Nexus 4 battery bloating | Hacker News Reader

Nexus 4 battery bloating

blog.testmunk.com

"They told us the devices were out of warranty and that replacement (through repair and refurbishing) would cost $153 USD."

This is a common trick attempted by the retail business - to focus on the warranty (where they dictate the terms) rather than your contract (where they often cannot). If you bought the device, you still have a contract of sale with the seller. The details depend on your jurisdiction.

Perhaps in the US the manufacturer can dictate the terms of your contract of sale, I don't know. But here in the UK they cannot - it is statutory.

When I attempted to have a broken Nexus 7 repaired or replaced here in the UK, the store focused on it being "out of warranty". I insisted that I was not claiming under their warranty, but under the contract of sale (the Sale of Goods Act in the UK) where depending on the nature of the goods and the advertised price the store can be liable for up to six years for manufacturing defects. Eventually, after insisting for a while, they made us good with a partial refund to cover the loss of use of the device subsequent to the failure, though it took us a while to negotiate a cash settlement rather than a store credit.

tl;dr: "out of warranty" is not necessarily the end of the story, although I don't know about the US.

Discussion of the relevant law/code in the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty

In most states, these warranties last for four years. It's common for them to be disclaimed, though.

> tl;dr: "out of warranty" is not necessarily the end of the story, although I don't know about the US.

In the US, there is no "statute" for contract of sale like you have in the UK. Its entirely what is written by the seller [which is the warranty], so yes, it is the end of the story :P

Generally, if its nearly an immediate loss/failure, you can do something more but that is about the only situation. Months/years later its whatever the merchant & manufacturer stipulated.

> In the US, there is no "statute" for contract of sale like you have in the UK.

Depends on the specific US jurisdiction and the particular kind of sale, but this is often false. See, most notably, the Uniform Commercial Code. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code

>Its[sic] entirely what is written by the seller [which is the warranty], so yes, it is the end of the story :P

It's not entirely about what the seller wrote. It's primarily about the representations the seller made (written or otherwise) about the product and whether the product doesn't meet those representations.

Similar story here, both buttons on my iPhone 5 stopped working most of the time. Apple created two separate replacement programs, one for the lock button and one for home button.

Unfortunately mine didn't qualify for either one! I'm not sure if it was the serial number or the date it was purchased, but when I checked online or called in they said my device wasn't part of either program.

This is the line that got my phone replaced: "I don't care about the programs you are describing - your company created them unilaterally so when you tell me I don't qualify it doesn't mean anything to me. What matters is that my phone is failing, if there's nothing you can do about it that really sucks and I feel really screwed over."

Then they replaced it.

This is more common than you might think, particularly on older iPhones. I co-own a repair store in Austin, TX and we get several of these every month--usually on older iPhones that have been dropped "just right". (Not saying yours was the fault of a drop, but if you leave it plugged in 99% of the time, that was probably your issue.)

Anyway, it's stupid easy to replace these batteries--they're just glued in, usually, so you just buy a replacement battery and back cover, use a tool to pry up the battery, place a new battery in along with some adhesive to hold it down, and pop the new back cover on. One pro tip: Buy at least one more new battery than you need, as some percentage of them, no matter where you buy them from, are defective.

We do these in-store for iPhone 4/5 in under 10 minutes--I don't doubt you can do something similar on the N4.

What this guy said, I did so many iPhone 3g/3gs/4/4s. Not fair to call out nexus 4 as the only phone that does this. New battery and back assembly(which is removable) would do the trick.

I just replaced the battery in my Nexus 5 due to earlier stages of the same issue. The battery failure was causing a lot of random device shutdowns that I had initially thought were related to the rollout of Lollipop.

There's a long support thread of people with similar issues at: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/IJSOuc7...

Several of the posters there noticed that their battery had started bulging, ordered a new one, and reported that their devices were back to normal. Same issue and fix for my device.

This issue is definitely concerning, and I'm a bit surprised that more hasn't been made of it by now. It seems to be a fairly widespread problem.

Same here. I actually thought I had damaged the backcover clips when disassembling to retrieve a wayward nanosim to microsim adapter. Didn't realize it was the bulging battery until the random reboots finally forced me to buy a battery on the aftermarket.

The one downside I've noticed is that even with my "OEM" replacement battery (who really knows with these things), charging a lowish battery via a high amperage USB still takes significantly (multiples) longer than my iPhone 5 or 6.

