[Stri]

Hey. Just got an 8330, and I am having some issues that I am not sure are normal, or problems with my blackberry.

First of all, it seems to lose its charge faster than I expected. I figured that the battery life would not be terribly long on the blackberry, but I tested it a bit today, and after 3.5 hours of minimal use (a couple texts, and a few received e-mails), it was down to 75% (from 100%). I had the backlight set to 100 at the time, so that may have contributed. Dropped it to 50%, and am recharging it now to test again, but it still seems to lose charge very quickly (and doesn't seem to charge fast enough either).

Secondly, the blackberry occasionally gets stuck loading (sand timer) something minor (like going from full menu to my L theme main screen) for a long time. Earlier, when I went to change to normal profile after getting out of class, it did the sand timer for about 30 seconds before I was able to get back to the main screen. Is this normal? I had no background apps running at the time.

I am considering going back to verizon tomorrow morning to have it looked at...I fear that they would give me a refurb if there are problems, and I really do not want a refurbished phone after having my new one for 3 days.

Thanks very much

[crimlaw]

The battery life seems standard. Three hours of any use will drop the battery. Mine usually drops the first 50% faster than I would expect and then drops the last 50% quite slowly. I purchased my curve 8330 from verizon about a month ago and I get about 2 to 2.5 days of mild use before recharging. However, I do not talk on it a lot. My use consists of emails, web browsing, running a twitter app . . .

Also, you want to make sure you run the battery down until you get the low battery alert. I can never get a straight answer as to whether it really helps the battery life to run it down all the way, but I figure what does it hurt.?.

As for the sand timer, I am not sure why it would be coming up so much. Have you tried a battery pull? To do that, turn off your BB, take off the back panel, pull out the battery, wait about 10 seconds,put the battery back in, and restart the BB. It will take a few minutes to reboot. You have just reset your machine. I perform a battery pull about once a week or whenever my BB seems to get stuck. This will reset all of your apps and loosen up some memory. See if that helps before you take it back.

[mca312]

Also, check to see if you have additional programs running in the background that are constantly refreshing from the internet (such as gmail app or twitter)

[MrWheelMan]

Also, you want to make sure you run the battery down until you get the low battery alert. I can never get a straight answer as to whether it really helps the battery life to run it down all the way, but I figure what does it hurt.?.

Have you tried a battery pull? To do that, turn off your BB, take off the back panel, pull out the battery, wait about 10 seconds,put the battery back in, and restart the BB.

A couple of notes/addendums to the above.

First, a battery pull is best performed with the BlackBerry on, not off. The idea is for the BlackBerry to restart itself. If you look on these forums, everyone tells you to leave it on.

As for running the battery down, that does nothing to extend the life of modern batteries. The old NiCad's needed this for maintenance, but today's Li Ion's do not. You can do it once in a while to maybe keep the battery gauge accurate (I've heard that to be true for another device, anyway), but not often and it doesn't improve battery life in itself. Not sure if the same even counts for a BlackBerry battery.

My own experience with rechargeable batteries is that they tend to get stronger after a week or two of use and charging. It's like they sometimes need to be broken in or something. But the kind of battery drain you experienced sounds like something may have been running in the background. Did you check to see if you had multiple applications running besides the five or six that always runs? It's easy to leave things like the browser running if you don't make the extra effort to close them down properly.

[KasiCatastrophe]

The timer coming up often may be a result of not having enough memory. Take a look here for some tips on how to increase it http://forums.crackberry.com/f3/how-...-memory-34633/

Also, make sure you are closing applications properly; Menu > Close or the back key. To check what applications are running in the background hold down the Alt key and press the Back key. There are five apps that run in the background at all times - Phone, Browser, Messages, BBM, and Homescreen. If there are any more than that, open them up and then close them properly.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[crimlaw]

I stand corrected. Did not know it was best to leave the BB on before a battery pull. Thanks for giving me a definitive answer on the battery charge issue.

[Stri]

Thanks everyone...will try a battery pull with phone on, and I def have a problem with free memory, which will hopefully be cleared up by the 8gb sd card I ordered. Ill give the BB a week or so, and see if it all clears up/the battery breaks in.

One quick question, can I make opera mini my default browser, and should I want to? Just that I noticed crackberry app loads forums in bb browser.

Thanks!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[itsdollar]

You can't change the default browser and you need it to download apps. Also you can grab something like quickpull from the ota apps which is a soft reset and schedule it to reset if you use a lot of your memory. I have mine set for once a week while I'm sleeping. Hope it helps

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[jbeachy]

With regard to the card - its is more properly called a media card vs memory card - only media can live on a BlackBerry card. It will not help your memory unless you have tons of pix or vids that you can move there. When you do a memory check (Alt-LeftShift-H) the media card is not included.

Use Kasi's link above for some memory suggestions.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com