[drew.dana]

Hmmm, I have a 9650 Bold with the PB charger plugged into the charging cradle. No problems yet, just a phone that charges wicked fast. I figure if it cooks the battery it will be a good excuse for me to go get the 9930 Bold. Been looking for a reason to upgrade.

Side note: I picked up the PB rapid travel charger from Wal-Mart.com for like $14.99 last month or so. That magnetized charging end is great, they should use the same technology on their newer phones. Eliminate the risk of breaking the micro/mini-USB port for charging.

[Angus_CB]

C) The faster you charge a Lithium-Ion Polymer battery the shorter the life span of the battery gets.
D) If the playbook premium charger does indeed charge at more than twice the speed of a standard charger than you can expect your battery to last less than half the life time it would have.

Source? Please explain where this info came from.

The faster you charge nearly any battery the shorter the life span of the battery gets. The reason for this is more heat is generated at higher amperage.
Charging twice as fast does not necessarily decrease battery life by 50%. The relationship is not linear. It depends on the amount of heat generated during the charging cycle.

[The FOZ]

OP: Your post is grossly misleading. Educate yourself about how electronics work.

Power sources don't push power to whatever they are powering. It's the other way 'round. The circuit draws power from the source at a given rate. If the circuit draws more current (amps) than the power supply can provide, the power supply will overheat and fail, unless a protection feature steps in first.

Think about it. Your car has a 12 volt, several hundred amp storage battery. Yet despite this, you can power a single light in the trunk, which likely draws less than an amp, and you can also power the starter, which can draw 50 amps. Yet the battery, the starter, and the tiny light bulb in the trunk are all fine.

It gets a little more complex with Lithium batteries, since more complex protection/charging circuits are involved, but let's put it this way - USB slots in computers provide 500 mA, no more. Yet the playbook doesn't roast the computer's +5vdc source. There's load limiting functionality in the charging circuit that keeps the playbook from overdrawing current. There's also load limiting circuitry in phones to keep them from sucking current at the battery's charge/discharge rate (1C, or so).

I could be wrong, but unless someone can provide a verifiable source, I call bull.

[zaxterr]

hey i work at Best Buy in canada and the yellow (or orange i guess) tip is the one that comes with demo models.

[D Mac]

I don't have to quote a source to know I am correct. If you are truly that interested than use your smart phone or your computer to find the information your looking for.

If "adding fuel to an argument" is your goal forget it. As for sources, have you read the entire thread? Searched Crackberry?

Why so argumentative? Just asking a simple question. And YOU knowing that you are correct doesn't help anyone else reading this thread to know if your info is correct and therefore whether they should trust it or not. You really shouldn't state that you have explained it if you are actually unwilling to provide an explanation.

Anyways I'm going to say that I am quite sure that your "d" is Incorrect. C being a given does not mean it is necessarily a 1 to 1 ratio situation.

[TheScionicMan]

OMG!! Make it Stop!!! Once your phone is 1-2 years old, there will be an abundance of cheap replacement batteries available if something happens to your original. Is it really worth worrying about the minutia or stress over the perfect charging methodology for the years prior to that?

How many of you have had to buy a replacement battery for your BB? How old was it? I manage 100+ BBs and I've seen 2-3 bad batteries in 3+ years and they get subjected to every type of charge/discharge pattern you can imagine

[stevedee]

Let me just contribute 20+ years as an electronics op/tech in the military and a hobbyist besides. Since nickel-cadmium batteries are hopefully gone for good, rechargeables are generally going to last as long as the heat generated dissipates quickly enough. I have no fears of cooking anything due to the self-protection circuit. I have used my PB charger on occasion to charge a kindle with no repercussions.
That being said, follow guidelines regarding initial battery use. How many of us just plug in the device and fully charge the battery? That's what I thought- me too. Do your battery a favor, let it run down a bit. Clean the contacts. Don't charge in a case, and if you plug in on a soft surface, battery compartment up. Try and avoid high humidity or moist environments, and going from the cold to a warm state. These will cause more probs than you would think.

And now, back to waiting for OS 2.0.....

[TTBGF]

hey i work at Best Buy in canada and the yellow (or orange i guess) tip is the one that comes with demo models.

GRR! BESTBUY EMPLOYEE! WHY YOU NO LOVE BLACKERRY PLAYBOOK?!!!

