Seido Extended Battery for Treo put to the test

21 Responses to “Seido Extended Battery for Treo put to the test”

ywbyun, on August 28th, 2006 at 4:03 am Said:

Hi Bob,

I recently purchased a Seidio Extended battery and couldn’t really guage if I was getting more juice. However, your analysis definitely prooves that the extra capacity is there and now I’m relieved that my investment wasn’t wasted on a false advertisement. Thank you very much for your article.
torin, on August 28th, 2006 at 8:42 am Said:

From a practical standpoint, I found that with the Standard Treo 650 battery, I would start our my day with Chatopus online (a Jabber/IM client thus requiring a Net connection) at around 8a with 3-5 phone calls during the day and if I stayed on Chatopus too long that by 8p, the phone was dead and needed to be charged for quite a while.
With the Seido Extended Battery, I’ve found that at around 10p when my ‘mobile’ day is ending, the battery is at around 15-20%.
Having a full day with the phone and online makes me happy.
kabamm, on August 28th, 2006 at 5:55 pm Said:

Yup, extended battery is a MUST.
2000 Man, on August 29th, 2006 at 5:10 am Said:

33% claimed increase but less than 16% in real life. Kind of makes you wonder what you’re paying for.

(Ed: it has 33% more power capacity - 2400mAh compared to 1800mAh - which does not equate to life nor does it claim to)
silver_2000, on August 29th, 2006 at 1:50 pm Said:

It nice to see that the battery lasts longer but the battery is sold as having 33 % more capacity “This Extended Battery provides approximately 33% longer talk and standby time”

The simplest of low drain test only show a 10% improvement not 33%. 10% is nearly a statistical anomaly. The treo needs the help in the battery and I have one of these batteries but I didnt see a 33% increase in life and thats backed up by these tests.

Id love to know under what circumstances the phone would see 33% increase in talk time

(Ed: it has 33% more power capacity - 2400mAh compared to 1800mAh - which does not equate to life nor does it claim to)
username, on August 29th, 2006 at 2:58 pm Said:

”
Reported to have 33% more capacity than the original battery…
Total discharge to 10% of battery life was 8 hours and 24 minutes.
Total discharge time to 10% for the extended battery was 9 hours and 44 minutes.
Bottom line:
The Seidio Extended Battery has demonstrated that it does what it says.
”

How can you say that?

2400 compared to 1800 is an 33% increase.
Estimated extended time would be 11 hours and 10 minutes.
The obtained extended runtime is only 16%, not even the half of what is to be expected.

(Ed: it has 33% more power capacity - 2400mAh compared to 1800mAh - which does not equate to life nor does it claim to)
bmoshier, on August 29th, 2006 at 3:23 pm Said:

While I agree this battery lasts longer, your test seems to show it does not provide approximately 33% more time. On the other hand, maybe there is a different drain rate when using the phone (e.g. talk and standby time).

Regardless of this test, though, from my personal experience the battery does last longer with a 700p.

Thank you so very much for the information about the digital memory and doing a deep discharge (to 0%) every 30 charges or so.
chuckg, on August 29th, 2006 at 3:41 pm Said:

Hi Bob,

I liked your article, as it educated me on several battery related terms and such. I would point out that your test seemed to indicate that the battery really only provided about a 16% additional capacity, so the 33% stated in the advertisement seems a bit high. I agree that the additional mAh sounds like it would provide 33% more, but as with other rechargable batteries, usage is the true measure.

(Ed: it DOES have 33% more power capacity - 2400mAh compared to 1800mAh - which does not equate to life nor does it claim to)
nodnolkram, on August 29th, 2006 at 4:29 pm Said:

Hi Bob - Did I get this correct? You wrote: “Avoid deep discharge cycles – using battery until it reaches 0%” and then: ” A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem.” Is full discharge cycle done less than about 30 recharge cycles THE issue? What happens to the Li-Ion battery that is drained to zero often?

Also, my standard Treo 650 battery went bad in about a year, but, the I talk 2000+ minutes a month and I use Bluetooth. Thanks
rschnapp, on August 29th, 2006 at 4:31 pm Said:

Huh? What the heck do you mean that 33% more battery capacity should not be equated to 33% longer battery life????
Unless a bigger battery somehow increases the power drain, OF COURSE the increased lifetime should be expected.
If I drink 1 cup per hour from a 1 quart bottle, and I buy a 50% larger bottle and fill it, I had better get 50% more hours out of it — unless it has a leak.
Your real problem is your testing methodology. If you don’t know how to test something, find someone who DOES know how to test it. Using “Battery Time” as your testing method is extremely flawed. How do you know the accuracy of this piece of software?
The proper way to test a battery would be to use the device with a fixed duty cycle of standby and talk — or at the very least, with some application that will draw down the battery at a rate approximating some mix of these activities — until the device turns off. Walter Mossberg (WSJ “Personal Technology” column), for instance, plays MP3s continuously, with the screen-blanker disabled until the device shuts down.
Until you can test a battery meaningfully, you probably ought to withdraw this “review”. It reflects poorly on the product and on mytreo.net.
kn0w1, on August 29th, 2006 at 4:45 pm Said:

To “Ed” ;) :
At the mytreo store page for this battery (linked in the article), it does claim:
“This Extended Battery provides approximately 33% longer talk and standby time.”

The Product Description also claims this:
This Extended Battery provides approximately 33% longer talk and standby time than the battery that initially ships with the Treo. …

10 or 16% is not anywhere near 33% as it in fact claims on the product page, only almost half of that.
If the standard battery gets 8h24m, +33% should be about 11h10m. The test only gets 9h44m (about 15-16%).
bjohanso, on August 29th, 2006 at 5:23 pm Said:

I see all the editors notes about it not claiming to have 33% more life, but here is the product description from this website:

“This Extended Battery provides approximately 33% longer talk and standby time than the battery that initially ships with the Treo….”

