BlackBerry Storm - BlackBerry 9500 Series Smartphone

[#1]

I just spoke with Verizon Wireless customer service and wanted to pass along some info to the forum. I have had issues with short battery life and I have had my Storm for 5 weeks now and its not getting any better. So, I called Verizon and the rep told me that if you leave it charged/plugged in too long (i.e. overnight) that can actually decrease your battery life and charge. I told her that I have never had that problem with any phone (i.e. Motorola, Treo) and she said that it is definitely an issue with Blackberry. So, they are sending me a new battery under warranty and I figured that some of you might be running into the same problem.

[#2]

That is utter nonsense.   Consider this: if the phone can show the "fully charged" icon, don't you think it has the ability to back off the charging current?  It does and all modern lithium ion devices do.

If you are on Verizon, look at my post on calling *228 ... use both options the first time in two calls. http://supportforums.blackberry.com/rim/board/message?board.id=9500&thread.id=14113

It also may be that your battery is defective.  I noticed that when I bought my storm in a store, the jerk in the store started it up and handed it to me without a full charge in the battery.  Running down a LiOn battery that has not been fully charged is bad.  Again, this is true for all LiOn devices.   If my procedure doesn't work and the battery is still not performing, see if you can berate them into replacing it or just buy another.  Then fully charge the new one, all the way and for as long as it takes, overnight even before using it disconnected from the charger.

The first line support people literally don't know what they are talking about.  They are literally following scripts, flip books and then (worse) they add their own little tidbits that their non engineer colleagues have found satisfy people and get them off the call.   They are good for settling warranty and business issues but they are worse than reading the manual.

[#3]

I was also told to not overcharge the battery and I find that totally ridiculous.  There is no way you can overcharge the battery on the Storm.  Once you plug it in, you will see the lightning bolt on the battery life bars.  When it is fully charged, the lightning bolt is no longer there so that means the phone is not being charged anymore.

I am surprised that the Verizon rep. didn't tell me to initially fully charge the battery before I started using the phone.  There is a note in the box that stated this.  I am not sure if I caused any damage to the performance of my battery because  I was charging it a little in the car but never gave it a full charge.  Maybe a total of 30 minutes.  I pretty much drained it down to about 10% before I charged it overnight. 

It's like a new toy that once you get it, you are eager to explore it and play with it until you get familiar with how to operate it.  I am sure BB knows that and in reality, they should have charged and conditioned the batteries before they box it up and ship it out to the stores.

I was having problems with battery life for the first 2 days where my phone was always warm and battery life only lasted about 6-8 hours.  That was totally unacceptable so I started doing some research and came across this forum and found the fix.  My problem was my phone was set to Global Network and was constantly searching for a 3G signal. 

Take a look at the small target symbol that is below your signal strength bar.  If you see a searching signal coming from it, then that is what's causing the draining and heating of your battery.  That means your network setting is set either on Global or GSM/UMTS.   

To turn off the searching signal, just click on OPTIONS where you see a wrench, click on MOBILE NETWORKS and then on NETWORK TECHNOLOGY and finally click on 1XEV and exit and save your setting and that will help reduce your battery drain dramatically.

If you find this info helpful, please click on my Kudos.  Thanks.