I appreciate it will be more complex due to the cover, but that should not make it a "no go". I expect strong demand- in spite of extra chunky footprint. 1700mah would be the sweet spot. Minimize the chunk, but allow me to play more funk
I was hoping for a battery with more mah in the same package. probally a 1500mah. I was getting like 7hours at best. I turned down the britness 1 block and and turned off the 3G. Now I am up to 2 1/2 days with a normal amount of calls, listening to music, turning on the 3g for web browsing (maybe 1 hour total over the 2 1/2 days) and back off, and last about 1 hour of wifi use.
What this phone needs is 3000 mAh. When I was using my N810 tethered to an E71, I could get a normal day's use out of the two of them. Both have a 1500 mAh battery. Do the math...
The N900 is great tech, but it chews down its battery like there's no tomorrow. And well it might, 'cause if you start in the morning, there'll be no afternoon :-)
I heard good things about mugen batteries. They should be able to make a 1500mAh one that fits in the original case of the N900. Give them some time or send them an email to express interest.
Even if looking for an extended battery is a good approach, I would suggest looking for ways to make the phone draw less power.
I'm thinking things like having a software mod that automatically switches to GSM connection when there is no data connection and a home GSM network is available, and to UMTS connection when a data connection is requested. Or severly scale back CPU when the screen is not in use . Or using a tickless kernel to reduce CPU wakeups.
I saw that there is a hot thread about powertop - we need a better tool, I think it's too focused on x86; I've been trying to use powertop on another ARM platform, and it's not that suitable to the job.
The goal would be to get 2-3 days usage with a standard battery, and then 5-6 days with an extended battery; that would start to be really portable device.
I would greatly love to see a MUCH higher capacity battery made available for the N900 with a replacement back with a functional kickstand. The stand on the N900 is incredibly bad, especially considering the excellent design of the ones used on the N800/N810. Anyone involved in the hardware design for the N900 should frankly be embarrassed. The thing is so far offset to the left that the center of the mass actually causes it to wobble in the one and only default position!
