Battery mAh:
Batteries sold on the market today have a rating called “mAh”.
In the un-abbreviated form: milliamp hours.
The “mAh” indicates the capacity of a battery and also is directly related to the battery’s run-time. You will commonly see it displayed in online ads as “6600mAh Laptop Battery”, or “Solar Restore with 1500mAh Lithium Polymer battery”, or even “1200mAh Blackberry CS2 battery”. In all cases, the mAh is indicating the capacity of the battery.
How can I figure out the run time from the “mAh”?
Run time and mAh are always relative to the device you are using. For example, a netbook using a 6600mAh battery will last many hours longer than a full-size laptop that is using a 6600mAh battery. The reason is that a the power requirement of the full-size laptop is much greater than a small netbook. An 800mAh camera battery may give you 1500 shots. It has no relation to the 6600mAh laptop battery. The point is that different devices use mAh at different rates.
Another thing that can affect run-time is how you are using the device.
For instance, if you are watching a DVD on your laptop, maybe you will get 2 hours of run-time from a 6600mAh battery. If you are typing a word document instead of watching video, then maybe you will get 4 hours run time. It all depends on how you are operating your device and how much power is required to do the particular activity. User’s could also modify their screen brightness to get longer run-time.
The best way to describe to a customer how much run time they will get from one of our batteries is to find out how much run time they got from their previous battery and how much mAh that battery had. If a customer had a 1000mAh camera battery and they got 100 shots per charge, then on our 1500mAh battery they will typically get a 50% boost in performance – meaning they will get 150 shots. The increase in mAh is a direct increase in run time, as long as the operation of the device does not change.
Battery Longevity - Run time will decrease over 3 years, and it will decrease over 1000 uses
Battery manufacturers such as Sony will provide customers with a 1 Year Warranty on their camera and laptop batteries. This is due to the fact that battery performance decreases over time and over many uses. Typically a battery should perform steadily very well throughout its first year, or 300 charges. Into the 2nd year, the chemicals inside are not only aging, but they are becoming exhausted from charging and discharging so many times. The battery will maintain good performance through the 2nd year and up to about 500-600 charges. The 3rd year of battery’s life will begin to diminish performance. A laptop battery that you used to get 4 hours of run time from, maybe you will only get 2-3 hours from. After about 1000 charges total, a battery will most likely have diminished in run time significantly.
Accessory Power batteries are GUARANTEED for 3 Years and we will accept warranty claims for the batteries up until 3 years from purchase. We do this to offer a higher level of service to our customers than Sony or Dell. It is one of our main selling features. We advertise our batteries as lasting up to 1000 charges.
How is battery mAh related to a charger’s mA?
The “mA” abbreviation is for milliamps. Milliamps is a measure of the amount of current that a charger provides to a battery.
The mA and mAh are directly related. If a charger is rated at 300mA, and you have a battery that is 1200mAh, then the formula below can be applied:
1200mAh(battery) / 300mA(charger) = 4 h(4 hours)
The mA is the rate at which the battery will be charged. If the charger current is 300mA, then it will charge any given battery at 300mAh per hour. The battery in the above example is 1200mAh, therefore it takes 4 hours to fully charge it.