so i used to like motorola phones....

[OBLAMA2009]

but now i think they dont have good designs.

ive have all their phones--x, razr, razr m, razr hd, razr ultra, motox. anyway a couple weeks ago i noticed my droid m was getting thicker. over a couple weeks, it got so thick the kevlar backing came off (i thought the kevlar was hard, its actually just a think matt). presumably thats the battery doing that, but i really havent looked at it. this phone is only a little more than a year old. so i took it to verizon and they told me its out of warranty but not to use it, and they told me to call motorola. then when i looked at my old razr, it also had the same problem of the phone getting thick and the backing coming off, just not to the same degree. so i think their overall design with the non replaceable battery and the kevlar back just isnt good, why should you get a phone that bricks after a year??? at least with a samsung phone you can replace the battery, motorola wanted $150 to do that

 

[mcveigh]

Cool story!

 

[Bman123]

That's what happens when you can't replace the battery yourself, it swells and you either get a new phone or come out of pocket for $150 and let the mfg replace it if your not savvy enough to do it yourself

 

[OBLAMA2009]

That's what happens when you can't replace the battery yourself, it swells and you either get a new phone or come out of pocket for $150 and let the mfg replace it if your not savvy enough to do it yourself

so that eventually happens with all batteries? thats pretty messed up. a phone like that is given to you every 2 years but it didnt even last a year and a half

 

[soulcougher73]

Not phone related but my Harmony One battery did that. Was a bitch to get out and it is replaceable. Was swollen so much i had to get needle nose pliers and go to town on it. But probably same overall thing.

 

[shabby]

so that eventually happens with all batteries? thats pretty messed up. a phone like that is given to you every 2 years but it didnt even last a year and a half

Yes all batteries do that, eventually they blow up too, check your car battery while your at it...

 

[desura]

IMO all android phones are pretty much the same.

 

[thedosbox]

IMO all android phones are pretty much the same.

With respect to swollen batteries?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQAlBhLl10o
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5902192
https://discussions.apple.com/message/24830450

'nuff said.

 

[TuxDave]

That's what happens when you can't replace the battery yourself, it swells and you either get a new phone or come out of pocket for $150 and let the mfg replace it if your not savvy enough to do it yourself

I'm on the side that for the majority of the "the phone stopped working" cases out of warranty, having the manufacturer charge you $150 for repairs is probably justified. However I typically see a special exemption when it comes to swollen battery/battery defects. Those things get replaced for free out of warranty because it's a lawsuit about to happen when it blows.

So yeah, if Motorola is charging you $150 to fix a swollen battery, f' them.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

With respect to swollen batteries?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQAlBhLl10o
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5902192
https://discussions.apple.com/message/24830450

'nuff said.

Phucken jesus christ. if phones have that problem after only a year, 1)they shouldnt be making phones with nonreplaceable batteries 2)they should be offering customers phones more often than every 2 years. this is the type of thing that companies know, they test stuff like that

 

[cmdrdredd]

It depends on how it is used. If it's left on the charger for many days I'm sure it will wear out the cells more rapidly than discharging it and then plugging it in. I've known people who always plug in their phone at every chance. When they get to 50% they gotta plug it in. That's insane to me. Drain the battery until you get the warning. They say it doesn't hurt to keep it plugged in but trust me, it does over time. The battery will swell because of being overcharged (and can explode too). When I used to race R/C cars the LiPo batteries we used had very specific instructions. You couldn't discharge them below a certain voltage and if you did you killed the battery. You couldn't charge them over a certain amperage and you needed a charger with a special plug to balance the cells or risk explosion and fire (seen people burn down a garage). When you wanted to charge it you had to let it cool down, then discharge it to the proper level, and then charge the battery.. The batteries in our phone are much less risky but they can swell if not discharged enough and that gives them a shorter lifespan.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm wondering if climate has anything to do with it. As I've got a bunch of old android phones going back to the HTC Desire and none of them have had swollen batteries.
That said they have all had removable batteries and IIRC removable batteries have to be made to a more "rugged" spec than fixed ones so maybe it's that.

 

[lxskllr]

It depends on how it is used. If it's left on the charger for many days I'm sure it will wear out the cells more rapidly than discharging it and then plugging it in. I've known people who always plug in their phone at every chance. When they get to 50% they gotta plug it in. That's insane to me. Drain the battery until you get the warning. They say it doesn't hurt to keep it plugged in but trust me, it does over time. The battery will swell because of being overcharged (and can explode too). When I used to race R/C cars the LiPo batteries we used had very specific instructions. You couldn't discharge them below a certain voltage and if you did you killed the battery. You couldn't charge them over a certain amperage and you needed a charger with a special plug to balance the cells or risk explosion and fire (seen people burn down a garage). When you wanted to charge it you had to let it cool down, then discharge it to the proper level, and then charge the battery.. The batteries in our phone are much less risky but they can swell if not discharged enough and that gives them a shorter lifespan.

Lithium batteries aren't hurt by being left on the charger. Circuitry protects them overcharging. Your RC cars had lazy engineering if they couldn't be left on charge.

Lithium batteries have a limited amount of charge cycles, and that's expressed as a full discharge/recharge. If a battery is rated for 1,000 charges, recharging when it drops to 90% every time would give you 1,900 of those charges. It doesn't otherwise affect the life.

If a battery burns up, it's just bad luck, and a product of fast/cheap manufacturing by robots. It's also a product of lightness, and the retarded obsession with making things as small as possible. If people want a device that looks like a sheet of paper, they need to deal with the occasional battery fire.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

omg imma die!:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/lithium-ion-batteries-protect-24362210

 

[cmdrdredd]

Lithium batteries aren't hurt by being left on the charger. Circuitry protects them overcharging. Your RC cars had lazy engineering if they couldn't be left on charge.

Lithium batteries have a limited amount of charge cycles, and that's expressed as a full discharge/recharge. If a battery is rated for 1,000 charges, recharging when it drops to 90% every time would give you 1,900 of those charges. It doesn't otherwise affect the life.

If a battery burns up, it's just bad luck, and a product of fast/cheap manufacturing by robots. It's also a product of lightness, and the retarded obsession with making things as small as possible. If people want a device that looks like a sheet of paper, they need to deal with the occasional battery fire.

It isn't lazy engineering, it is the chemicals that make up the cells. Go look it up. Lipo is different than lion too...maybe you missed that. Lithium ion batteries have a hard casing surrounding the cells, lipo batteries typically do not. Hard case lithium polymer batteries have a higher cost. I believe apple uses or used lipo batteries in the iPhone since the phone had a metal body protecting it. I have never examined one so I don't know if this is true.

Battery tech isn't as infallable as you seem to believe. There are supposed to be circuitry cutoffs etc but adverse conditions like heat can cause failure.

 

[nickbits]

Not phone related but my Harmony One battery did that. Was a bitch to get out and it is replaceable. Was swollen so much i had to get needle nose pliers and go to town on it. But probably same overall thing.

Same thing happened to me (even having to use needle nose pliers)! In fact that is the only battery I've had a problem with.

 

[soccerballtux]

ive never had this happen or heard of it happening

if their official stance is you have to pay to replace it, I would threaten a lawsuit or something because that's ridiculous. The phone isn't defective, the battery is

 

[VirtualLarry]

Had a (brand new) pre-paid phone in storage for a year or two. Working phone died, so pulled out the pre-paid kit, assembled it, and started charging it. Battery started swelling up. Not good.

 

[CrystalBay]

I like Motorola ! + accident protection plan