charger / power pack question

[dvader]

I purchased an external battery charger on ebay.
I did this so while i'm away from home in certain situations I can take the 2 stock batteries with me (i purchased 2 extended batteries for our 2 phones)
and if I were to run out of power on the go, i can have 2 full batteries with me.

This device also has a USB port on the bottom and says that you can use it as a usb charger or as a portable power back.

however - it has this note on the page

Please note:Motorola cell phone USB charging capability requires Windows driver (software) to be activated.
This Battery Desktop charger, although comes with an USB port, it's not loaded with MOTOROLA's charging driver, therefore, this desktop charger is not intended to be used as a USB wall charger to charge your Motorola battery directly thru your phone. However, this USB port still supports charging capability to your other MP3, MP4 devices or other cell phones such as Nokia, Samsung, HTC .. etc, as long as your usb devices charging function does not require a software to activate and you are using the correct USB cable.

I have confirmed it will not charge my droid x through the USB port. (but i would like it to)

my 2 questions are this

1) is there a way around this problem, it seems to be software related?
2) why does using a 12v / cigarette power cord (also from ebay) charge the phone.
clearly there are no windows drivers in that case
thx

 

[jdbower]

I'm not sure why they call out Moto explicitly, I have the same issue with my Blackberry with a lot of chargers. The issue is most chargers only put out 500mA and that's not enough for high power draw phones.

With my New Trent charger (rated at 1A out, but split between two 500mA ports ) I can get the X to charge if I do things like put it into airplane mode and, depending on how low the main battery is, keeping the screen off or powering it down entirely. Obviously not great, but once the battery is mostly charged I can lightly use it.

What I'd recommend is a battery pack that has closer to 1A out, and the APC UPB10 is a 10,000 mAH battery with 1.2A on the output port. By far my favorite, but unfortunately it may or may not be available for long. APC shows it as discontinued but it's still readily in stock in many places (Amazon has a few stores that sell it, for example).

 

[ManofmanyStangs]

I purchased this one http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310234699828 works great with my X

Larry

 

[dvader]

I wonder if a custom rom would bypass that or if it's a hardware thing?

 

[dillonjohnson8]

Verizon has a backup battery pack made for Moto phones, it's out of stock right now but I've seen it on other websites. It has micro and mini usb for charging my DX and bluetooth headset while doing yard work/motorcycle riding. I haven't ordered one yet but this is what I've wanted to get.

Motorola Portable Charger P790 External battery pack - 1700 mAh