Batteries | The Habitation of Justice

All charged up with no place to go

Lincoln Adams | February 1, 2010 @ 7:57 pm

Warning: techie geeky nerd-like dweebie content ahead.

One of the things I’ve been needing to complete my mobile blogging arsenal is a way to extend the life of my cell phone while I was out in the field. I use my iPod Touch for all things Internet via wifi tethering on my Verizon phone, but enabling wifi sucks the battery juice like a vampire on a hot babe. Usually I get only 2-3 hours usage before the battery dies completely. What I’ve wanted to do to address this issue was get a battery operated charger that I could attach to the cell, enable wifi and then toss the whole thing in my backpack while I’m out scouting the city or geocaching. That could extend the life of my cell phone’s wifi for as long as I’d need it, giving both my iPod and my laptop Internet access anywhere in the country, even out in the wilderness. Who’s awesome? I’m awesome.

So I did some researching, and researching, and researching. As it turns out, there’s only ONE battery charger suitable for my cell phone with the right connector (because these cell phone makers, they just wubs to make their own nonstandard ports to set their cell phones apart from the rest and make it speeeciaaal, doncha know?) The charger is made by Energizer and is powered by two AA batteries. Awesome.

But wait, they recommend lithium batteries, their own brand of course. The idea of swapping expensive lithium batteries on a daily basis to keep my charger going seems well, weapons grade STOOOPID. So I researched some more to see if there were rechargeable batteries out there that would have enough juice to power this thing. Turns out one does, Rayovac Hybrid batteries. Awesome.

But wait, their charger to put it bluntly, sucks the crap stick. It’s a dumb charger that simply charges for x amount of hours and turns off, regardless of whether it properly charged the batteries or not. I needed a smart charger that would turn on and off according to how much charge a battery needed and not wreck the cells in the process. So I did some more research, and as it turns out, the best charger for it is made by Duracell. As an added bonus, the Duracell charger also doubles as a battery operated USB charger, so it can also charge my iPod too. Awesome!

So after much hair tearing, the solution turned out to be an Energizer charger, powered by Rayovac batteries, which are recharged with a Duracell charger. :blink:

As a friend of mine commented, the solution I came up with here seemed to suit me: difficult and full of irony.

Ah well. I should have a chance to give this a trial run later this week to see how long I can keep my cell phone’s wifi going, just in time before I take my trip to Boston. The prospect of being able to walk everywhere in the city with my iPod fully powered for blogging and geocaching gives me ooovas! :ggrin:

Tags: batteries, battery, battery charger, blogging, cell phone, city, Duracell, Energizer, geocaching, internet access, ipod touch, laptop, mobile, Rayovac, verizon, wifi
Categories: Gone Mobile

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@#$% Verizon

Lincoln Adams | September 7, 2006 @ 4:28 pm

Verizon sucks big hairy monkey’s butt.

I had a battery ordered from an eBay store to replace the dying one I had on my cell now, and I figured it was safe enough because the seller had a near perfect rating from thousands of buyers. Otherwise I’d have to get it from Verizon, which charges a hefty 40 bucks for the same battery (WT*??) This way I was getting it for just 10. :up:

Battery fried my phone. I don’t mean it simply didn’t work: it @#$% NUKED MY PHONE. When I put the original battery back in, it kept giving the error message “Use Genuine Battery,” and then it would power back down. I found out later on that Verizon’s LG line of phones uses a chip in their batteries to prevent customers from purchasing cheaper batteries from third party dealers. Well, isn’t that just lovely?

I took my phone to a service center hoping they could fix the problem. A battery swap didn’t work, so they held onto the phone to see if it could be fixed (maybe by resetting the software). I came back and the Verizon guy simply dropped a crappy replacement phone in my hands, along with a receipt to sign for it.

“Dude, the hell is this? Where’s my phone?”

“Oh, we couldn’t repair it, so we’re giving you a replacement phone.”

I looked at the phone. It had scratch marks all over the screen and looked like it had been used for years.

“This phone isn’t new. I want my old phone back. What about all the contacts and pictures I had on it? That all goes poof, just like that??”

A shrug of the shoulders.

“And this phone is refurbished for crying out loud.”

“No, it’s straight from LG.”

?????

“Yeah, and? It’s still refurbished… you know what, forget it, just give me my old phone back.”

Great service, huh? I decided to try my luck at another service center tomorrow. I have a suspicion they just took the phone, threw it in a drawer, and unwrapped a replacement phone for me without even taking a look at it. I’m hoping another service center might actually try to repair it, or at least give me a better phone.

Even though it really isn’t that big a loss (I could recover my contact list easily enough), the whole thing really chapped my ass for some reason. Maybe it’s the gall of them trying to force me to buy a proprietary battery over three times it’s actual cost. Maybe it’s because I was just having a generally bad day. Or maybe I just hadn’t eaten enough for the day. Or maybe all three.

Update: Since a few visitors are coming here looking for info on the “use genuine battery” message, I should note that if you swap the battery and it still doesn’t work, that message really means, “I’m broken, I need to be replaced, and if your warranty ran out, well too bad for you.” Ironically enough, after I got a replacement phone (with a few days to spare on the warranty), I also got a replacement for the battery that originally fried my old phone, and this one worked perfectly. Go figure. Long story short, if you want to try a third party battery to save money, make sure you back up your contacts, and make sure the phone is still under warranty. Otherwise you’ll be playing Russian Roulette with your cell. Before you do something like that, ask yourself: Do I feel lucky? :grin:

Tags: batteries, battery, cell phone, chip, ebay, error message, hell, poof, proprietary, receipt, replacement, shoulders, shrug, suspicion, third party, verizon, Verizon sucks, wt
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log

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