Babying the battery - Google Pixel 3 Questions & Answers

For the first time ever on my phone, I'm babying the battery on the Pixel 3. I'm only allowing the battery to be in the 50-80% range. Occasionally it will get out of that range but I try not to let that go on for too long. Will this have a noticeable impact on the longevity of my battery? Has anyone ever tried it on a Pixel or Android phone?

I do this on my devices religiously... And while my wife does not, after 18 months with our previous Pixel 2's... Mine carries a noticeable advantage in battery over hers.
On occasion, I will let it fully charge, but not for very long, and never plugged in overnight.

Use your phone and enjoy it. I don't think any efforts like this are worth it, personally.

fury683 said:
Use your phone and enjoy it. I don't think any efforts like this are worth it, personally.
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You are not wrong.

I have been on both sides of this fence over the many years I have been running Android phones. Phones that I ran for 3+ years and swollen/poorly performing batteries if they weren't babied have both went the way of the dodo bird so to speak. My wife and I ran the OG Pixel and Pixel XL pretty much from the beginning until the 3s were released. They basically lived on a charger when not in use, and neither had any depreciation in performance. My only real strict battery usage rule for the past close to 3 years (including some other devices that belong to me, my wife and my sons) is to NEVER use the device while it is charging. The batteries are better as are the chargers and OS battery implementation, and the odds of me using a device long beyond 2 years is pretty slim. Some things like using the right charger and not messing with charging settings are pretty obvious to me. I will admit that I have my own OCD device things like daily reboots and cleanup, but as far as the battery goes I agree with fury that the device is to be used. If I am losing my time and device performance trying to milk a better SoT that doesn't really mean $hit, I am using the device wrong.

terrapin01 said:
For the first time ever on my phone, I'm babying the battery on the Pixel 3. I'm only allowing the battery to be in the 50-80% range. Occasionally it will get out of that range but I try not to let that go on for too long. Will this have a noticeable impact on the longevity of my battery? Has anyone ever tried it on a Pixel or Android phone?
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Yes, that works, but to what end? Are you planning on keeping your phone for 3 years or so you upgrade every year? It's a good technique for those who want to keep their phone for years.

PuffDaddy_d said:
Yes, that works, but to what end? Are you planning on keeping your phone for 3 years or so you upgrade every year? It's a good technique for those who want to keep their phone for years.
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I just find it to be disappointing and a loss of value that I notice clear degradation every six months or so. When your phone is new and you're away from an outlet for 24 hours, no problem! Fast forward 18 months and that same scenario is a major problem. After 24-30, months I feel I HAVE to upgrade because the battery performance is so mediocre (if not outright poor). That's why I want to know if babying the battery pays noticeable gains in the future.

terrapin01 said:
I just find it to be disappointing and a loss of value that I notice clear degradation every six months or so. When your phone is new and you're away from an outlet for 24 hours, no problem! Fast forward 18 months and that same scenario is a major problem. After 24-30, months I feel I HAVE to upgrade because the battery performance is so mediocre (if not outright poor). That's why I want to know if babying the battery pays noticeable gains in the future.
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Why not just spend the $80 and replace the battery after a year or so? If I liked the device that much or I couldn't afford a new one for almost a grand then I'd certainly give that a shot. I think the Pixel 3 replacement is pretty easy and you can do it yourself. I'd drive myself crazy watching the battery level all day long. I think the apps on the device are more important anyway. After a year, a factory reset will probably get more life than a year of what you are doing.

