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Juice Pack: the preferred 3G battery extender? Plus Questions about it....

N

NJRonbo

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 10, 2007
3,132
1,155
Hey guys.

This new 3G phone is killing me. I am draining the battery on
a daily basis.

Time to get an external battery pack for it.

Juice Pack seems to be very popular despite the complaints of
the coating peeling off the back.

My main concern about Juice Pack is this statement in an online
review:

The claimed rechargeable cycles are 500, and we
haven’t used it nearly long enough to comment if that’s accurate.
Click to expand...

What exactly does that mean? Will it only charge 500 times and
then it is no longer useful?

Just want to get some opinions from those of you that own a
Juice Pack. How bad is the peeling of the unit?

There are also other options including the APC UPB10. Not sure
which way to go.

Thanks for the help.
 
Kadman

Kadman

macrumors 65816
Sep 22, 2007
1,216
0
I'm not sure about the juice pack, but I just picked up an APC UPB10 from Circuit City. They had it on close out marked at $29.99 and actually rang up for just $24.99! Given that I have other USB devices that could use it, this seemed like the best. Choice for me. I would also rather have the tethered battery in my pocket vs in my hand, but that is just my personal preference.
 
S

stevin

macrumors regular
Jan 29, 2008
168
0
NJRonbo said:
Hey guys.

This new 3G phone is killing me. I am draining the battery on
a daily basis.

Time to get an external battery pack for it.

Juice Pack seems to be very popular despite the complaints of
the coating peeling off the back.

My main concern about Juice Pack is this statement in an online
review:



What exactly does that mean? Will it only charge 500 times and
then it is no longer useful?

Just want to get some opinions from those of you that own a
Juice Pack. How bad is the peeling of the unit?

There are also other options including the APC UPB10. Not sure
which way to go.

Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...


I havent read the whole thread but I figure I should comment... I wouldn't freak out just yet about battery drain. Last year when the iPhone came out I'd charge it every night and I could drain the battery to 0 by 3pm if I tried hard enough.. All I did was use the net and listen to music all day.

When the novelty wore off I started to be able to use it for a day and occasionally 2.. granted I'd never advise trying to last 2 days on 1 charge unless all you do is talk on the phone an hour a day...

So don't worry too much yet. That being said I'm going to reach the rest of the thread because I'm going to be getting a battery extender too :)
 
Kadman

Kadman

macrumors 65816
Sep 22, 2007
1,216
0
The APC I listed above is rated at 10 Ah (or 10,000 mAh if you prefer). I tested it by running my 3G completely down to the point where trying to power it up would simply so a picture of a drained battery and an AC plug (i.e. "plug me in, dummy!)

The APC completely recharged the 3G to the point where it displayed full battery with the icon of the AC plug over it and I still had over 25% of the APC battery capacity left (was showing two bars, so it's somewhere between 25% and 50%). After that I used the APC to charge other small USB devices I had in an attempt to fully drain the APC. I've run out of other things to charge and will wait until my 3G charge cycle goes down and plug it back into the APC.

While the APC is physically larger than the 3gjuice, I must say that I would be a bit concerned about the stress of the full battery weight hanging off the bottom of the iPhone. With the APC it's just your typical charging or dock cable and you can put the battery in a pocket or whatever.
 
I

iRen

macrumors newbie
Jun 24, 2007
18
0
Kensington K38021 portable power pack

got this at circuit city for $60 and it is about size of iPhone. 1000mA nice black aluminum cover. Says 55 hrs of iPod use, 15 video.
 
mavis

mavis

macrumors 601
Jul 30, 2007
4,734
1,452
Tokyo, Japan
Kadman said:
The APC I listed above is rated at 10 Ah (or 10,000 mAh if you prefer). I tested it by running my 3G completely down to the point where trying to power it up would simply so a picture of a drained battery and an AC plug (i.e. "plug me in, dummy!)

The APC completely recharged the 3G to the point where it displayed full battery with the icon of the AC plug over it and I still had over 25% of the APC battery capacity left (was showing two bars, so it's somewhere between 25% and 50%). After that I used the APC to charge other small USB devices I had in an attempt to fully drain the APC. I've run out of other things to charge and will wait until my 3G charge cycle goes down and plug it back into the APC.

While the APC is physically larger than the 3gjuice, I must say that I would be a bit concerned about the stress of the full battery weight hanging off the bottom of the iPhone. With the APC it's just your typical charging or dock cable and you can put the battery in a pocket or whatever.
Click to expand...
I'll second the UPB10 recommendation - it works great!! More than enough power to completely recharge the iPhone 3G (or to top it off several times) and surprisingly lightweight as well.
 
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