Review: Mugen Power 2650 mAh Extended battery for the BlackBerry Curve 3G

Mugen Power is a leading 3rd party battery manufacturer, and is known for it’s “extended” batteries. And we all are aware of the extended batteries for Android phone, but we were curious to know how extended batteries fair on platforms other than Android.

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We thought we would do a test for a Mugen Power battery on a BlackBerry instead of the regular Android devices, and we chose the BlackBerry Curve 3G for that, it’s a bestselling low end BlackBerry, and is known for poor life – however it is full of features which can easily drain out the battery.

So this will be an interesting review, let’s see how the Mugen Power Extended battery faired on a completely different platform.

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This battery comes in a very small, compact and simple packing – it has a leaflet with the instructions and standard warnings, a back door with a bulge and the extended battery itself.

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Well, the design of the phone itself is very simple not the thinnest qwerty phone, the extended battery comes with a rather odd battery cover which gives it a bulge on the back – see the picture and you shall understand better. Besides that the quality of the back door is very good, and it fits perfectly, however it must be closed at a certain angle in order for it to get locked properly, so one must be careful with the back door. Regarding the weight, the battery does add some weight to the phone, but bearable – doesn’t make your phone look or feel like a brick.

Unlike the replacement door from Mugen Power for Android phones, this will not affect users will small hands, and the phone despite the extended battery and the bulge on the phone, is easy to grip and hold.

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[tab name=”Performance”]

The li-ion extended battery for the BlackBerry Curve 3G is rated at 2650mAh, which is 1500mAh more than the stock battery which RIM provides. Ideally we should expect something around twice the backup with this backup. So let’s find out.

Alright, first of all let me tell you that I have been using the phone since quiet some time and the stock battery does not last more than 7 hours with heavy data usage which includes constant data transfer, multiple push email accounts, 24X7 connectivity to IMs, Twitter and Facebook, and around 2 hours of call.

I would consider the stock battery backup pretty poor for a user like me, who needs constant internet connectivity. Here comes the Mugen Power battery in the picture, I used the phone with the extended battery for a few days at a go, and the results certainly were pleasing – I felt less handicapped and more mobile, without the constant fear of running out of battery !

Now let me elaborate the results for you, with heavy usage as described above intentionaly coupled with lots of media usage that is video streaming, camera as well as some games – and the usual web browsing and connectivity on 3G/wi-fi – the battery took 45 hours or so to go from 100 to 0.

I even tried light usage which is casual browsing, connectivity over 2G and not over an hour of call, with minimal media usage – and stunningly the battery went from 100% to 30% in around 72 hours, which suggests it would last something around three and a half to four days, which is great !

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The Mugen Power Extended battery for the BlackBerry Curve 3G is a good buy at it’s price and lives up to it’s promise of increased power backup pretty well. As a BlackBerry user, I do assume you need to be connected 24X7 and do lots of traveling which means you do need to have a good backup, this extended battery provides just that !

It adds much needed power backup to your low end BlackBerry, but alongside also certain thickness and a bulge which will for sure make your phone look the odd one in a bunch of BlackBerrys, however it is worth the added thickness.

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[easyreview title=”Install or Not Scorecard” cat1title=”Design” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″ cat2title=”Usability” cat2detail=”” cat2rating=”4.5″ cat3title=”Performance” cat3detail=”” cat3rating=”5″ summary=””]

 

NOTE : This battery also works with the CDMA version of the Curve 3G, which is the Curve 9330.