****End Rant*****

Just needed to get that out

[Chaddface]

If you want your battery to last longer move your phone to a climate controlled building, turn it off and trickle charge it once a year. If that's not practical given your situation then stop thinking about it. Use the charger that RIM says is compatible and move on.
My phone gets warm when I stream music and use the bridge. I'm not going to stop using it.
There are too many variables for anyone to say what the end result will be. Will I lose 5 charge cycles? Will it be 10? I'm sure it won't be half. Who cares?
There are many that don't think twice about using some generic car charger and have know idea what the output is.
So I should stop streaming video on the PB because it gets warm? It about convenience and you should do what is must convenient to you. If you need it to charge faster then use the PB charger. Your phone will not blow up.
I have been using it since April on every charge and have no issues. Another 9700 for about 7 months with no issue and by the way it's left on the charger all night every night.
That's my story.

[heppyX]

Well I am using the USB charging outlet of my Belkin power bar since a few month to charge my 9800 and my PB. I see no ill effect so far. I have no idea how many Amp it can output, but it charges reasonably fast without heating of the batteries

[olblueyez]

everyone is trying to disprove this saying the battery is intelligent etc which is funny as he is right, but he just not explained it properly, it is nothing to do with ruining the battery and it also a long term problem not short term

rechargeable batteries have a battery life, its usually like 4000 charges at its optimum input charging rating, the more powerful the charger you use, the more strain it put on charging on the cells of the battery and the life span of the battery can deteriorate

so you CAN use the chargers and there is no problem with it, i would just not use it as my charger of preference, i use it when i need a quick charge or late to go out as its not a problem to use it from time to time, just dont use it as a preferred way of charging.

its the same with my playbook rapid charging stand, it works at an output of 12v - 2a which is much faster then the 5v - 2a output of the yellow tipped mains adaptor that is supplied and if i used the rapid desktop charger for RIM everyday i am sure i would shorten the battery life of the built in battery of my playbook also, you just have to use common sense when frequently recharging your devices and make sure you are not always quick charging but only when you need to.

stop the scare mongering and just read up about things and be cautious with rapid charging devices too frequently.

There is your answer folks, thanks to Timmsy.

Please read this and put this menagerie of misconception to rest.

[pgirish]

E = I x R or turning it around: I = E/R
Anybody remember that old formula?
E is Voltage I is current R is resistance

Since the resistance of the device is constant, the only way to push more current through it is to increase the voltage. If the voltage is 5 volts it doesn't matter what the current rating is, it will still only supply as much current as the resistance allows.

[peter9477]

D) If the playbook premium charger does indeed charge at more than twice the speed of a standard charger than you can expect your battery to last less than half the life time it would have.

Let's focus on this one aspect: does the rapid charger actually charge at twice the speed of the standard charger? Absolutely not, if you have the device in standby. In that scenario, it charges at maybe a 10% higher rate, which is unlikely to have any measurable impact on the overall life of the battery.

So why do they say the rapid charger can do "up to 2x" the rate of the regular one? In fact the rapid charger always charges at the same rate, whereas the regular charger doesn't have the ability to keep up when you have the PlayBook actually powered on (screen on) and in use. Under those conditions, power is diverted from the battery to keep the PlayBook running, and the charge time increases, possibly by several hours.

Thus it's quite clear that frequent, even daily, use of the rapid charger will have no measurable impact on your long-term battery life, and everyone should feel quite comfortable using the rapid charger exclusively.

These and many other interesting facts can easily be discovered by regular use of Battery Guru. :-)

[trsbbs]

Heat is the issue with quick/fast charging.

Not all chargers are alike

Good read.

Tim

[bbobruns]

E = I x R or turning it around: I = E/R
Anybody remember that old formula?
E is Voltage I is current R is resistance

Since the resistance of the device is constant, the only way to push more current through it is to increase the voltage. If the voltage is 5 volts it doesn't matter what the current rating is, it will still only supply as much current as the resistance allows.

This response all you need. Even a mechanical engineer understands that you "can't push a rope".

[narci]

I can tell you first hand that charging a BOLD 9700 with the PB supplied charger can do damage.

I charged my wife's 9700 with the PB charger overnight. In the morning, the screen had a bunch of black pixels lumped together near the centre.

As the battery drained, the pixels went away one by one until about 2 days later the black pixels cleared and the phone screen looks normal again.

Stupid me didn't realize at the time it might be the charger and I charged her phone again witht he PB charger and this time, black pixels appeared on the screen but at a different location. Eventually those went away too.

Went back to using the supplied charger and haven't has an issue since.

[Chaddface]

I can tell you first hand that charging a BOLD 9700 with the PB supplied charger can do damage.

