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(More customer reviews)After deciding to go with the Windows Phone 7 operating system, I picked up an HTC HD7. This mini-slate smartphone is turning out to be a joy (though it still has a few annoying drawbacks in its hardware). The one thing that greatly bothered me about the HD7 is the battery life. HTC built the phone around a 1250mAH battery. With moderate use throughout the day, you can easily find that the battery is dead before the day is over. For example, I'll unplug the phone in the morning before I leave for work. Having a full charge, I'll use the phone throughout the day to make a few calls, send a few texts, and do a few other things. I'll average about an hour or two doing things like reading Kindle books or playing a quick game. I'll check my email, and even call up some web pages here and there or maybe use the GPS device. When I get home at 5PM (only 8 hours later), the phone is down to less than 20% power. If I know I'll need the phone for a FULL day (from 9 in the morning until later in the evening), I have to restrict how much I use it as it will easily run out (and already has a couple times).
I looked at extended battery packs for the phone, but those battery packs are larger than the stock battery, requiring you to place a new cover on the back of the phone, making it thicker. This means that it won't fit into custom sleeves or cases. This sleeve helps remedy that by combining a silicon protection case with an additional battery pack. You have the benefits of an extended power supply, along with the protection of a silicon case to protect your phone should you drop it. The sleeve's internal battery is mounted on the back of the sleeve. This adds considerable thickness to the phone underneath the phone's camera. A cutaway in the silicon lets you still use the HD7's kickstand. The skin is also a little longer than the phone (explained below).
HOW IT WORKS: In the inside base of the sleeve is a very short USB cable. You simply plug the USB connector into the USB port on the bottom of the phone and slip it into the case. A small button on the back of the sleeve illuminates up to four blue LEDs to indicate the charge level of the sleeve's battery. During phone operation, power is first drawn from the sleeve. You'll see the battery indicator for the phone stays at full charge until the sleeve is finally depleted, at which point the phone starts drawing from its own internal battery. The sleeve has a USB connector along the lower left-hand side of the case, and plugging a USB cable or USB charger into it charges both the phone and sleeve. First the phone is charged, and then the sleeve is charged.
There is a small hole in the bottom of the sleeve that aligns with the headphone jack on the phone. You can use just about any headset as long as the plug is straight and not angled or bent (the hole is deep since the bottom of the case is a little deeper to make room for the USB plug). There are textured ridges on the sides of the case that correspond to the Power, Camera, and Volume buttons on the phone, and a firm press on any of those ridges depresses the phone's button underneath with no problem.
The documentation for the device doesn't list the rating for the internal battery, but it appears to add a healthy amount of power to the phone, and unless you put the phone under heavy use with extensive use of the screen and radios, you should easily be able to last the full day with a good amount of power left over.
DRAWBACKS: There are a couple drawbacks to using this device, the first being that it adds considerable weight and size to the phone. Once this is in place, you'll be very limited in what you can use if you want a belt-clipped carrying case. The phone is simply much thicker and longer, and a little bit wider, than it was before, and any carrying case designed for the HD7 will no longer work. I found that the phone sits nicely in the case. It's not exactly a snug fit though. The case holds onto the phone well, and there is little give and leeway, but I think I would have liked it just a tiny bit more firm. Still, it's a very minor grievance and is mainly just a personal feeling.
The one thing that must be noted though is that when the phone is in the case, you cannot establish a data connection with your computer using a USB cable. Plugging the phone into your computer only charges the phone. If you wish to sync your phone to your PC and the Zune software, you'll need to remove it from the case first. This is not necessarily a deal-breaker as it's quite easy to insert and remove the phone, but it is definitely a consideration. You can't just install the phone and forget about it, you'll have to remove the phone at times when you wish to sync things.
One more minor drawback is the location of the USB port on the case. Being along the left-hand edge, as opposed to the bottom where the phone's USB port is, slightly impedes the phone's use if you have it plugged in while using it. When you grasp the phone, you tend to grasp it from the side, palm pressed against one edge while fingers wrap around the other. The port location on the phone lets the charging/syncing cable hang down outside of your grasp. On the side though, it makes it feel very clumsy if you hold it in your left hand because you'll have to grip the phone much higher up so your palm clears the cable. If you're right-handed, you will have a strong tendency to hold the phone in your left hand when operating the screen since it'll be your right hand poking and manipulating the controls.
SUMMARY: The sleeve offers some decent protection against drops, scratches, and scuffs (though the screen still should have a screen protector on it) and adds considerable battery life to the phone. It does increase the weight and size of your phone considerably, making it much more difficult to find a carrying case that can hold it's now-considerable girth. You also need to remove the phone from the case if you need to make a USB data connection with your computer.
===========Update 3/1/2011================
I've been using it now for about five days, and found a few things that made me knock one star off of the original rating, bringing it down to three.
It sometimes acts.... odd. For instance, I got home from work last night and plugged it into the charger. The phone was in place while it was charging. Before I went to bed, I saw both the sleeve and the phone were at full charge, so I unplugged it and went to sleep. In the morning, I pressed the button on the back to see how much charge dissipated overnight, and it showed that it had no charge at all. Plugging it into the charger, my phone went into a cycle where it repeatedly kept playing the "plugged in" chime that normally plays when you plug the phone into a charger or USB cable. It seemed the device would start supplying power to the phone, stop, start supplying power again, stop, and keep doing it over and over. At work when I plugged it in, my cube neighbor kept remarking "what is that chime that keeps on playing", prompting me to turn off the volume.
At one point, the sleeve (without the phone) showed it was up to about 75% charge. After being plugged into the phone for a minute, it showed a 25% charge. While it still seems to work, the behavior of it causes some confusion at times, and I found myself tempted to just remove my phone. I may use the device only when I know I'll be going out for the entire day and need to know my phone will have enough juice to last a full day without access to a charger or computer. For my normal days though, I think I'll just get a plain silicon sleeve for protection and occasionally plug the phone into my computer for a booster charge (if you work at a computer, I recommend having a spare USB cable there so you can give your smartphone, no matter what brand, a booster charge while you're sitting at your desk).
If I find the issues resolve, I'll report back and update the rating. As it stands, I find it just an OK device that's handy when you know you'll be leaving the house in the morning, won't be back until later in the evening, and will be using the phone extensively without a booster charge here and there.
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