The normal battery of the Curve 8900 is very acceptable. However when I saw the Seidio Innocell 2600mAh External Battery on the Crackberry.com store and decided I had to buy it. I wanted it for the obvious reasons. Extended battery life.

Purchase

The purchase here did not go so easily. I tried to purchase it from the official seidio online store because the shipping to Canada was much more acceptable then crackberry. Once I tried to checkout the credit card verification system failed every time telling me the address did not match. However this was the exact address linked to the card. So I decided to call Seidio and get it worked out, even on the phone it did not work out. So finally I just ordered it from the crackberry store and shipped it to a friend’s address in the states. Since I was going to the states This was no problem. Overall the purchase was a headache since it took me a lot of time just to purchase a battery (yeah I could have just paid the shipping to Canada on crackberry, but it was not reasonable)

Purchase [rating:2.5]

Size/Weight

When you read online that it only extended the depth of your phone by 3-4mm you think that’s not too big. However considering the phone’s specs say the phone is 13.5mm in depth that is a large amount. At first I was happy and ignored the fact that it made the phone larger (honeymoon effect). Also it was pretty cool that everyone that saw my phone asked me what that was (many people I know have the 8900). Before I bought this battery the phone used to fit in my pocket without me even feeling it most of the time. With the extended battery however I can always feel it there (could be a good or bad thing depending on if you loose your phone a lot, or if you don’t like a bulge in your pants). As for the weight it really does not make much of a difference. I can not tell the actual weight difference when having the extended battery connected rather than the normal one.

Size/Weight [rating:2.5]

Performance

The Performance is the best attribute to this battery. Well it should, that is the whole point. On average my phone would last two to three days on a charge of the normal battery. On the extended battery I usually get three to four days sometimes a bit of the fifth day if I’m not using it too much. Please take into consideration that I am not using the normal rogers releases of the software for the 8900, but the latest beta, and final releases found on crackberry.com forums. The performance of the extended battery will definitely not let you down.

Performance [rating:5]

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts were that after using the extended battery for a while I just got use to the size, however I didn’t like it (the size). After going back to my normal battery when I got a replacement phone I remembered one of the great things about the Curve 8900. This phone is so thin and sexy yet very feature packed. It feels great in my hand. And the extended battery just didn’t satisfy me. However this does not mean the product is bad, it just means it’s not for me. I felt the Cover provided with the battery had a nice rubbery feel to it. However the build quality is not too great, that is most clear on the clasp that locks the cover into place. So my verdict is, if you are a business user and need to make sure you always have extra battery life do two things, first update your Blackberry os to a better version, and second buy this battery. However if you are just a casual user like me, and care about the size, don’t go for this one. I might buy the normal sized 1600mAh Seidio which is about 15% more juice than the standard 1380mAh battery. As of now I’m going to sell my Seidio Innocell 2600mAh Extended Battery on Ebay for whatever price it gets(Click Here to view the Auction).

Overall [rating:overall]