One of the complaints I hear frequently about the iPhone is its lousy battery life. To be honest, the battery hasn’t seemed that bad coming from a Treo 800w and its miniscule battery. However, there are circumstances that will test the strongest battery, and I recently met with just such an event!

Every year when school lets out, I go off with the AJROTC to north Alabama for a week or two. Cell coverage is lousy where we go, and Verizon is the only carrier that has any 3G coverage at all. To compound an already bad situation, the National Guard recently renovated the buildings we use, and the new siding works great at keeping out cell signals. So our phones spend the day working as hard as they can at catching and holding a signal which really eats up battery life.

The first day of camp I let my iPhone play its little game of capture the service signal. And when I returned to my barracks after dinner, I had about 20% remaining on what had been a full charge at the start of the day. For the next two days, I plugged my iPhone into the RichardSolo 1800 Smart Backup Battery just for a few minutes every 2-3 hours. At the end of the day, my iPhone was still way about 50%, and it took five days without recharging before the 1800 finally complained and wanted a charge of its own.

There are several really nice features about the RichardSolo 1800 Smart Backup Battery. The feature I like the best is that because it attaches via a power cord, and not a direct connection, you can use it regardless of the case you use. Of course, with every RichardSolo backup battery, you get their awesome custom case – but it’s nice to know that you can charge in any case from any manufacturer.

The cord that attaches your iPhone to the RS battery is almost 20” long. It is almost too long, but it gives you plenty of flexibility as to where to place your iPhone and charger when charging. The charger itself, is smaller than an iPhone, and weighs almost nothing. I can easily toss the cord, the charger, and my iPhone into a side pocket of my purse.

As you can see from this photo, there is a blue light on the RS battery that comes on when your iPhone is plugged in. You only have to plug it in to start the charging process, and you can use it while charging or just let it charge – your choice. I have this totally irrational fear that my battery will run out while I’m in the middle of a phone call, so I tend to plug in for calls. (And if I’m not using a bluetooth headset, that 20” cord doesn’t seem quite so long when I’m on the phone!) In any case, the RS battery will continue to top of your device for around 90 minutes even after the battery indicator shows full. It doesn’t take long to charge.

When the battery level on the RS battery gets to about 10%, you’ll see a red light warning. When there is nothing plugged in, all lights are off to save power.

While you don’t have to turn the RS battery on to start charging, you will notice a small on/off switch on the back.

This switch (literally) turns on the lights. On the front you’ll see two fingerprint sized buttons. One operates a flashlight (which came in very handy at camp!), and the other operates a laser pointer. While I’m sure I will get a lot of use from the laser pointer when school resumes in the fall, I’m having an awful lot of fun with it now playing with my cats.

The RichardSolo 1800 Smart Backup Battery itself, can be charged in any of 3 ways. Plug it into the retractable usb cord that comes in the box, and charge it from the usb port on your computer, or the usb charging ports that are popping up at airports worldwide. The initial charge when the battery is brand new takes about 4-5 hours. Depending on how low the battery has gotten, subsequent charges can be accomplished in far less time. While charging, you will see a blinking green light, and this light turns to a solid green when fully charged.

Also included in the box are a usb wall charger and a usb car charger. RichardSolo has left almost no possibility overlooked. I do feel compelled to point out that there is no usb airline adaptor in the box. Then again, one full charge should be enough to keep you listening to music, watching movies, and playing games on all but the very longest of flights.

RichardSolo also has this battery in a cordless version. In other words, the battery connects directly to the device. I prefer the flexibility of having the cord.

If you hurry, you can use my special discount code for 15% off the RichardSolo 1800 Smart Backup Battery, normally $69.95, and all iPhone/iPod accessories from RichardSolo. Just enter the code “flowers” at checkout.