m just starting down that long slide; my attitude may change as the insults accumulate.

I’ve given up on posting on a phone just because it’s so damn fussy. I’ll read on a phone using tapatalk. But posting is full-sized keyboards only for me. I will txt on the phone but I don’t use thumbs; they’re too big / clumsy. I hold the phone in one hand and poke at it with the better index finger. Slow, but more sure. And still not very good.

Does your Note 2 still have the original battery? That could be a factor as well, that phone came out in 2012. A three year old battery may not be charging efficiently any more, causing longer charge times that can’t keep up with a large drain like video on top of charging. I have a new phone, not 30 days old yet, and the battery gains charge while watching video.

On the keyboard side-subject, I have a coworker who uses Swype and I can’t tell you how many incomprehensible emails I’ve gotten from her. My conclusion is that Swype kinda sucks. I use Swiftkey, can make the keyboard different sizes, and it has fantastic predictive text that learns from my emails, texts, and social media. So it does things like knowing to capitalize the names of my cats, and medical procedures and drugs I talk about frequently for work will pop up as the next words when appropriate. It also has a swipe function that I don’t use, but might be better along with the predictive text.

What’s your brightness set at? Try experimenting with lowering your brightness until your charge increases. For my iPad it’s around 50-60% brightness.