Ah, the infamous "random shutdown" of the Nexus 4. It has caused me to be 30 minutes late at work a few times that one.

It's annoying really because in the end, there is absolutely NO accountability from either LG or Google that the battery won't work as expected after about two years. Thing is, the price range of the Nexus 4 doesn't exist in the Google mobile lineup anymore, with the Nexus 5 being about twice as expensive. So ultimately, I'll either have to stop buying Nexus phones or spend $400 on a Nexus 5.

Yeah it's so frustrating that what I consider the prime price range for mid-range but well built phones existed for awhile, but has since ceased to. Between that and Google Fi sounding great but only being supported by one of these expensive and unwieldy mini-tablets, I guess I'm just outside Google's target market.

Yeah it's so frustrating that what I consider the prime price range for mid-range but well built phones existed for awhile, but has since ceased to.

Did it? You can pick up a 2014 Moto X for $299. You even get to customize it to your own taste. This phone has nice specs and near-vanilla Android. (Love my Moto X 2014 with cognac leather back :). Though, I bought it when is was still 200 above the current price.)

I hear that the Asus Zenfone 2 is also pretty ok. In Europe it's a little more than 300 Euro for the variant with 4GB RAM and 32 GB storage (there are some cheaper variants as well).

I was using an N4 for over two years... I had the random shutdown/reboot issues as well. When Google nix'd their value lines last year when I was ready for a new phone, I waited a while, and finally bought an NVidia Shield 8" tablet, and a OnePlus One phone. Probably the closest things to heir apparent to the N4/N7 devices.

I have friends who have been happy with Moto G and Blu Studio phones on the lower end.

It seems to be very difficult to find a genuine Nexus 4 battery that isn't already a year or two past manufacture date.

They ought to cover that unsightly box with some oily rags.

I'm a Nexus 4 owner and for the last few months, opening Snapchat has made a really weird analogue clicking noise. The clicking noise has progressed over that time and now my phone will constantly make the same loud clicking noise whenever I touch the screen. It sounds very similar to "sparking" two wires.

I can reboot my phone to make it go away (for about day, but after that the clicking comes back). I've never dropped or scratched my phone.

The camera issues on the Nexus 4 are ridiculous. Google has done absolutely nothing to address the issue. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Snapchat is doing really stupid things with the camera API, since the stability issues are not nearly as pronounced with other camera-using apps.

Although I really like my Nexus 4 as a piece of hardware (generally, it just works) I have run into this problem before. Some googling around the issue indicates that it's fairly common, and may be related to the way the device does a poor job of offloading heat. (Due to the arrangement of the internals, a lot of the heat conducts back through the battery connector instead of into the case of the phone, shortening the lifetime of the battery, or so I read somewhere.)

The heat sink issue can apparently be relieved[1], although I haven't tried this on my own device yet. I did replace the battery, though, after the first one failed and started swelling (not as badly as the pictures, but bad enough to deform the back case noticeably).

[1]: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/got-a-hot-nexus-4-heres-a-hack-...

The devices of concern are stored in a cardboard box on a wooden bench? Noting the risk of combustion is low, hopefully that bench is not near any combustible materials in that wall.

Interestingly enough, my beloved Nexus 4 just died this past month. I noticed it getting extremely hot, and then one day started a boot loop that I could not fix. I figured some hardware broke. My uncle also picked up one around the same time, and is going through similar problems - overheating and rebooting, though has no boot loop issues. I will warn him of this battery issue.

On another note, I just purchased a Zenfone 2. I accidentally dropped it from about a foot (getting out of the car) and cracked the screen. I noticed most other Zenfone 2 phone that has a cracked screen appears to have it crack in a very similar spot (top right). I guess all phones have their weaknesses. Though, my nexus 4 looked like it went to war and back having been dropped (at excessive heights), and never broke.

My Nexus 4 screen started to turn yellow due to the discoloration of the adhesive between the lcd and the digitizer caused by heat. Unfortunately my phone developed a dead sport on the digitizer and no longer registers touch input there.

I just ordered a new screen. I would most likely end up giving the phone to a friend whose phone is dying

My Nexus 4 screen started to turn yellow too, and a few weeks later (coincidentally, at the end of last week) the battery bloated like in the OP. So be aware that you might just be covering up symptoms of an imminent death of your phone's battery.

I was having lunch with a friend yesterday and as we were getting up to leave he pulls his phone out of his pocket and announced "My Nexus 4 just exploded." As he shows it to us you can see the bloated battery had almost completely separated the back cover from the case. It had apparently been acting up for about a week before the battery expanded. Surprisingly it was still on and working.

