[vang0001]

Yes, I did search first!



I have a BB 8330. I have the OEM wall charger. It says 700mA @ 5V on the back. I just switched from a regular Motorola cell phone so I was tempted to use my old Motorola chargers. My searches here indicated the Motorola chargers would work but because they are rated at 500mA they will take longer to charge the BB. I also read that a Motorola will shut down when charged by a BB charger because the output on the BB charger is too high.

So, no problem, I'll use the OEM wall charger that came with the BB.

So I stop by the store today to get a car charger. I have a car charger for my Motorola, but I figure the OEM one is rated higher. I buy the OEM one and get home and look at it and it is 500mA. (I'm certain it is a genuine BB OEM product.)

Why did they rate it for a lower value? If we pretend that it takes 400mA to operate the device and you have a 700mA charger then you have 300mA left over for battery charging. If you have a 500mA charger you only have 100mA left over. I'm just making up those numbers because I don't know what a BB draws, but in that scenario, there is 3x more charging power using a 700mA charger.

Also, I noticed that the BB stops charging when it is fully charged. If you left it on the charger for a week, and the battery level dropped, would the charger kick back on? If so, at what point does it kick back on? I assume that when the BB is on the charger the charger is powering the BB directly so any battery discharge would be the kind that happens to any battery that is just sitting around doing nothing. My wife's old laptop would kick the charger on at 98% power and over the course of a year it destroyed the battery. (She used the laptop as a desktop, always plugged in.)

Does the BB have the same "smart" charging logic with the car charger? Sometimes I will go camping and I will leave my phone in the car on the charger while I am out in the woods. (We get horrible reception in some places so the phone drains the battery fast.) My cigarette lighter is hot even when the ignition is turned off. I'd hate to find out that the car charger charges the battery continuously and ruins the battery. (I don't mind the phone being on all the time.)

Thanks!