terrapin01 said:
I just find it to be disappointing and a loss of value that I notice clear degradation every six months or so. When your phone is new and you're away from an outlet for 24 hours, no problem! Fast forward 18 months and that same scenario is a major problem. After 24-30, months I feel I HAVE to upgrade because the battery performance is so mediocre (if not outright poor). That's why I want to know if babying the battery pays noticeable gains in the future.
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I think that's a hard correlation to make. Usage changes over time. Your battery might last 24 hours no problem on day one, but then you add in a new app that uses more data, or you start playing a game more that uses more battery and you feel like it doesn't last as long. A lot of people say "no, I use all the same apps" and that might be true for 95% of the apps, but all it takes is one to change the battery life.
As others said, if you intend to keep the phone for 2-3+ years, the battery life may be a concern, but if you're planning to upgrade once a year or every other year, I don't think you will see any noticeable gains from worrying about the battery.
When my battery is low, I charge it. I have a Pixel Stand on my desk at work and it sits there most of the day. When I get home I use the phone and plop it on a Choetech wireless pad at night so it's 100% in the morning. It's also on power (albeit low/slow) with Android Auto in my car during my commute both ways. I also have days where I'm away from battery for hours and lose about 1% per hour (fairly standard with Always on Display). I've been doing more or less this same routine with all three of my Pixel XL devices (OG, 2 and now 3) with no issues. The only change with the 3 is that it has wireless charging which makes charging much more seamless.
Hope you enjoy your new phone, however you decide to use it! :good:

bobby janow said:
Why not just spend the $80 and replace the battery after a year or so? If I liked the device that much or I couldn't afford a new one for almost a grand then I'd certainly give that a shot. I think the Pixel 3 replacement is pretty easy and you can do it yourself. I'd drive myself crazy watching the battery level all day long. I think the apps on the device are more important anyway. After a year, a factory reset will probably get more life than a year of what you are doing.
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The problem with this is alot of manufacturers will stop producing batteries around the same time they stop producing the phones. With my experience I've had a hard time finding batteries that were oem quality, and even if you do, who knows how long that thing has sat on the shelf?

If you're all curious how your battery is degrading over time, download an app called Battery Health. It's a very simple app that tells you what % of the total battery capacity is still available for use. It only took about 2 months for mine to drop into the 90's.

Related

How much of your phones battery is the gear s3 using?

Hi guys! Iam tempted on buying the gear S3 here but its ridiculously expensive where i live and therefore it needs to be near perfect for me to justify the purchase! My main concern is battery life (more so the actual phone then the watch) I understand the theory that your inclined to check your phone less and therefore your phones battery goes further but iam interested in how much actual screen on time your losing!! For example.... If you charge your phone to 100% and you connect your gear s3 to it and leave it for 24hours and in that time you don't use your phone at all! How much would your battery have dropped after 24 hours?
Iam a massive battery junkie and i love how good my phones battery is and for me personally i would rather not use the gear s3 if its gonna kill my phones battery! Even a 1% drop an hour to me would bordering on too much as that would equate to a 24% drop on your phone in 24hours without using ur phone at all!
I normally get 4 days use out of my battery, however I recharge after about 3 days.
neils31 said:
I normally get 4 days use out of my battery, however I recharge after about 3 days.
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iam talking about the impact it has on your phone?
Blaalad12 said:
iam talking about the impact it has on your phone?
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It's insignificant unless you're using GPS. I really notice no difference at all.
http:// said:
It's insignificant unless you're using GPS. I really notice no difference at all.
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Literally no difference? So it virtually uses no battery??
Blaalad12 said:
Literally no difference? So it virtually uses no battery??
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Not literally none obviously, but it is so little that I don't notice it. Less than 1% per hour.
I did a six hour hike the other day, logging the hike on the watch and S-health did take a more noticeable hit on the battery. Like more than 10% but I don't recall that happening on other hikes.
I think the S3 is the best smartwatch currently available. I've had mine for six months and am still very happy with it. But you said a couple of things in your post that give me pause. While I'm OK with spending $350 USD on what is essentially a phone accessory, the S3 is far from the "near perfect" that you may be expecting. Furthermore, your obsession with battery efficiency is a trait that you may find very irritating with smartwatches. Obviously you can do what you want, but I would be remiss if I didn't suggest caution regarding your expectations.
4% per night without wearing