That's odd. We used the PB supplied charger for a 9700 every night, all night and never experienced any issues.

[Scotter75]

The orange tip (5V- 2.0 Amps) and the black tip (5V - 1.8 Amps) were both included in units in Europe and North America. I have the orange tip unit in Canada and some friends have black tip units.

[Stewartj1]

The reason i know this is i have been using an old Bold 9000. In one charge it totally fried the battery. On contacting RIM this is what they told me!

I have asked them to send me an explanation for this, or an official word from them, so i can forward it to all you nice people as proof! They said they are sending me a new battery for my bold (after an hour of shouting at them for not informing people about this) and it should be fine. But i am not impressed by this!

If i am wrong, i'll start a new thread screwing at the gentleman who told me this over the phone, and the way RIM operates!

How did you manage to connect a 9000 which has a mini usb port to a PB charger which is micro?

[peter9477]

Heat is the issue with quick/fast charging.

Not all chargers are alike

Good read.

Good read, but probably opaque to many users who don't have the background to understand it all, and especially to understand what parts don't apply in this context.

Note also that there is no "quick/faster charger" for the PlayBook, using the terms in that article. Our "rapid charger" is basically like the regular charger except it has extra power for when you're charging while the PlayBook is turned on. The regular charger can't supply enough juice both to power the PlayBook and continue charging the battery at the usual rate, whereas the "rapid" charger does.

One small bit of proof: regular charger manages a full charge in about 3.5h when PB is in standby, while "rapid" charger takes about 3.2h for the same thing. Obviously it's not actually charging at twice the regular rate under those conditions.

[TheCLEANSER]

I love my playbook charger and use it to charge my 9900 all the time. Yes it is about three times faster.

[terreos]

The Blackberry playbook comes with a similar looking charger to most blackberry chargers, but you'll notice it comes with an orange tip; not a black tip!

Why?? Because it's a totally different voltage!

A regular blackberry phone charger has an output of 5Volts // 700mA.
A blackberry playbook charger has a higher output of 5Volts // 2A (2000mA).

Basically it provides almost three times the power! Now this does mean its a rapid charger! But not so simple!

If your charge your blackberry playbook with a regular black charger it will charge the playbook safely, but take about three times longer!!

On the other hand charging your phone with an orange charger it will load it with three times the power! Now the problem is that older blackberries cannot handle this level of power coming in; SO IT WILL RUIN THE BATTERY!!!

All phones newer then the following are fine to charge with the orange coloured charger:

Bold 9780 or newer
Curve 8520 or newer
Pearl3G 9105 or newer
Torch 9800 or newer.

All older phones will get ruined by the charger! The battery will end up getting fried! Maybe not straight away, but don't use it! Be safe!!

Don't scare me like that! Been using the playbook charger for my phone ever since I got it.

[EdY]

I am not an electronics expert but I know enough to explain the errors in the above post.

First, VOLTAGE of 5 Volts is the same on Phone charger, Playbook charger and even your computer USB. The voltage is standard.

The AMPERAGE differs, yes this is true. However, when it comes to charging the AMPS indicate the limiting current through the charger.

A device like the Playbook needs more amps to charge so the Playbook charger is rated at higher AMP rating. If you try an older phone charger on your Playbook (or even some USB ports that are not powered high enough with amps) then the Playbook will complain that it cannot charge from this power source.

In fact, even my Torch 9810 will not charge from my older and lower amp Curve charger. The danger is also that a lower amp rated charger may heat up more because the wires in it are not able to handle the current draw if the device wants more amps.

Now if you do it the other way, and use the Playbook charger for your phone, the charger can deliver more amps. But the device will only draw what it is capable of drawing. You should not be able to kill your phone but if you notice it charging considerably faster, you may want to be concerned if it is causing any extra wear on your battery since faster is not always safer.


Sent from my BlackBerry 9810 using Crackberry Tapatalk Forum app

[bungaboy]

How did you manage to connect a 9000 which has a mini usb port to a PB charger which is micro?

Somewhere in the 12 pages of mind numbing reading I recall the OP said he uses some kind of adapter.

As a Civil Engineer I know enough to stay outta this one.

[Vector-SS]

I've been using my PBs charger (yellow tip) which I absolutely love on my almost 3year old 9700 workhorse for about 6 month now and everything seems to be in tip top shape.

Just checked aand my battery health for the 9700 is at 91% The phone doesn't even get warm while charging it. To each his own I guess