Of course this happens with other manufacturer's batteries too. I had this happen with a kindle fire (first generation) and Amazon replaced the unit free of charge. I also had this happen with the battery for my late 2011 17" MacBook Pro. I walked into an Apple store handed it to a clerk and said I needed that one to be disposed of and to purchase a new one since I was out of warranty. He took it to a genius who said something along the lines of "Oh shit, that's a defect just give him a new one" and off I went with a free new battery.

The video of the battery catching fire is a little distressing knowing that I carry one of those in my pocket at all times.

That's actually a cut of a longer video. What's missing is the beginning, where they stab the battery with a knife. Unless you pierce a battery, that kind of combustion is unlikely to happen. If it swells up to the point where the casing fails it could, but you'd probably notice that before it became a dangerous issue.

There remains an apparently powerful explosive device a couple inches from my testicles.

A battery is very literally power storage. That's its only purpose.

However, it's particularly dangerous on RC aircraft, which can crash and puncture the battery. The battery on my quadcopter fell out while 20 meters high directly over concrete and it puffed up, but didn't catch fire. I discharged it with a light bulb and buried it with a cup full of sand in my yard.

Burying a lithium battery in your yard seems like a pretty terrible way to dispose of it. Could you not take it somewhere for recycling, especially since you discharged it? Doesn't the typical AT&T/T-Mobile/Target/Best Buy/Etc store have a recycling drop-off for old cell phones and batteries?

I'm not from the U.S. and I don't want to waste money going to the capital city just to throw away a little battery. There are no battery recycling places around my village (yes, living in a village). Nor anywhere near it.

Fair enough. I've gotten spoiled by access to these kinds of services where I live and didn't think about other countries lacking the same services.

Am I the only one who got confused and though for a second that testmunk.com was the engineering blog of hipmunk.com?

Very similar logo/mascot.

I can confirm that this happens regularly. For the team I work with it has been all Samsung S4/S5's that have had this happen. And almost all happened within the first year. Our Nexus 5's though area all good and happy.

Why wouldn't you just replace the battery and back cover? A new battery can be had for as little as $6 and a cover is cheap. I've replaced two puffy batteries in my Nexus 4 without any problems and the phone runs fine. It's not having a great time keeping up with the current generations of cell networks but it's still a pretty stellar device.

Some day soon I'm going to really have to try and hunt down a ~4" handset to replace this one... :(

Nexus 4 received bad press in the past years after customer disappointment: overheating, camera issue (making the phone crash - warning about this bug in Snapchat), horrible battery life... This article is just another example.

Very disappointed to hear that it happened with a Google backed device - I hope Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 are more stable better. Not sure if I'll buy another Nexus phone in the future after reading all that.

Had the battery on my S4 replaced because of exactly this issue, battery performance was also dramatically affected too.

Aparently this is/was a common issue with a certain batch of Samsung batteries causing them to replace batteries with this problem for free outside of warranty (in the UK at least).

I had 8 batteries bloat on my Galaxy S II, I assume it was mostly to the CPU running at 100% heating up the battery while draining it really fast.

Ever since using Cyanogenmod instead of the official ROMs and being more aware of the over heating issue, my battery "consumption" dropped.

After I updated my Nexus4 to 5.1.1 the entire device randomly heats up so hot you can't even hold it. Not worth debugging since I don't want it to explode in my face so I junked it.

I've noticed worse energy consumption as well, I wonder if this has been reported anywhere.

It's made by LG. Throughout their long history, they've never really had a reputation for quality. Keep that in mind the next time you shop for any electronics or appliances.

Source?

Personal experience. They used to be called Goldstar when I was a kid.

You can check out Consumer Reports but it has a paywall.

Sounds like you have a bad battery. This can happen with any device with a li battery. You shouldn't need to quarantine all of the devices.

They specifically stated it is happening to all of their Nexus 4 devices.

oops, missed that. Hmmm, that is a bit concerning. Wonder if they are all from the same manufacturing run.

Site appears to be borked for now, archive linky:

https://archive.is/vmEQW

I have a Galaxy Nexus with the battery at least 4 times the size it should be. Its in my garage, I will take a photo of it when I get home.

Bloated batteries are pretty unsafe, I hope you took proper storage precautions.[0] A garage can be mighty flammable.

