[Tilt, TyTN II, MDA Vario III Accessories] axonn:
Mugen 3000 Review

Ok... I'll go first.

My two Mugens got here 2 days ago. I got a 3000 and a 1500.

Let's focus on the 3000.

- Back cover: GPS flap is a FAKE. No camera protection lens. Shiny, non-rubberized back (I like it better this way) with 4 little legs to keep it floating a bit above the surface (you hear the speaker better).

- Battery: double size, heavier than the standard.

THE REVIEW ITSELF WILL BE A SUMMARY OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND USAGE TOTALS.

I will keep updating this post of mine as I evaluate the performance of this battery.

Keep in mind that I am a BATTERY FREAK and I test batteries to PERFECTION.

If you don't want to read through this long review, you can skip down to the "FAST FORWARD REVIEW" or to the "CONCLUSIONS". See post number 4 in this thread.

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CHARGE CYCLE 1 - FACTORY DEFAULT

2008-03-26

- Battery came loaded at 63%. After 2 days I'm stuck at 15%. I spoke about 20 minutes on the phone and used the GPS for about 15 minutes. I worked on it about 1 hour adding contacts and such.

- I installed Battery Status for a more correct measurement of the battery but I never saw it disagree with the measurement of the system (in the tray).

- As I said, I am now STUCK at 15%. It was 15% at 16:00 and now it's 23:00 and it's still 15%. Weird. I suppose that it's better than what others described (they needed to reset or remove the battery for the device to realize that there is still some juice in it). We'll see what the following days have to say about this.

2008-03-27

- Battery Status sucks. The program does NOT DETECT CORRECTLY the battery usage, nor does Windows. Today I woke up with my battery at 7%. I soft reseted. Same reading. I shut down Windows and started again. Same 7% reading. I removed battery (with Windows turned on) and put it back again. New reading: 15%. Now after 1 hour I'm at 9% and holding. Almost 3 days of usage with the factory battery. I spoke about 20 more minutes.

- BATTERY DEAD after 2.5 days. Activities total: ~40 minutes phone, ~15 minutes GPS, ~2 hours screen usage (writing / reading). No WiFi, No BlueTooth.

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CHARGE CYCLE 2 - FIRST FULL CHARGE

2008-03-28

- Full charge this night. 19:00 - 04:00, for a total of 9 hours, just to be sure I respected the instructions for the battery. But it was charged in about 3.5 hours, with about 1.5 hours more than the standard battery. So it charges its capacity pretty fast. Let's see how long it lasts. So far, I'm at 95%. No conversations yet, pretty much no usage. 5% gone in 10 hours, mostly stand by.

- After only 21 hours since the charge, I lost 24% of the battery. I did some text editing for about 30 minutes and about 17 minutes of talk time. I'm pretty disappointed by this relatively "standard" consumption.

2008-03-30

- Two more days passed. I am now at about 64 hours since the charge, so almost 3 days. I used the GPS for about 30 minutes yesterday and talked for about 10 more minutes in total (I don't talk a lot). But the battery is pretty damn low, 28%. I expect it to start dying tomorrow evening. I'll probably remove it and put it back again to see a correct reading.

2008-03-31

- Fourth day approaches its end and I'm stuck at 15%. It appears that my Mugen 3000 has something with this 15% value. It spends a lot of time at 15%. I read that you can stop the device from shutting down when the battery is almost dead by tweaking the registry. I will write the solution here if it proves to be valid. UPDATE: Now at the end of the day, I'm left with 4% juice. I hope there is more under the hood. Today I spoke for about 30 minutes and did no more than 10 minutes of text editing.

2008-04-01

- It's 02:16 (AM) and now it's 94 hours after the full charge. After 5 minutes of talk battery went to 1%. I was too curious about how much there really is left so I removed the battery and put it back. First reading was 44% but it decreased rather fast to 42%. I'll see how it is in the morning. UPDATE: morning, 35%. 10 minutes of talk time so far.

2008-04-02

- At the middle of this day, the Mugen 3000 still holds on. 15% battery after 5.5 days, 10 more minutes of talking. This funny 15% again... been holding already for a few good hours.

- Day end... almost. Battery at 12%. 5 more minutes of talking. So I'm close to 6 days. The Mugen is definitely kicking ass apparently.

2008-04-03

- Only 2% left of my battery now in the morning. Roughtly 6.3 days passed since the charge. I spoke for 20 more minutes.

- BATTERY DEAD after 6.5 days. Activities total: ~102 minutes phone, ~30 minutes GPS, ~40 minutes hours screen usage (writing / reading). No WiFi, No BlueTooth.

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CHARGE CYCLE 3 - SECOND FULL CHARGE

2008-04-05

- I full-changed it yesterday at about 09 in the AM. Now, after 30 hours (so ~1.3 days) I'm at 69% after 15 minutes of talking and 15 minutes of screen usage (reading / writing). Not such a great number really...

2008-04-06

- After 2.2 days I am at 56%. This is well within the reasonable 20% lost per day I got used with when using the standard battery. I only talked for 9 minutes today so far, and pretty much didn't use the phone for anything else. Since I didn't use the GPS, I find it the ok-ish level of the battery quite explainable. It's good to use the phone like this because I will make a review which is centered on exclusive Phone usage. And right now I'm happy with how things are.

2008-04-07

- Battery @ 31% after 3.2 days and 6 more minutes of talking. I'm satisfied with this so far and expect the battery to last for about 36 more hours until it first dies. This should take me to 5 days. We'll see if I reach the 5 days and how does Windows behave with the registry tweak I made last week. If it auto-shuts down again it sucks. It means I'll have to take the battery out and put it back again every 4 or 5 days, which sucks!

2008-04-08

- Guess what's the battery consumption today. 15%, of course. The famous 15%. It was 15% 12 hours ago, it's the same now. I expect it to start dying really soon though. I talked for 22 more minutes today so far and 4.2 days passed since the full charge. EVENING UPDATE: After 16 more minutes of talk I'm crushed at 7%. However, I will not remove the battery and put it back again to get a real reading. I will wait to see if the registry tweak works or not.

2008-04-09

- After exactly 5 days, I got 40% left. Today I spoke for 15 minutes so far. UPDATE: evening at 5.5 days, battery left: 28% after 11 more minutes of talk.

2008-04-10

- Exactly 6.1 days @ 11%. Pretty disappointing really, considering that I haven't used the GPS at all. But I talked for 51 more minutes, so that is probably what drove the battery down. UPDATE: At 6.5 days I got only 4% left after 10 more minutes of talking.

- BATTERY DEAD after 6.6 days. So this is how the Kaiser behaves as PHONE ONLY. Activities Total: ~155 minutes phone (so 2 hours and 35 minutes), ~20 minutes screen usage (writing / reading). No WiFi, No BlueTooth.

WILL CONTINUE NEXT WEEK WITH A GPS ONLY REVIEW, let's see how this baby performs on a long GPS run.