Mugen Power 3900 mAh Galaxy Nexus extended battery review

Battery life of smartphones is something we all wish was better. Especially ones like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus with a huge screen and 4G LTE. Last week I had the pleasure to test the Mugen Power extended Acer aspire 5720 battery for the Galaxy Nexus coming in at 3900 mAh — a huge improvement over the stock 1750 mAh battery. I wanted to see if it would last the entire weekend. Read on below for my full results and plenty of pictures.


Thursday and Friday we made sure to charge the new Mugen Power 3900 mAh extended Sony pcga-bp2v battery multiple times to give it a good cycle and drain before testing. You can see our hands-on here. The goal was to have it last throughout the entire weekend and I’m happy to report that we achieved just that. The standard 1750 mAh battery that comes with the Verizon Galaxy Nexus barely lasts 8-9 hours on a good day (for me) and using the extended battery I charged up Friday night and it died Monday morning — I loved it.
Now I must start by saying yes the extended battery is fat and ugly, but if you don’t want to fumble with multiple batteries throughout the day or week this is an awesome solution. Before I continue on I’ll just go ahead and post up my results for everyone to see. The Mugen Power 3900 Ext battery for Lenovo 3000 G430 made my Galaxy Nexus last for 2 days and 7 hours — the entire weekend!

Sure, the phone might look like a humpback whale (thanks YouTube) but check out those results above. Now I might not be the heaviest user ever but I do browse the web, check 1000′s of tweets daily, have push email enabled and more so I use my phone plenty. At first I was completely thrown back by the price ($98) and the ugly fat look of my phone but if you can get over that, or are used to using extended Acer Aspire 3000 batteries you won’t have any issues.
After using the phone for the entire weekend I got used to the larger design and almost completely forgot about it. I found myself using that kickstand too — even though it feels extremely cheap. This review is more than just the battery life, it’s also about build quality. That is where things go downhill for me. I love the battery life, and believe it or not I could actually get used to the larger size but the low build quality really threw me off.
The kickstand is super useful and I enjoyed it, but it makes the entire thing feel extremely cheap and really ruins the experience. I’d rather Mugen lose the kickstand in favor of a better more durable battery cover, but that is just me. The rest of the battery door is solid, durable, has a great soft-touch texture for an easy grip and more but that kickstand is a major drag.
I’m happy to report that I’m actually still using the extended battery for Dell Latitude D630  from Mugen Power this week and I’ve not charged my phone since Monday evening. If they tossed out that kickstand and increased the build quality this would be extremely hard to say no to. Whether it will become my everyday battery is still up in the air as I continue testing the durability of the rear cover and kickstand.
Do I recommend this extended Acer Aspire 7735Z battery? Absolutely! Will you want to use a fatter, heavier phone that looks a little funny is up to you. Get it today from Mugen Power’s online store at the link below.
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