V551 short battery life

Hi,

I just bought a V551 and I love it!!

The one thing that's buggin me (since this is my only phone - no home), is the battery life.

Does anybody know of extended life batteries for the V551?

Does "conditioning" your battery really help?

Does signal strength have any corrolation to battery life?

Just curious to hear what other people are getting in terms of battery life, or if any advice!!

Thanks
Willie

------------------------------
I purchase the phone about a week ago. Charged that battery overnight. Unplugged and was dead by 11:00pm.

The battery indicator doesn't seem linear. It will stay at 6 forever, then once starts going down - almost done in 1 hour.

Got a new battery from Cingular (they are all incredibly nice and want to help over at our office), and I'm "conditioning" right now (charge 12 hours and let completely die twice).

I unplugged at about 6pm yesterday.
Was at 6 (battery indicator) for the first 12 hours or so.
At 6 am was at 4. (@ 12hours)
By 6pm today went down to 2.
That's where I'm at now.

Very few phone calls today - maybe 6 minutes total.
Opened up maybe once per hour to check indicator.

Is this normal?

Low Signal strength will drain a battery faster because the phone keeps searching for a signal. If you are somewhere where there is no signal or very low, I would turn your phone off until you are in an area with a better signal if you need to conserve your battery.

However I do not think this is your problem. I think this phone's battery life is very poor.

I just activated my MOT V551 on Wed. By Friday at 1pm I am now on my 3rd full charge. I have decided to "condition" my battery by letting it fulling charge down...don't think this is going to help at all.

This is my first MOT phone, I have always had Nokia's in the past. I would have to say the battery life is significantly shorter on the MOT V551 than any Nokia I have had. I have not used the camera, just have talked on the phone for 4 hrs max, entered all my phone numbers, and I have had to charge 3 times now in 3 days. I have good signal strength so that is not an issue.

According to MOT the specs are: 3.75 hr talk time,
225 hr standby time. Not very good talk time if this is your primary phone, like it is mine. This is going to be a problem if I have to fully charge my phone everyday. Plus, I notice the charging time is significantly longer than charging my Nokia. It would take an hr or 2 max to fully charge my Nokia. I started charging my MOT at 1pm today and by 4pm it is only charged up to one bar. So, hmm let's see 12hrs of charging the phone and at max 12 hrs of usable time if you don't use the phone.

I would suggest purchasing a back up battery for your phone. They run about $30. (probably what MOT had in mind and thus explains this phones poor battery life). Always have your back up charged, but getting that charged will be a problem because I do not see a "cradle" style battery charger like Nokia has where you can charge a battery and your phone at the same time.

If I choose to keep this phone I am going to purchase a backup battery. I'm afraid if not, I'll have to be connected to the wall or my car adapter for the life of this phone. Which pretty much defeats the principle behind a "wireless" phone. I think I will be switching back to Nokia sooner than I have planned.

you where too eager to get to play with your phone when you got it an failed to give it a full charge to set the memory levels when in the phones battery settings for charging ....we all do it, well i did & had to get a new one (hint: buy a desktop charger to always have a backup)

Hi Everybody,

The Problem was my darn phone (yes was a BA model). And I wasn't the only one - my sister and father had same problem. We returned our phones and now get about 2.5 - 3 days of normal useage from a full charge on the standard battery (Motorola # SNN5683A - still haven't found an extended version and don't believe there is one yet).

Actually as mentioned above, I tried many of those things but to no avail:
- Completely Charging and discharging the bat 2 times
- My signal strength is weak (2 bar) at home (Motorola) said no issue

I went back to cinglular and tried a new battery. With the same result. I called motorola and asked if signal strength could have anything to do with my problems since I've heard others talk about and seemed to make sense to me. The engineer said that was true for all the old analog phones, earlier digitial, and could even be more of a problem with the 32K sim chip (I had the 64K).

Finally I got a new phone from cingular - and now I truely do love my V551!! FINALLY.

Just as another example - my sisters phone would only last about 3 hours on a full change!! After she got a new phone - gets the 2.5 - 3 days!!

Lesson to take home:
If your getting less then 2 days out of a full charge (say 8 hours or so) unless very heavy use - it could be your phone!!

Willie

V551 short battery life

Similar Topics

New Motorola Cell Phones

Carriers Talk

Manufacturers Talk

Mobiledia Community