I went on a trip to Europe over the summer - to a bit of Germany and a lot of Poland - and wanted some way to prolong the battery life of my 16GB iPhone so that I could watch movies and play games on it over the length of the international flights and during train rides.
At first I was looking for something that took plain AA batteries and charged the phone through them, but then I stumbled across a portable rechargeable lithium ion battery by Zap! which clips onto the phone. The advantages were that it would charge with a normal iPhone charger, or through USB (with an iPhone cable) and that it's capacity was a lot more than what I was looking at with the AA solution that I'd started with.
So I did some research and bought it from Sewell Direct - who had hands down the best price on it:
http://sewelldirect.com/Zap-fo...-Auxiliary-Battery.asp
It was $45. They shipped it promptly, and it arrived quickly.
The way it works is illustrated in an animated GIF on this page:
http://www.zapworld.com/recharge-it-all/r08-iv-izap
You put the iPhone/iPod/Touch/etc. onto the connector, and then push a silver button on the back and the iPod/iPhone/etc. thinks that it's plugged into a wall outlet charger. The kit from Sewell included a neoprene cover that covers the iPhone and spare battery together so that they are one (very thick and bulky) unit. When the Zap unit is plugged in, you press a button on the back of the zap and it starts to charge the phone. There's a set of LED indicators indicating the state of the Zap battery: full, half, low, empty. And then there's a "charging" LED as well.
I flew to Europe and watch movies, played endless Texas Hold'em hands and listened to a lot of music. When I was done with the international flight from Denver to Munich, I had a full battery on my iPhone and the Zap still had a bit left in it as well.
If, hypothetically, the engineers at Apple had chosen to make the battery on the iPhone removeable, then the advantages over a removeable battery for this Zap setup is that: a. it's 150% the capacity of the iPhone battery, b. it charges in parallel with the iPhone (so you can charge the iPhone and the Zap battery at the same time from the same connection) and c. you don't have to power down the phone and take off the cover to swap batteries.
That said, the downside is that the iPhone is a massive brick of a thing when it's hooked into the Zap battery. It's big and ugly and... well, it doesn't look much like an iPhone. But on the plus side, when you are charging the iPhone from the Zap unit, it charges quickly.
Overall I'm very pleased - especially for $45. I use the Zap battery on all of my trips now. It's nice to get off the plane - having watched a movie or two - and still have a fully charged battery.
Lastly, I checked tonight with my neighbors 3G iPhone and it worked fine with his phone as well. So it definitely works fine with original iPhone and the new 3G version.
At first I was looking for something that took plain AA batteries and charged the phone through them, but then I stumbled across a portable rechargeable lithium ion battery by Zap! which clips onto the phone. The advantages were that it would charge with a normal iPhone charger, or through USB (with an iPhone cable) and that it's capacity was a lot more than what I was looking at with the AA solution that I'd started with.
So I did some research and bought it from Sewell Direct - who had hands down the best price on it:
http://sewelldirect.com/Zap-fo...-Auxiliary-Battery.asp
It was $45. They shipped it promptly, and it arrived quickly.
The way it works is illustrated in an animated GIF on this page:
http://www.zapworld.com/recharge-it-all/r08-iv-izap
You put the iPhone/iPod/Touch/etc. onto the connector, and then push a silver button on the back and the iPod/iPhone/etc. thinks that it's plugged into a wall outlet charger. The kit from Sewell included a neoprene cover that covers the iPhone and spare battery together so that they are one (very thick and bulky) unit. When the Zap unit is plugged in, you press a button on the back of the zap and it starts to charge the phone. There's a set of LED indicators indicating the state of the Zap battery: full, half, low, empty. And then there's a "charging" LED as well.
I flew to Europe and watch movies, played endless Texas Hold'em hands and listened to a lot of music. When I was done with the international flight from Denver to Munich, I had a full battery on my iPhone and the Zap still had a bit left in it as well.
If, hypothetically, the engineers at Apple had chosen to make the battery on the iPhone removeable, then the advantages over a removeable battery for this Zap setup is that: a. it's 150% the capacity of the iPhone battery, b. it charges in parallel with the iPhone (so you can charge the iPhone and the Zap battery at the same time from the same connection) and c. you don't have to power down the phone and take off the cover to swap batteries.
That said, the downside is that the iPhone is a massive brick of a thing when it's hooked into the Zap battery. It's big and ugly and... well, it doesn't look much like an iPhone. But on the plus side, when you are charging the iPhone from the Zap unit, it charges quickly.
Overall I'm very pleased - especially for $45. I use the Zap battery on all of my trips now. It's nice to get off the plane - having watched a movie or two - and still have a fully charged battery.
Lastly, I checked tonight with my neighbors 3G iPhone and it worked fine with his phone as well. So it definitely works fine with original iPhone and the new 3G version.
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