Which battery is in charge?

Feasibility Report By: Chris Harris, Sosi seffa, and Derek Key

Which battery is in charge?

Introduction
We know college students depend heavily on their phone for tasks such as texting, calling, researching, reading books, and most importantly interacting on social media. We are conducting a study to test which cell phone battery is the most effective using four popular models of phones. For each battery we will compare the charging time, measure daily use drainage time in a 6 hour interval, the time it takes for a dead battery to function, and rate a few miscellaneous features. We will discuss our options and test criteria, report the results of our tests, and recommend the best battery.

Feasibility Study

Which battery is in charge?

Overview of the Options

We chose four of the most popular phone models (and their batteries) to decide what batteries we would test. The batteries we are testing are listed in the Table 1 below (ordered by phone model).

Table 1: Battery options: Battery Type Storage Capacity Phone model Lithium Ion 1400 mAh Blackberry Bold Lithium Polymer 1432 mAh iPhone 4s Lithium Ion 3300 mAh Razr Maxx Lithium Ion 2600 mAh Samsung Galaxy S4 Battery D

Referred to as

Battery A

Battery B

Battery C

Criteria
When a student selects the best battery, several factors are considered. For us the most important aspects are battery life throughout the day, total charging time, the time it takes for a dead phone to become functional once placed on a charger, and miscellaneous features. We will rank these batteries from 1-4 charging bolts, based on the results comparative to the other batteries. For the miscellaneous features, we will award 1-4 charging bolts to the batteries based on storage capacity, and one charging bolt to the batteries that can be removed and/or replaced. We feel that these are the most important tests/features an average college student looks for in their phone battery. At the end of the study, we will recommend the battery that has the most charging bolts. We will use a Bolt Tracker at the end of each test to display how many bolts are won.

Feasibility Study

Which battery is in charge?

Test 1: Charging Time

For the first test we will record the total charge times of the batteries, from 0% to 100% battery life. Four charging bolts will be awarded to the fastest charge time, three charging bolts for the second fastest, two charging bolts to the third fastest, and one charging bolt to the slowest.

Method The batteries were to lose all power, to the point in which the phone was inoperable. Once the phones lost all battery power, we plugged them in to initiate charging. When we connected a charger to a phone, we then recorded the time from a clock. When the battery was completely charged at 100% we again recorded the time. We calculated and compared the total charge time using the start and stop time for each battery.

Results Figure 1 below shows a chart of the total charge time for each battery.

Battery A Battery B Battery C Battery D 0 1 2 3 Charge time (hours) 4 5 6

Figure 1: Total charge time for each battery. Bolt Tracker: Battery A

Battery B

Battery C

Battery D

Feasibility Study

Which battery is in charge?

Test 2: Daily use battery drain

For the second test, we will compare which battery holds the most charge within a 6 hour period. The battery that has the most charge remaining will get 4 charging bolts, the second most will get 3 charging bolts, the third most will get 2 charging bolts, and battery with the least amount of charge will get one charging bolt.

Method Once we fully charged the battery, we set an alarm for 6 hours later. We proceeded to use our phone as normal, and when the six hour alarm sounded we recorded our battery percentage. We then compared which phone sustained the most battery life in the 6 hour period.

Results Figure 2 below shows the results for the battery drain test.
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Battery A Battery B Battery C Battery D

Battery Percentage

Start 100 100 100 100

Finish (after 6 hours) 15 77 67 85

Figure 2: Battery percentage after 6 hours of use. Bolt Tracker: Battery A

Battery B

Battery C

Battery D

Feasibility Study

Which battery is in charge?

Test 3: Time from drained to operable

For the third test we calculated the total time it takes for a dead battery to hold enough charge for the phone to be used. The battery that turns the phone on the fastest gets 4 charging bolts, the second fastest battery gets 3 charging bolts, the third fastest gets 2 charging bolts, and the slowest gets one charging bolt.

Method We drained the battery to the point the phone is turned off and cannot be turned back on. Then we inserted the charger into the phone and simultaneously started a stopwatch. Once the phone was powered and started we stopped the stopwatch and recorded the time. Then we recorded and compared all of our results from each battery.

Results Figure 3 below shows the time elapsed before phone was operable.

Battery A Battery B Battery C Battery D 0 1 2 3 4 5 Time (minutes)

Time (minutes

Figure 3: Time elapsed from a dead battery to functional phone. Bolt Tracker: Battery A

Battery B

Battery C

Battery D

Feasibility Study

Which battery is in charge?

Test 4: Miscellaneous features

We gathered the storage capacity by removing the battery and researched the batteries that were not removable. We will assign 4 charging bolts to the battery with the highest charge storage, 3 charging bolts to the second highest storage, 2 charging bolts to the third highest storage, and 1 charging bolt to the lowest storage capacity. We will also give a charging bolt to the batteries that are removable in the phone that it operates.

Method The batterys charge storage capacity is measured in milliampere-hour (mAh), and the higher the mAh the larger the storage capacity. The battery removal test is conducted by removing the back cover of the phone, if applicable, and simply removing and replacing the battery.

Results Figure 4 shows each batterys storage capacity and removability feature.
Battery A Battery B Battery C Battery D 0 1000

2000

3000 Battery B 1432

4000 Battery A 1400

Storage Capacity (mAh)

Battery D 2600

Battery C 3300

Removable battery? Y Y Figure 4: Battery storage capacity and removability.

Bolt Tracker: Battery A

Battery B

Battery C

Battery D

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Which battery is in charge?

Conclusion
Table 2 shows a recap of the charging bolts awarded for each test and a total bolt sum for all of the tests conducted. We found that Battery B had the shortest charging time, Battery D had the best daily use drain time, Battery D had the shortest dead to operable time, and Battery C had the best miscellaneous features.

Table 2:Bolt Tracker Summary: Test 1 Charging time Battery A Battery B Battery C Battery D . 3 4 1 2 Test 2 Daily use 1 3 2 4 Test 3 Dead to operable 2 1 3 4 Test 4 Misc features 1 2 5 4 Total Bolts 7 10 11 14

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Which battery is in charge?

Recommendation
We recommend Battery D, the Lithium Ion 2600 mAh battery that comes with the Samsung Galaxy S4. This battery received a total of 14 charging bolts, the most out of the testing sample. This battery and phone has the best mix of storage capacity, charging time, time it takes to go from dead to functional, and battery discharge time. This battery capacity isnt too large thus it doesnt take too long to charge, but it is large enough to make the phone last through a long class day.

Feasibility Study