Extra Capacity Batteries for your Lumia

[Paul Verizzo]

Yes, Virginia, they ARE out there. In China, of course, brokered by eBay. There's so much kvetching here about short battery life and yet the easiest, most cost effective answer is to just buy a higher capacity battery. And with a stand alone charger, you can charge w/o using the phone charging system. My investigation into all matter of honking batteries for Lumias has led to the following facts.

When I got my 810, I immediately looked for a "larger" battery, and I found this brand for $10 including shipping from China: MPJ 2500mAh Battery Charger for Nokia BP 4W Lumia 810 T Mobile 822 Verizon BP4W | eBay

No charger, which is fine cuz I've got two already.

When I mentioned this a month back on another thread, it turned out that the same battery was then still available for the same price......................plus $20 shipping! Same seller. Currently he will sell you one battery with charger for $14, two batteries and charger for $20, or one battery alone for.......$30.

Since every seller may or may not include certain information in the listing, it behooves you to search by Nokia battery model, like my BP-4W AND by phone model. Now, there's an outfit claiming 3030mah for $7.50 including shipping from Hong Kong for a BP-4L.

I've poked around looking by Lumia iphone model, and there are extra capacity batteries for every Lumia phone.

You might reasonably inquire, "Yeah, but are they REALLY "bigger?" My experience is "Yes!" The one I got DID require my 3X charge/discharge cycling, but once exercised, it is obviously a lot better than the OEM.

RealWorld Tip: Battery capacity claims are to be taken with that grain of salt. Especially with generics from China. But even Official Nokia batteries can vary, unit to unit. I've found that the cheap, generic Chinese batteries inferior to genuine Nokia, but for the price, so what? The most common problem is a shorter life span. But, hey, you get what you pay for.

Lumia on!

 

[Laura Knotek]

Just be careful, since counterfeit batteries can be dangerous. Reminder: Smartphone batteries can be dangerous

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Just be careful, since counterfeit batteries can be dangerous. Reminder: Smartphone batteries can be dangerous

This is a tricky are to make accurate, knowledgeable comments on. I think most consumers know by now that lith-ions can suddenly catch on fire. But in terms of percentages, it's very, very rare.

Counterfeiting may or may not be a problem for batteries. I have no idea, and the artlicle you linked really says nothing.

Then there's matter on non-counterfeited, generic batteries. All the extra capacity batteries fall into this category. If you want one, that's what you buy. Nokia doesn't offer any.

Last, there's the manufacturing sourcing. I've had official Nokia batteries over the years from Finland, Holland, China, and some other SE Asian country I can't recall. You can bet most companies making these batteries make them for the brand names we know and love, and offer up the technologies that are in house to make "China's Best" brands. It's often conjectured that in this, and in inkjet cartridges, that some percentage of production for, say, HP, siphons out the back door to become generics or counterfeits. Either way it's all the same.

I wouldn't, no, I don't let fear run my life. Especially extremely low probability. I do have a healthy fear of a hurricane. It's September and I'm looking out my window at the morning sun lit Whitaker Bayou in Sarasota, Florida. And my house is five feet above sea level.

 

[PB_H]

Paul
-please download this Nokia Battery Pro + ( even if just temporarily ) it shows the batteries' true mAh capacity.
Not that I don't believe you, I just don't believe them. With my 810 OE is shows correctly 1800mAh but one I just bought that's
from China and is sold as having 1950mAh is in reality only 1800 mAh. BTW I contacted Nokia and the developer and it will read
what ever the batteries' capacity is and it's not defaulted or limited to the OE battery capacity. Please post a screen shot too if you would be so kind,
seeing is believing :wink:

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/battery-pro/a11aae5a-b595-4a87-ae4d-9dea0de375d1

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Paul
-please download this Nokia Battery Pro + ( even if just temporarily ) it shows the batteries' true mAh capacity.
Not that I don't believe you, I just don't believe them. With my 810 OE is shows correctly 1800mAh but one I just bought that's
from China and is sold as having 1950mAh is in reality only 1800 mAh. BTW I contacted Nokia and the developer and it will read
what ever the batteries' capacity is and it's not defaulted or limited to the OE battery capacity. Please post a screen shot too if you would be so kind,
seeing is believing :wink:

