Discharging in Car Mount

[_alphaBeta_]

I went on a 3+ hour driving excursion last week and had my Droid 2 in the car mount while using the GPS and Google Navigator. The phone was probably at 80% when first inserted into the car mount. It charged to 100%.

About an hour or so into the trip, the battery began discharging. Note that the lightning bolt was displayed indicating the phone was charging, but the battery level continued to go down. My trip ended and I was at 50%!

It's almost like the phone was discharging at a rate faster than it could charge. The phone always displayed the charging indicator throughout.

Has anyone seen this?

 

[jdbower]

Yep, the GPS plus screen suck down a lot of juice. Make sure your charger has a high capacity, at least 1000mA. Many are the USB low-power standard of 500mA and they can't cut it. You can also turn the screen off during the boring parts of the trip, or turn off things like WiFi to help reduce the power consumption.

 

[corydunbar]

true, cars tend to have 5V and 12V chargers. you're better off with a 12V to charge your device. essentially you're going to get a better charge out of higher amps and higher volts. (watts = amps * volts) you want higher watts because that is energy per time (joules per second) the more joules per second the faster the charge.