In case you missed it, I wrote a post last week called 24 hours on the EVO power plan. In it, I boasted the ridiculously dramatic improvement in juice life I was seeing during the first cycle of my new Seidio Innocell 3,500mAh extended EVO battery using the Juice Defender suite of apps. I mentioned in that post that I intended to run through at least three charge-and-discharge cycles before reporting back with my final results, because, if I understand correctly, one must charge and discharge a battery a few times before its full capacity can be realized. However, a reader made a specific request for the second battery cycle, and I wanted to follow up on that real quick.

Brian Evans wanted to know what kind of battery life I would experience if I simply threw everything I could at the EVO, and that’s exactly what I did for the second cycle. Still employing Juice Defender, I finished the second charge at 6:40 p.m. Saturday. I turned on WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, auto-sync, and set the screen to it’s brightest. I also flipped the 4G switch to on. All of these services would run for the next 23 hours, until my phone died. During those 23 hours, I used Google Maps’ navigation for a good 45 minutes, I made numerous calls, listened to at least an hour of MP3s, browsed the web, sent text, and played a good 20 minutes of games. This was a deliberate attempt to kill the EVO 4G, and it took me 23 hours. Do you really need to do all of things and enable all of these features on a daily basis? All day? I certainly don’t. An generally, if I’m in the car – especially using GPS navigation – I’ll be plugged in. So, as far as I’m concerned, this test is a huge success. Seidio and Juice Defender reign supreme.

What’s the maximum amount of time per day a person needs their phone unplugged in the real world? 18…20 hours? According to my experience, you could navigate a four hour trip without hitting that car lighter power supply. For all intents and purposes, I consider my EVO power problems resolved. I pushed the phone as hard as I could and got more life out of it than (I think) one could reasonably expect at this point in time. I’m sure that we will see technologies over the next few years that will extend battery life and minimize the power consumption of mobile gadgets. But for now, I’m perfectly satisfied with an extended Li-ion brick and Juice Defender. I can’t say for sure how this battery will hold up in the long run, but considering the juice issues my EVO 4G has had, I’m willing to cough up some cash once or twice a year to turn the giant power fiend into a reliable workhorse.

First cycle (normal use): 45 hours
Second cycle (crazy use): 23 hours
Third cycle (normal use): ???