Extended Battery for Skyrocket?

[Chevy-SS]

Well, I got my new 3800mAh battery from Hong Kong. It is charging now. I will post anecdotal results about longevity. It definitely added a little weight, maybe an ounce. Thickness increased from 11.4mm to 15.6mm, but that is only in the battery area. The new battery came with a new case, which fit on nicely. The install time is about 20 seconds, LOL.

I ordered this battery on Jan 6. I received it today, Jan 17. Not bad at 11 days shipping. I live in Rhode Island, USA.

TOTAL cost, including shipping, was $11.39. That's laughably cheap. Now, I hope I don't burn my house down. But honestly, the battery looked pretty darn good.

All in all, seems like a great deal.

Here's a couple of quick pics:

-

 

[knowledge_6]

The skyrocket battery has an nfc chip inside of it.

Sent from my Skyrocket.

i know .. i wanted to know if these non OEM batteries did as well..

i use my NFC everyday to enable and disable certain functions and tasks etc so i would like an extended battery to have NFC as well..

i dont know why Samsung just didn't build the nfc antenna as part of the hardware!!

 

[Chevy-SS]

Just wanted to follow up on my new 3800mAh battery from Hong Kong (pics and post above).

I charged it upon receiving it, but left it unplugged all last night and have used it today. The old battery would likely have been at ~40%. The new battery is still at ~77%.

I dislike the thicker case, however, one thing that I actually DO like is that the battery bulge in the case allows me to instantly assess (by feel alone) if the phone is right-side up or not as I take it out of my pocket.

-

 

[bknight555]

I bought the same battery and it it also took 11 days to get it. My observation is similar to yours. By the end of work day, after moderate phone and internet usage I still have 65% juice left.
However my main reason for buying the battery was I bought the Skyrocket used and the previous owner lost the battery door somewhere. So I needed a battery cover anyway, why not get the one with extended battery for less than 12 bucks shipped

 

[DavidABurton]

Did any of you folks ever find a good protective case that would fit on an S II Skyrocket with one of these extended batteries?

Update: I've found two solutions.

1. Laza makes two products that work together: a pretty conventional-looking 3800 mA-hr battery with a replacement back-cover for the phone which they call a "Zcell," and a very nice protective hard plastic case which fits it. I bought them both, on eBay.

I like them. The phone is well-protected, and at 6 p.m. after a lot of talking on the phone it still had a 35% charge. With the stock battery I'd have been looking for a charger by mid-afternoon.

It looks to me like their case would also fit most other extended battery kits of the sort which have a "square bulge" replacement phone back. It would not fit the sort of extended battery kit which has the rounded replacement phone back.

Their battery w/ replacement phone back is pricey, but the protective case is only $20 (shipped) on eBay, or $15 + shipping on Amazon.

2. A "hybrid" case consisting of a hard plastic inner case, covered by a soft, stretchy, silicone (not TPU) outer case, available on eBay for $3.29.

I think that you could easily dremel a square hole in the plastic inner case to fit over the square bump on the replacement phone back in an extended battery kit, and then the stretchy silicone outer case would cover and protect it. Not a bad solution for $3.29!

Note: I tried to post a version of this comment with links to photos and where you can find the two cases and the Laza battery, but androidcentral won't let me post links. So if you want to see the links go here:
tinyurl{dot}com{slash}i727case

 

[DavidABurton]

I should also mention a few settings adjustments I made yesterday evening.

I got a low battery warning around 7:30 p.m., despite my new 3800 mAh battery.
Settings->Battery showed that 45% was used by Google Play Services, and 33% was used by Browser.

After some online searches I concluded that the Google Play Services problem was due to overuse of "Location Services" by something. So I disabled Location Services:
Google Settings -> Location -> [uncheck]"Access location"
and:
Google Settings -> Search & Now -> Google Now [OFF]
and:
Settings -> Location Services -> [unchecked] the 3rd box ("Location and Google Search")
(Initially, I also disabled the first two boxes ("Use wireless networks" and "Use GPS satellites") but that prevented the essential(!) Where's My Droid app from working.)
These changes seem to have completely eliminated Google Play Services as a battery consumer.

The "Browser" battery usage was puzzling, because I hadn't done any web browsing on the phone at all! It turns out that it was "Browser sync" which was apparently triggering Browser activity on my phone whenever I used Chrome on my PC (which is pretty much all the time). So I disabled it:
Settings -> Accounts,Google -> [touch my google account (my email address)] -> [uncheck] Sync Browser
It was probably unnecessary, but I also unchecked the Sync options for all all the Google Play, Google+, and Picasa features.
That seems to have eliminated Browser as a battery consumer, unless I actually do web surfing on my phone.

It was probably unnecessary, but I also disabled some other apps that I was pretty sure I didn't need:
Settings -> Application Manager -> [scroll-right-to]All -> [scroll-down-and-disable] {almost all the AT&T apps, anything to do with Yahoo or weather, etc.}

As of 12:30 p.m. today, having spent 33 minutes talking on the phone (plus a few texts, but no web browsing), I still have 90% battery left, and the Settings->Battery app shows:
Voice calls: 46%
Screen: 35%
Google Services: 6%
Cell standby: 5%
Android System: 4%
Device idle: 3%
Android OS: 3%
Gmail: 2%

Google Play Services and Browser aren't even listed.

One other note: Settings->Battery doesn't continuously update. You have to hit the "refresh" icon at the top (the pair of rotating arrows) (or exit it and re-enter it) to see updated battery usage statistics.

 

[DavidABurton]

i wanted to know if these non OEM batteries did as well..

i use my NFC everyday... so i would like an extended battery to have NFC as well.

The Laza Zcell battery does apparently include NFC support. Most other extended batteries don't.