That looks to me like it is claiming extra life, not just extra capacity. And, the article shows that for the battery drain scenario tested you get ~16% extra time.

Admittedly, for talk or standby the battery is draining differently than with the app that was used for the test, but I’m doubtful that you will see the full 33% improvement in those cases either.
kn0w1, on August 29th, 2006 at 5:51 pm Said:

bjohanso brings up a good point, this review did not test talk or standby time at all.
Only battery life based on running this one application.

While most of us probably have free nights & weekends, I don’t know anyone i could call and talk to for hours on end ’til the battery dies. :)

I’d also be interested in hearing if this battery gets hotter than the standard one.
70 ghia, on August 29th, 2006 at 7:34 pm Said:

Looks like I have generated plenty of discussion regarding this item. I am open to suggestions for testing methods to determine battery run down times. Please respond with a URL for a test procedure, or just give me a recommendation. I will compile all of this together, perform testing, and provide you with a follow-up article. Thanks for all of the comments and interest.
Joad, on August 29th, 2006 at 7:59 pm Said:

I’m losing the capacity to consider having this battery in my life :)

Would be nice to have a 1:1 “real world” test of each battery running the exact same applications (statistics from 100%-automatic power-down):
* Standby
* Phone
* MP3’s on Pockettunes
* Web

Thusfar, we have a claimed 33% from the manufacturer (or the copywriter) and 10-16% from the reviewer running an application that isn’t what will be actually draining the battery when we use it.

For the premium demanded for this battery (nearly twice what the OEM battery costs on the street), I would expect Seidio to do some honest real-world testing and post their results, rather than just claiming that because the capacity = 33% more that this directly equates to a 33% increase in battery discharge time.

The bottom line for me is - is it 10% more or 33% more (or somewhere inbetween) in the real world? For a $60 MSRP I’d expect some clarity on this point with real test results to back it up.
ywbyun, on August 29th, 2006 at 8:31 pm Said:

Batteries diminish with time. So if you use your Treo extensively, then at some point you’re probably going to have to buy a new battery.

Perhaps the advertisement is a little exaggerated but 16% is still better than nothing. Also, if you invest in this seidio battery, then you can charge up the Palm battery that came with your Treo and keep it as backup.
JDHeinzmann, on August 29th, 2006 at 10:41 pm Said:

Being a stickler for proper technical language and explanations, I was dismayed in this article to see the author refer to electrical current in units of mAh. mAh in this case are a measure of the charge that a battery can hold, not the current it can deliver. Current is measued in mA (milli-amperes). Thus a 1000 mAh battery will provide 1000 mA of current for one hour, 500 mA for two hours, etc.

Also, the editor replied to a number of posts above stating that the battery “has 33% more power capacity - 2400mAh compared to 1800mAh - which does not equate to life nor does it claim to”. Actually, 2400 mAh refers to the charge capacity of the battery, not the power capacity. (If it referred to power capacity, the units would be in watts or milli-watts.) And, in general, charge capacity should relate very closely to the run time of the device it powers, when the load is constant, regardless of what the manufacturer claims or does not claim.

So, if we make the assumtion that the load placed on the battery during these tests was reasnonably constant during the test and the same for each test, I assert that it is appropriate to conclude from this review that either the Seido battery is not delivering as much charge as the manufacturer’s rating or the Treo battery was delivering more than its own rating, and in any event, the performance will not improve as much as expected.

The best way to settle this debate would be to actually measure the capacities of these batteries on a battery tester designed for this purpose. And the tests should be performed at several different current levels representative of talking, standby, etc. It is entirely possible that this battery will do well at lower drain rates than at higher ones. Typically, cells optimized for high charge capacity are not as good at delivering high power (their internal resistance is higher). The battery reviewed here may be rated for 2400 mAh, but only at a very low drain rate.
2000 Man, on August 30th, 2006 at 9:56 pm Said:

Why no editor’s answer to Seidio BS claim about their battery providing 33% more battery life? Sounds like MTDN is getting paid by Seidio.

The 2400mAh battery looks like a sham as it is only approx. 2100mAh.

(Ed: this test obviously had some major flaws so we’re looking into doing a more extensive and accurate test as a follow up to this article. We’ll keep you posted.)
radar, on August 31st, 2006 at 6:01 pm Said:

geeks spittin hairs! i got one and the phone does run a little longer. for me it’s the difference between charging in the car and makin’ it home!
Joad, on September 1st, 2006 at 2:04 am Said:

…To me it’s the difference between keeping my existing 2 batteries or dropping another $40+ on a single one purported to last an entire day. Don’t you have a car charger, radar? They’re about $10 on the street, you can buy 4 for the price of this battery…
FragInc, on September 6th, 2006 at 8:33 pm Said:

Direct Quote from MTDN Purchase Page:

“Product Description

This Extended Battery provides approximately 33% longer talk and standby time than the battery that initially ships with the Treo. For a modest price, you’re gaining considerably longer device usability.”

So, even though this battery review is a bit flawed scientifically, it does mostly prove that the manufacturer’s claim of “33%” longer functionality is quite off-target.

As far as the price difference; currently, it is only $4 more than the standard battery. So in this aspect, it may be a better choice cost wise due to a slightly longer functionality time. I would purchase this battery ahead of the standard battery so that I may have a bit more battery usage available for extended usage without access to my charger.

Personally, I have a vehicle charger also since a dead Treo650 is not an option so I do not really care as to a manufacturer’s claim of its battery life since the price tag is most important overall.