Battery Pro+ | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)

I respect you, PB_H, but I just can't buy into that. There are only two ways that I can think of that Pro + (I did try it, found it sorely lacking) could do this. One is, that it's encoded into the power control chip. The other is a series of charge/discharge tests, which it obviously doesn't do. And why exactly 1800? Not 1799 or 1820? Because it's either reading the chip, or knowing it's in an 810, and that's the battery capacity of an 810, that's the fact, Jack.

I agree that mah ratings are somewhat BS. But my 2500mah absolutely, definitely, runs a heck of a lot longer than the stock 1800mah.

 

[palandri]

I wish TreoCentral was still open, there were a lot of pictures of damage done using 3rd party batteries bought off eBay.

 

[xandros9]

I wish TreoCentral was still open, there were a lot of pictures of damage done using 3rd party batteries bought off eBay.

the forums were moved into part of webOS Nation, so poke around there.

 

[PB_H]

I respect you, PB_H, but I just can't buy into that. There are only two ways that I can think of that Pro + (I did try it, found it sorely lacking) could do this. One is, that it's encoded into the power control chip. The other is a series of charge/discharge tests, which it obviously doesn't do. And why exactly 1800? Not 1799 or 1820? Because it's either reading the chip, or knowing it's in an 810, and that's the battery capacity of an 810, that's the fact, Jack.

I agree that mah ratings are somewhat BS. But my 2500mah absolutely, definitely, runs a heck of a lot longer than the stock 1800mah.

All we have is the seller's word then. :wink::wink: No offence you don't even know if it's actually 2500 mAh or maybe more or less. Somedays I get 32 hrs. of use out of my 1800 mAH somedays a lot less that tell me 0 about the batteries capacity. . Considering that 90% of these so called higher capacity batteries have been shown to be fiction, I'll take this thread as an opt ed because without facts that's all it is and maybe that's what you intended it to be "one man's opinion" not fact. AND I believe you when you say it gives you more hours than the 1800 mAh but aren't you at least curios to what it actually is ? I would be. BTW you might be correct about that Pro+ app but a battery store can test it's capacity, it takes a few hours for them to run the battery tests and they will find out and give you a print out with all those numbers that mean little to most except the one with mAh after it AND they will do it for free that way and you can either get your money back from that seller OR you can actually say it is 2500mAh and the rest of us would know if it's what they claim or just a battery a bit better than OE.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

All we have is the seller's word then. :wink::wink: No offence you don't even know if it's actually 2500 mAh or maybe more or less. Somedays I get 32 hrs. of use out of my 1800 mAH somedays a lot less that tell me 0 about the batteries capacity. . Considering that 90% of these so called higher capacity batteries have been shown to be fiction, I'll take this thread as an opt ed because without facts that's all it is and maybe that's what you intended it to be "one man's opinion" not fact. AND I believe you when you say it gives you more hours than the 1800 mAh but aren't you at least curios to what it actually is ? I would be. BTW you might be correct about that Pro+ app but a battery store can test it's capacity, it takes a few hours for them to run the battery tests and they will find out and give you a print out with all those numbers that mean little to most except the one with mAh after it AND they will do it for free that way and you can either get your money back from that seller OR you can actually say it is 2500mAh and the rest of us would know if it's what they claim or just a battery a bit better than OE.

Nah. I have much bigger problems in my life to worry about. I paid only $10 for an alleged 2500mah and it seems to give me, what's the technical term?, a LOT more life. Thirty eight percent more than stock? Quite possible. If it's really only 2239mah, I don't care. It's a LOT better.

I do expect an earlier slow die off of capacity with the generics, but what price glory?

