Let’s call a spade a spade: for all its charms, the Galaxy Nexus’ battery is pretty awful, especially on Verizon’s LTE-enabled version. Samsung sells a 2100mAh extended battery and various 3rd parties have offered alternative, but by far the most extreme is Seidio’s 3800mAh battery with an extended battery bay door. The massive juice pack more than doubles the battery power of the stock Verizon phone, but previously it had an important omission: the NFC chip embedded into Samsung’s batteries. Rejoice, fans of long run life and Android Beam: you no longer have to make the choice between the two.

The LTE model of the extended battery is offered in addition to the original – it doesn’t replace it, despite being nearly identical. For the privilege of NFC capability you’ll pay $74.95 plus taxes and shipping in the US, a $5 premium over the non-NFC model. Sorry, importers: neither 3800mAh battery works with the international GSM version of the Galaxy Nexus, though Seidio offers both a standard replacement battery and a smaller 300mAh extended GSM version.

The extended battery and its blown-out cover ads nearly double the Galaxy Nexus’ own thickness, but what’s that to a man who wants 20 hours of LTE access? Speaking as someone who’s relied on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus (along with a gigantic external battery pack) for breathless CES coverage, I can say one of these babies would have been nice. NFC just sweetens the deal. The Innocell 3800mAh Super Extended Life Battery with NFC is in stock and shipping now.

[via Talk Android]

[device id=2091]

7 COMMENTS

  1. What’s the problem with the GNex’s battery? With medium/non-heavy use I get 2 to 3 days with one charge, that’s almost twice as long as with my old SGS. Really can’t complain.

  2. I’ve got to agree.  I’ve been very pleased with my battery life.  I use my GSM GN as a SIM phone at work (which uses wifi, not cell) with a bluetooth headset and for general phone activities such as reading pulse, web browsing, etc and I go to bed with around 60-70%.  An extended battery would still definitely be nice for heavier usage such as playing graphics-intense games.

    I had a G2 before the GNex.  The only reason I would get better battery life with that was because I would use wifi calling on t-mobile, which seemed to shut off the cell radio, making the phone use almost no power.  I would end the work day with 90-95% battery, though I wasn’t using it as a SIP phone at the time.

  3. Seidio has some pretty hefty markup on this extended battery. I’d rather get the 5200 mAh PowerGen Mobile Juice Pack at $25 than spend $70 on a 3200 mAh battery.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.