Battery Capacity Expectation

I searched this before posting, but the thread had no replies from January so hoping I can gain some insight and clarification on this.
I am new to Android and avoided it for a long time due to being perfectly satisfied with my Blackberry Q10. However a few years ago, I was intrigued by the original Pixel and knew whenever I switched , if I went Android it would be a Pixel. It ended up being a Pixel 2.
I say this because I spend a lot of time googling and researching before i ask a question to make sure i am as familiar as possible before i ask something that can be found just as fast on my own.
That being said, i can't find an answer to "What is a typical capacity loss over a number of months...?"
I just got the phone in January. Didn't know anything about capacity until i noticed a huge drop in expected battery time after unplugging my phone. It used to be 21-23 hours expected from 100%. Now its only about 10-15 hours, depending on the day. Researched batteries and learned about Accubattery. Looked at the health and saw i'm only at 2284 our of 2700. It says GOOD health..but is that really good health after only 3 1/2 months? Also..unfortunately i have no idea what the original real life capacity was because i never checked until End of March when i discovered Accubattery.
Just wondering should i return the phone or accept this level of battery. At this rate..does't seem like I will get through a year on this phone.
ADDITIONAL INFO - I have used 3rd party charging cables (Nekteck)and Samsung bricks. The cables give me roughly the same amount of juice as the charger that came with the phone ( around 1300 Mah max, more juice if I'm charging from a lower percentage start point )
Tone96 said:
I searched this before posting, but the thread had no replies from January so hoping I can gain some insight and clarification on this.
I am new to Android and avoided it for a long time due to being perfectly satisfied with my Blackberry Q10. However a few years ago, I was intrigued by the original Pixel and knew whenever I switched , if I went Android it would be a Pixel. It ended up being a Pixel 2.
I say this because I spend a lot of time googling and researching before i ask a question to make sure i am as familiar as possible before i ask something that can be found just as fast on my own.
That being said, i can't find an answer to "What is a typical capacity loss over a number of months...?"
I just got the phone in January. Didn't know anything about capacity until i noticed a huge drop in expected battery time after unplugging my phone. It used to be 21-23 hours expected from 100%. Now its only about 10-15 hours, depending on the day. Researched batteries and learned about Accubattery. Looked at the health and saw i'm only at 2284 our of 2700. It says GOOD health..but is that really good health after only 3 1/2 months? Also..unfortunately i have no idea what the original real life capacity was because i never checked until End of March when i discovered Accubattery.
Just wondering should i return the phone or accept this level of battery. At this rate..does't seem like I will get through a year on this phone.
ADDITIONAL INFO - I have used 3rd party charging cables (Nekteck)and Samsung bricks. The cables give me roughly the same amount of juice as the charger that came with the phone ( around 1300 Mah max, more juice if I'm charging from a lower percentage start point )
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Stop apps from running in the background. Your WhatsApp, Facebook, Marco Polo, weather widgets, etc are using your battery.
Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
I don't have many running in the back. I don't have Marco Polo or Whatsapp. All my others I shut down to and when I check apps are using very low percentage. But my question is more the battery health reading. is 2200 healthy after 3 months use?
Is the phone battery actually draining twice as fast now or is the battery reporting just wrong?
The phone seems to behave normally, but being I'm not an Android user for long I don't know what normal is. I know things differ phone to phone. If I use my screen and read articles the battery drains fast to me. Compared to others who consider reading as light use. I get "better" life if I watch videos. I suppose because I'm not touching the screen. Streaming I can do for hours. I think what I'm trying to understand is...how accurate and important is a battery capacity reading? Should I be concerned that it says im only getting around 2200 out of 2700? For an almost phone I would think the capacity would be closer to the design capacity?
Tone96 said:
The phone seems to behave normally, but being I'm not an Android user for long I don't know what normal is. I know things differ phone to phone. If I use my screen and read articles the battery drains fast to me. Compared to others who consider reading as light use. I get "better" life if I watch videos. I suppose because I'm not touching the screen. Streaming I can do for hours. I think what I'm trying to understand is...how accurate and important is a battery capacity reading? Should I be concerned that it says im only getting around 2200 out of 2700? For an almost phone I would think the capacity would be closer to the design capacity?
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Take a screen shot of the reduced battery capacity reading and send it to Google's customer service from your support menu in the system settings.