 

[pantsaregood]

I'd like to point out to everyone that battery capacity is HIGHLY dependent on physical size. Battery technology isn't really something we're advancing quickly, and as a result we don't really see capacity go up. It is very much impossible to fit a 2500 mAh battery in the same volume as a 1800 mAh battery.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

I wish TreoCentral was still open, there were a lot of pictures of damage done using 3rd party batteries bought off eBay.

And that proves what? As I recall, it was problems with Apple laptops that brought this lith-ion problem to the fore. Not exactly a shoddy generic battery, no?

A concentration of photoes of failed batteries proves nothing. How about a page showing the millions of unfailed batteries? Oh, nobody cares about their battery until it lights up.

I, for one, choose to not live my life in fear of the improbable and unlikely.

It's like fear of terrorism. Other than the one event twelve (12) years ago today, no one has been killed in a terrorist attack. Arguably, they've been prevented by the extreme security measures we've undertaken. Presuming almost everyone killed in that attack was there because of work, the death toll was the same as the number of workers getting killed on the job over any six month time frame. But those farmers, convenience store clerks, and construction workers don't get the media attention, do they?

Facts and fears, so much is perception.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

I'd like to point out to everyone that battery capacity is HIGHLY dependent on physical size. Battery technology isn't really something we're advancing quickly, and as a result we don't really see capacity go up. It is very much impossible to fit a 2500 mAh battery in the same volume as a 1800 mAh battery.

It's far more complicated than physical size. BTW, I did compare the thickness to my two batteries just last night and they appear to be the same by eyeball.

Anyway, let's take the old fashioned lead acid car battery that's been around for a hundred years. They all have to deal with a industry standardized case size for any battery type. Let's first look at how they made cheaper, less than full capacity batteries: The plates were shortened, top to bottom. Empty space below. The most desirable need for a car battery is starting the engine, a peak flow now called Cold Cranking Amps. That's as compared to a long, slow discharge rate.

Over the years, CCA has gone up and up by utilizing "tricks" like making the plates thinner but having more of them. This give more surface area for the chemical reactions to take place. Another was to use thinner cell separators, allowing more plates. Perhaps the trickiest of the tricks was to create microporous plates. Lots more surface area.

And let's not forget the case itself. A thinner material like all modern plastic ones allow more plates than the old fashioned hard rubber ones.

A further "and" is quite possibly it's not really too hard to pack in quite a bit more capacity than what we get in the standard battery. Why? Economics. If Nokia can buy a battery they deem perfectly adequate for $X, and a high capacity one would cost $X+3, you know which way they will go. You never see the very best batteries in new cars, high end possibly excepted. Same principle: good enough.

 

[PB_H]

Nah. I have much bigger problems in my life to worry about. I paid only $10 for an alleged 2500mah and it seems to give me, what's the technical term?, a LOT more life. Thirty eight percent more than stock? Quite possible. If it's really only 2239mah, I don't care. It's a LOT better.

I do expect an earlier slow die off of capacity with the generics, but what price glory?

I agree for $10. even if it's the same as OE and doesn't die in 6 months you've got a good deal AND even if it's "only" 2000-2000mAh -$10 ? yeah !

 

[PB_H]

I'd like to point out to everyone that battery capacity is HIGHLY dependent on physical size. Battery technology isn't really something we're advancing quickly, and as a result we don't really see capacity go up. It is very much impossible to fit a 2500 mAh battery in the same volume* as a 1800 mAh battery.

Not true
Olympus Li-Ion PS-BLS1
•Output Volts: 7.2v / 7.4v
•AmpHours: 1150 mAh
•Dimensions: 55.0mm x 35.5mm x 12.7mm = 103.2mm


Olympus Li-Ion PS-BLS5
•Output Volts: 7.2v / 7.4v
•AmpHours: 1500 mAh
•Dimensions: 53.0mm x 36.0mm x 13.0mm = 102 mm and LESS Volume

*How about less volume ?

 

[DNO36]

To a point you are correct, however my experience with the 18650 batteries that power my laptops and LED lights tells me that size is only part of the story. Lithium batteries are evolving every day to the better... AND ... new sellers of falsely reported capacity batteries are everywhere. A direct test is the only way to compare.