On 02/01/2014 02:05 AM, Danny D'Amico wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jan 2014 17:42:44 -0500, TJ wrote:

Perhaps your best solution would be to use the phone as a phone, and
purchase a separate GPS unit to use for navigation.

Yeah. Maybe. I get your point.
But, I think that there is something *wrong* that I can diagnose and fix.

1. It could be rogue apps sucking power.
2. The battery tests good - but it could be the battery.
3. The charger needs to be tested to see what current it supplies.
4. It could be a design flaw

I'm sure there are lots of potential reasons, but, what I'm going
to do is try to measure the actual current in the USB cable.

For that, I plan to sacrifice a cable and hook up some test leads.

I'd discount 4. Too many of those units around. A design flaw would have
surfaced by now. That's not to say your particular phone isn't
malfunctioning, though. A couple of years ago I purchased a
factory-authorized reconditioned Samsung 23" LCD monitor. It worked
great - for a year - before it succumbed to the infamous
bad-capacitor-in-the-power-supply syndrome. But things worked out,
because I replaced it with a new AOC LED-backlit monitor which draws
less power, has an easily-replaceable external power supply, and works
even better than the Samsung. Even so, it taught me that buying Samsung
is not necessarily a guarantee of long service.

It sounds like you've run down your battery several times. That's not
good for them. From what I read, it shortens the life expectancy. If
it's been in service for a year or more, and you've run it in a
low-charge condition repeatedly, it would be my prime suspect.

The Chinese-made charger would be my second. My third would be that
you're trying to make the phone do more heavy-duty multitasking than
it's designed to handle.

TJ