Check Your Battery, Mine was Getting Ready to Blow

H918 with 10j OverDrive rom Werewolf 2.0 no rctd.
My battery started draining a bit faster than normal. I hadn't added any new apps or made any changes to the system.
I'm not a heavy user, no gaming, occasionally stream netflix. Recently I have streamed netflix onto the tv with a cable. The cable is supposed to charge the phone, but it doesn't, so after a couple hours the phone is down to about 50%
So I went to pull the battery thinking the system needed a recalibration.
The battery was bulging (gases building up). Not good. I don't know if this was an isolated issue or as these phones get older, there is a flaw in some of the batteries.
The battery was the original. The phones manufacture date is 10/2016.
As a side note, the phone stores don't carry batteries. Batteries Plus has to order it $39.99. I ordered a couple OEM LG batteries off ebay for about $12 apiece. Now I get to go a week or so without a phone. It might be a good idea to get a spare and check your battery periodically. Better safe than sorry.
Cheers!
androiddiego said:
snip
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You should have called up LG. I would not trust any 3rd party or eBay.
Sent from my LG V20 using XDA Labs
Bought Aexpower X2 and a charger on Amazon for about $25 been solid for 6 months
All battery's will eventually fail, it's inherant in the current design iteration of lithium ion battery's, how long and how bad can vary, but a lithium battery that has consistent charge/discharge cycles daily will last around 8-16 months on average, doesn't matter what brand or size, it's just how there currently desgined, wait a few years till we have lithium-glass or lithium-plastic battery's then this will be a thing of the past...
pyrorob said:
All battery's will eventually fail, it's inherant in the current design iteration of lithium ion battery's, how long and how bad can vary, but a lithium battery that has consistent charge/discharge cycles daily will last around 8-16 months on average, doesn't matter what brand or size, it's just how there currently desgined, wait a few years till we have lithium-glass or lithium-plastic battery's then this will be a thing of the past...
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Most every phone I have had I owned for 2 years. This is the first one to have a problem. Thank goodness it is removable.
Also, my dad (85 yrs old) had a Moto g4 he wasn't using. He switched to android because I did, but screwed the phone up with really crappy apps. I told him I would set it up for him, but he didn't listen. So he went back to ios. I had to do a factory reset of the phone to get rid of all the crap. Got it set up right and it's not that bad a phone (might even root it). Removable back and battery, SD card. but no IR Blaster. It was unlocked so my tmo sim worked right away. At least I have a phone for the next week while I wait for the new batteries to show up.
I'll be keeping a close eye on the new batteries. I hope no one else has this problem. Very dangerous. The case I had it in concealed the problem. When I took the case off, the back plate fell right off. It had already been pushed of by the expanding battery, but the case kept it from being noticeable.
Cheers!
I have 3 LG V20s and I have bought extra batteries for all of them but have never encountered your issue. Could it be that your custom ROM may have something to do with it?
HD2FORNICK said:
I have 3 LG V20s and I have bought extra batteries for all of them but have never encountered your issue. Could it be that your custom ROM may have something to do with it?
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I don't think so. I've been using the same rom and kernel for about a year. Hopefully it was just an isolated case.
Strange that you should post this. I too have just run into this. I normally get about 1 1/2~2 yrs out of a battery on my smartphone, however on my LG V20 that I got in Nov '17 it just started doing the exact same thing. I'm fairly experienced so I was trying to isolate if anything untoward was going on software wise. After nothing really was attributable to the loss I decided to examine the battery and bingo just like you the battery is quite swollen. I'm hoping that the new "supposed oem" battery that I ordered last week (should show up by end of the week) lasts longer than the oem battery that shipped with the phone.
androiddiego said:
I don't think so. I've been using the same rom and kernel for about a year. Hopefully it was just an isolated case.
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I am also having bloating batteries. One is the original oem and the other is aftermarket Hyperion. Both are about a year old. I wonder if quick charge might play a factor as I use it all the time.

