Samsung Galaxy Note: There is little or testing the battery at 4700 mAh

Introduction

Testing and writing of this post was triggered by habriusers Igor_kh and HeavyRazzer , who were the first to master and present their works on Mugen Power products to the community. Due to the reasons set forth below, I also decided to test the enlarged battery for the Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N7000.

How it all began

A little background ...

It all started on a cold November evening, when I watched the presentation of the new Samsung Galaxy Note, popularly known as the “bubble”. Having looked at my Siemens A50 with longing, I decided it was time to change something. And this phone hooked me up with both my screen and battery capacity, so I hopefully (in Chisinau, it only appeared in official sale in April) I started searching for it through online stores.

The first surprise was that after 5 days the phone was already in hand. The guys who sold it to me, assured that they bought it in the Czech Republic, but judging by the German language, which stood by default, he also did not immediately get to the Czech Republic.

As any person would have done, the first thing I began to study the miracle of Korean thought and was not surprised when the battery sat down after 6 hours. Having charged it and turned on the full 3G, I started to deal with the software from the market and then the battery life was 7 hours. Within a month, I began to comprehend the first disappointments. The phone had to be charged 2 times a day, and the second time it was at night, but when I disconnected it from charging at 8 and went to work, it was enough for it until 17:00 (the charge would remain low and after 2 hours I would be unavailable) . At the same time, I realized that my resources were so actively “consumed”: it was basically a screen and 3G, if the first was actively used for 1-2 hours maximum, then the second - never turned off.

After 2 months, I installed a Wi-Fi router at home and figured out the access point at work (there was a weak signal to my workplace) and I decided to check the operation of my Galaxy Note using only Wi-Fi. And then there was a small paradox in my head: in all guides and energy saving programs, the first item is always Wi-Fi off, but in my case the phone could hold out for 5 hours more than usual. (I can only assume that with a 3G connection, my phone was in the area of ​​the intersection of cells, so there was a constant reconnection). This made me happy, but still, with my “relatives” of 2500 mAh, I wasn’t happy to charge the phone once a day, and even the opportunity to stay at the most inappropriate moment with a “brick” in my pocket. Of course, I immediately ordered another 1 original battery for “ridiculous” money and had already begun to look closely at the version from Mugen Power .

Order and delivery

Of course, the amount that was requested for the increased battery was huge (compared to the standard battery), but I decided to try to contact technical support, especially since the positive experience, according to previously published posts, was already there.

After talking with the Russian-speaking representative of Mugen for 2 weeks and arranging for the delivery, I flew to the University of Bordeaux, and the enhanced battery left Hong Kong. And a month later we met with him.

The parcel arrived intact and safe, the bag inside was covered with pimply polyethylene, protecting the contents from shaking. Everything is the same as in 2 previous authors.





')

The inner world of the package introduced me to a package with a battery and a brief instruction “How to make the world a better place” “How to properly charge and store the contents of the package”.

Appearance

As you can see, the phone becomes 2 times thicker compared to the standard, but on the weight it is not much felt. I also read the comment that the sound of the phone becomes muffled due to the cavity that forms under the lid, but during the testing period in the total amount of 3 weeks, I did not notice anything like that. An interesting holder gives a rest to your hands when you watch a movie or read it (how could I miss it in an airplane when your hands became numb from continuous holding).



Phone with new battery and cover



The new battery is very different, both in weight and in size, except that the contacts remained in the same place. Unfortunately, I never managed to “strain out” the capacity of the battery with the help of software, so I have to believe what is written on the label. But judging by the data presented below, the numbers are clearly "not taken from the head."





Battery Technology Comparison





Visual comparison of batteries



In order to imagine how much the phone will increase, I decided to bring standard phone comparison photos and a separate cover for a new battery. You can make a conclusion yourself, personally it didn’t cause any inconvenience to me, the phone calmly felt in its pocket, like its predecessor, but no longer it was necessary to think about charging during the day.





A visual comparison of the phone with the old and the new cover.





Phone versus cover



And this is how the new battery in the phone looks like. It does not look very elegant, but you can sacrifice beauty for energy.





