ONTRION: Bigger batteries for your power-hungry smartphone

Samsung EB-L1D71BAThe Achilles heel of smartphones as an all-around tool for photographers is their universally mediocre battery life. Sure, many of them will last for eons if they sit idle in your pocket, but once you’ve fired up the GPS to navigate, starting downloading maps and traffic, and maybe turned on some tunes or your favorite audiobook, you’ll be lucky to make it through most of a day. Fortunately, there are some great third party products which can help. One of the most obvious is extended battery offerings. They come in all different sizes and shapes – and prices – but I’ve had good luck with the extended batteries (supplied with a nicely fitting replacement door) from ONTRION. On my Galaxy SII Skyrocket, for example, their battery bumped by time in the field by 50% at only a slight increase in size. They’ve got offerings for dozens of phones, in various capacities.

The only real downside is that the after-market batteries may not fit in a standard case, and not all the aftermarket batteries have cases which fit. Another option I’ve used in that situation is an external charging pack. I’ve tried a few, but am not completely happy with any of them – I’ll be sure to write once I find the perfect one!