Why I'm selling my OP6 I thought I'd keep until it physically died.

I'll keep it as short as possible without opening myself up to all the usual attacks blaming me for the issues.
I enjoyed most of the nearly 2 years I had my OnePlus 6, at the time it was nearly flagship Samsung/Apple quality for a fraction of the price. Since then, every phone has started having better battery life, better cameras, and sometimes other good features often within the same price range.
I noticed the past few months I've often had to recharge my OP6 2 times a day from ~10% to ~90% to get through the day. Not the worst thing in the world but pretty bad for me, considering I don't like to have to stop and stay near an outlet when I'm doing something. Some days I'd have to charge 3 times.
I was on a late Pie build for a long time because the phone was working so well, and if I've learned anything from my Android experience, if it's working smoothly, far more often than not if you try to upgrade/update the system, you're just going to cause problems rather than make anything better. But I thought maybe my battery issues were from apps and messed up settings and OS files over the nearly 2 years past. I updated to 10 with a completely clean wipe using fastboot. I even factory reset and re-installed another Android 10 ROM. But I've learned the battery life is something that's just a limitation of the undersized battery they put in this phone.
The worst part that really pushed me over the edge was the fact that suddenly on 10 I had all kinds of software and firmware bugs. FCs where there were none before, several apps hanging once in a while, features not working properly. None of this happened in 9, but persisted through clean resets and updates of 10.
I decided this phone had a decent run but is no longer for me. Phones now have much better cameras, huge batteries, and generally better features for not too much more than I paid for the OP6.
Sold my OP6 online and my S20+ is coming this week. I don't plan to buy another OnePlus phone until they put in a large battery (~5000mAh or more) and get cameras on par with flagships. They're not by any means bad phones, I just see them as a bit expensive for the features they offer. Though, I admit the build quality seems excellent. Have not had a single hardware issue with my phone, it's had plenty of water and humidity exposure and has never once had an issue for a second. I drop my phone all the time and never had a major scratch, no cracks (though it's in a case), nor any other issues.
Just thought I'd give some perspective. Personally, if someone asked, I'd say the OP6 is a fine phone for the used price they go for now if you don't mind an average quality camera and don't use your phone all day to the point where battery life is a huge concern.
Sounds more like a run down battery. Just get it replaced and it will be much better again!
Of course, newer phones have better cameras and battery, that's the course of things.
I just returned a brand new oneplus 8 pro due to a faulty screen. Of course, it is a better phone in every way. But after going back to my oneplus 6 i have realized that I don't need to upgrade this year. It's running like a machine, snappy as hell, without any issues. So I will also get a new battery soon and use this phone at least another year, maybe two. Only very few phones are still going that strong 2 years later.
Hmm interesting...
I've used mine for well over a year, and I didn't cared much about caring my battery(plugged in all night, inconsistent recharge, etc...). Still, this 3300mAh lasts over 5h30m SOT, OOS10 at any workload(usually I get about 6h 20m, but in terms of real world, a bit less than that.). If I do some extra work and install some custom ROMs, I could sqeeze out a 8h. So I thought it was more than I can expect from a 3300. Strange that yours degraded much faster.... Hope you enjoy your S20+!
Dabarr said:
Sounds more like a run down battery. Just get it replaced and it will be much better again!
Of course, newer phones have better cameras and battery, that's the course of things.
I just returned a brand new oneplus 8 pro due to a faulty screen. Of course, it is a better phone in every way. But after going back to my oneplus 6 i have realized that I don't need to upgrade this year. It's running like a machine, snappy as hell, without any issues. So I will also get a new battery soon and use this phone at least another year, maybe two. Only very few phones are still going that strong 2 years later.
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Eh after 300 cycles or so it should not be degraded to needing to be charged 2 or 3 times a day, especially since I babied it trying to only charge it 50% at a time max. Waste of time and money to pay expensive shipping to send it to a 3rd party repair company which may damage the phone (which has happened to me every time I've sent a phone to an "approved" repair center in the past) and the water resistance is destroyed after that as well. It was better to sell it before it became worthless and get a new phone I'll be happier with.
TheNetwork said:
Eh after 300 cycles or so it should not be degraded to needing to be charged 2 or 3 times a day, especially since I babied it trying to only charge it 50% at a time max. Waste of time and money to pay expensive shipping to send it to a 3rd party repair company which may damage the phone (which has happened to me every time I've sent a phone to an "approved" repair center in the past) and the water resistance is destroyed after that as well. It was better to sell it before it became worthless and get a new phone I'll be happier with.
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Batteries are a roll of the dice. Most of them will behave as intended, some of them will die out quickly.
I bought mine off of Swappa expecting to have to replace the battery as this has happened before but this battery is still doing awesome, even to this day.
Stock kernel isn't terrible, but I've found Smurf Kernel and bluspark give me some amazing battery lives that I've never seen before. I managed to go about 42 hours with 4 hours of SoT.
Another thing is battery replacements are not very difficult for this phone (I'm a certified phone tech so I guess our experiences vary). That's one of the big reasons I got it to begin with. It's very similar to any recent Samsung Galaxy phone in terms of battery replacement. Pretty easy compared to a lot of other phones I looked at.
I've been having the same battery issues on my OP6, high idle drain >2%/hr in custom ROMs and 1.5%/hr in OOS. Barely get 5 hour SoT on a good day. Beleive me, I've tried everything. I'm a student so can't exactly afford a new phone, I'll charge my phone twice a day for now and get a battery replacement in a few months, hopefully that fixes my issues. I've been pretty rough on my battery I'll say but it still degraded faster than I thought.