[0]: http://www.tekrevue.com/swollen-battery/

Thanks for correcting the title HN. Lithium batteries bloat, explode, etc... No manufacturing process is perfect, so there is always going to be a small percentage that do this. The only hard requirement is that the failure be contained.

In other words, there's nothing particularly newsworthy here. The fact that testmunk found this significant and specifically paint it as a problem with the nexus 4 does more to show their lack of experience in the field than anything else.

So it was just random luck that all their nexus 4 devices demonstrated the same fault ?

No, but its a phone from 2012 and its battery has reached or is near EOL by any reasonable metric assuming daily use. Of course you're going to have some battery issues. How many three year old phones work flawlessy? I find by year two they're all fairly roughed up in some way, especially if they're owned by techies who run they harder than most people. Its not surprising considering the age, and perhaps being from the same batch, that they're having issues today.

> its battery has reached or is near EOL by any reasonable metric assuming daily use.

Someone tell that to the battery in my Nokia 6230i from 2007, cause it's been used daily and it doesn't seem to mind :)

Seriously, though, what makes you think that a 2-3 year battery is at or near EOL? Battery life depends on a lot of factors and even then it should lose capacity not swell and explode.

Because modern smartphones, unlike your Nokia, work batteries very hard. They discharge more, get charged more often, have more capacity, have less room in the case for cooling, run hot in general, etc.

I don't think its controversial to say that 3 year old phones may start having problems. If this was the new Nexus 6, yes, then there would be a lot of concern, but telling me a budget phone from 2012 is having battery problems in 2015 really isn't saying much.

tldr; the Nexus 4 has a 1 year warranty for a reason.

Typing on an n4 here..

I find it unacceptable that the phone's life is now limited by the battery. Where can you buy a new n4 battery now? Nowhere.. Yet the rest of my hardware is fine

At the time of purchasing the n4, I had tried to find another decent smart phone with a replaceable battery but didn't find anything suitable. My next phone won't be with Google and I'll instead be looking for something whose replacement battery will still be around, manufactured and not out of date in 3+ years (a guy can dream)

> Where can you buy a new n4 battery now? Nowhere.

I see a bunch listed on Amazon and eBay. Some of the ones on Amazon have reviews indicating that they are used, but not all of them. You can probably find a new one if you look for it.

Many are out of date...

And, what I mean is, given that both consumer and company know that the phone's life would be longer with a new battery, why do they refuse to offer replacements? Phones are fast enough and featured enough for me now. If someone made a decent one with replaceable battery that will be on the market for awhile I'd throw money at them

I stopped placing so much brand premium on "Made By Google", at the end of the day, you are at the mercy of the manufacturer.

My google nexus phone was clunky, slow, randomly freeze and restart during phone conversation. When you dropped it the battery and back lid would fall out or not fit properly. I nearly gave up on Android.

Then my asus nexus 7 screen shattered when I dropped it with replacement cost that made it unfeasible to replace it (warranty did not cover it).

Now I have a Moto G, and considering that I paid only 200 bucks for it, it runs extremely light, smooth and reliable, durable, no battery or back lid falling out. Lot of bang for your buck, faith restored in Android.

What's funny is that your Nexus phone & tablet weren't made by Google, but the Moto G actually technically was (Motorola Mobility was their subsidiary at the time).

That's a legal fiction though; Google had no effect on Motorola Mobility beyond shuffling finances and patents.

Dennis Woodside, Motorola CEO during the Googlerola era, had been at Google since 2003. I can't imagine that Google had nothing to do with Motorola going (near-)Vanilla Android. Also, the "soft" (Googlish?) industrial design of the Moto line marks a rather distinct break from the very angular design of, say, the Droid.

I have a Moto G mark 2 (4G capable) as well, cost ~GBP100 and I agree, the bang per buck is high on this model. Previously I had a HTC Desire I bought in 2010 which eventually fell apart in 2014. I chucked it into my "man drawer" [0] and forgot about it. Then luckily one day I had occasion to dig it out to grab some files off of it. I was somewhat alarmed to discover that its battery had "bloated", it now lives outside until I get around to disposing of correctly.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgUpDGAIdds

I don't have a man drawer so I just kick stuff under the bed when I don't like it (lol).

after reading your comment now I feel anxious and have moved it to another unused room's closet.

The Moto X is also great. It's only $299 these days (Amazon or Moto maker), has flagship specs, near vanilla Android with some useful extensions (touchless control, active notifications), and I really like the build quality.

My wife and I both have one. The primary thing that I miss compared the Moto G (EU) and some other models is dual-SIM.

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