Battery in the phone

Testing

Testing was carried out with the help of several utilities from PlayMarket: Battery Drain is an interesting utility that shows battery consumption every hour and also allows you to collect statistics on battery usage in the form of "percentages / hours"; Battery Dr.Saver - allows you to carry out the cycle of full battery charging, and also allows you to detect the time spent on charging; Battery HD - allows you to calibrate the battery and shows preliminary battery usage figures (unfortunately, not always accurate); and of course, Battery Monitor Widget is a comprehensive tool that combines all previous tools.

Testing was also conducted in Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread and Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich (its output for the Galaxy Note just coincided with the writing of the post).

During testing, 2 unpleasant incidents happened: 1) after switching to Android 4.0.3, the battery began to “eat”, like a rabid one, the increased battery lasted a maximum of 4-5 hours, standard and even less, only battery calibration helped me; 2) for a month of testing it turned out that some data was irretrievably lost both from Dropbox and from the phone, so some of the indicators for the original battery may be missing, mainly for Android 2.3.6.



Speaking in dry numbers, here they are:

1. during standard testing (the usual day of using the phone, all the time Wi-Fi and 3G turned on, the reader and the music played - about an hour, half an hour playing time for a child, all the time included 2 monitoring systems, web surfing - about an hour) battery consumption was about 4% -6% per hour.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   As we can see, the increase is almost 2 times, which means that wherever I am - I have about 36-40 hours without recharging, without limiting myself in using the phone. (there was a feeling that under Android 4.0.3 I violated the testing conditions a bit, the data is smaller than I expected)
   
   
2. during intensive testing (everything is the same as on a normal day + GPS and Bluetooth are on all the time, using the camera in photo and video shooting) battery consumption was about 12% -14% per hour.
   
   
   
   4700 mAh - Android 2.3.6
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   No wonder, except that the original numbers are smaller, but this once again confirms the capacity of the enlarged battery.
   
   
3. during extreme testing (the AnTuTu Tester and Battery Killer programs were used) the battery consumption was about 21% -42% per hour.
   
   
   
   4700 mAh - Android 2.3.6
   
   
   
   
   
   The purpose of the last test was to identify the maximum performance of the phone and the battery charge, but for some reason I did not think about the time at which he would be able to withstand such work. And since the testing was carried out at night, data on the operating time was not preserved and the result had to be put in “parrots” from AnTuTu Tester. One thing I can say is that the original battery lasted for 3-4 hours, the increased one - by 7-8 (take my word for it).
   
   

Battery charge time

I would also like to mention the battery charge time:

• A full charge cycle for a battery from Mugen Power is about 4 hours and 30 minutes, normal charging is 3 hours and 40 minutes
• A full charge cycle for a standard battery is about 2 hours and 15 minutes; normal charge is 1 hour and 45 minutes.

I did not conduct a charge comparison via the USB port, mainly because I seldom use this opportunity.

findings

I will try to do the pros and cons of using such a battery based on the opinions of my friends who have seen my device before and after:



+ Really long battery life, not limiting yourself in opportunities;

+ The weight of the device and its functionality has not changed much, at least for the hand it does not look unusual, only for the first time;

+ The device is both heated, and continues to bask in the area of ​​the camera, but it does not exactly depend on the battery (this was proven by experience);

+ Mugen Power is already in the presence of a 5400 mAh battery , which has the same dimensions, which will give a significant increase of another 14%.



- The thickness of the smartphone from the super-thin increased by 2 times, which is a little inconvenient, but it seems to me only the first time;

- It is not possible to accurately determine the capacity of a new battery, at least with free software;

- “ironic minus” - after using this battery when returning to the standard one, you have to remember to charge the phone more often again;

- I hardly want to keep it as the main one all the time, it all depends on the habits and duties assigned to your phone.



The pros and cons came out equally, but in fact some of them are “sucked from the finger,” so I’ll tell you my feelings and opinions on this invention. Definitely, this battery is irreplaceable, if you often are on business trips or your activity rarely intersects with the presence of sockets (which sounds quite strange in modern realities). Tactile sensations are manifested only when he goes from a standard sample to an enlarged one and vice versa, but they are enough for a couple of hours maximum, then everything is taken for granted. Of course, you can buy a bunch of batteries and change them like gloves, but why not take the x2 battery and docking station and not feel uncomfortable with 3-4 batteries.