Question Battery Charge Limiter config file

Hi everyone
I'd like to have the charging limited to 90%. For that I need to know what the config file is where charging can be disabled.
I have tried /sys/class/qcom-battery/restrict_chg but it doesn't seem to be working.
Does anybody know whether I can make this work and how?
Don't bother, since this phone has a buggy pmic.
Aw crud...
/sys/class/power_supply/battery/input_suspend seems to be working in principle.
Why do you want to limit the charge to 90%? Do you think it will make your battery last longer? Because it's not, I have been discharging to around 15% 5-6 days a week (while at work) and then leaving the phone charging over night (7+ hours), and first time I felt my battery is getting weaker was after like year and a half maybe more, so just don't bother, Lithium batteries are much more durable to a point that limiting your charge and not charging to full and similar nonsense will likely make your battery last even less.
Wow... a whole year and a half...
Yeah, I think you and I have very different strategies in terms of mobile phones.
Yea, year and a half before I started to see signs of the battery weakening, I changed it after almost 3 year in my old Mi A2 Lite, before I bought Poco, I think three years is fine, don't you?
I have never owned a phone that went more than two years of adequate charge. The first was mi Mi Max 3 which I charged every other day and never more than 90%. Didn't notice any lost charge after more than 3 years.
Also once the app works, it doesn't cost me anything to do so why wouldn't I?
Try using acc and acc settings
few__ said:
Try using acc and acc settings
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I have found the file that works. At least so far. Haven't noted any defective chip as someone else suggested... well aside from it not charging very quickly but I mean, I charge over night... I don't care if it doesn't quick charge... should help longevity as well.
Marco2G said:
Wow... a whole year and a half...
Yeah, I think you and I have very different strategies in terms of mobile phones.
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My oldest phone, which is still in use, has been almost completely discharged and then fully charged since 2016 without there being a noticeable reduction in battery capacity.
thorin0815 said:
My oldest phone, which is still in use, has been almost completely discharged and then fully charged since 2016 without there being a noticeable reduction in battery capacity.
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That's so very good for you. See, I've been cancer free for over 40 years now... want me to go tell that to someone dying of cancer to make them feel inferior?
Marco2G said:
That's so very good for you. See, I've been cancer free for over 40 years now... want me to go tell that to someone dying of cancer to make them feel inferior?
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The comparison is very poor, because in the worst case you buy a new battery for €15.

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