Okay, this is all well and good, but does anybody know if there is a trickle charger that plugs into the phone? If you only have one battery, it's a lot easier to just plug it in instead of removing it every night to charge it.
No, the charger circuitry is in the phone. All the charger (or USB cable) does is supply input voltage to the charger in the phone. The phone decides how charged the battery is and when to stop charging it. That said, using the USB connector on a computer will limit the maximum voltage to 500 ma. Check Amazon; you might find an AC charger that puts out less than 1000 ma.
my stock battery in my evo drops to 93 percent within minutes of being off the charger. i was informed that everyone's evo does this. is that true?
The last two days I monitored this. I leave my phone charging all night, with WiFi, BT and GPS radios turned on. (I leave BT and GPS on pretty much all the time, and WiFi whenever I'm at home.) The first night I charge from a 1000 ma charger, then second from my computer's USB port.
All I did after unplugging the first morning was read an email, and check the battery at the intervals below:
Day 1: immediately after unplugging 99%
30 minutes later: 95%
60 minutes later (90 minutes total): 91%
The second day (today) I checked a few emails, and got 3 or 4 calendar alarms, which probably used slightly more battery:
Day 2: immediately after unplugging 100%
30 minutes later: 96%
60 minutes later (90 total): 91%
It doesn't appear charging at lower current makes any real difference, and no, not everyone loses 10% in a few minutes.
What apps do you have running that do background processing, especially background syncing? Do you use a task killer, or close a bunch of things at night (or turn the phone off)? If you do any of those things, the first thing the phone will do when it "wakes up" is go out and sync all your various email, facebook, twitter, news and weather feeds, then yeah, it's going to suck down a lot of battery right away.