Should I replace this battery?
I just got my hands on an Aura H2O this morning. The seller said it was stuck on the sleep screen and reset did not work, nothing worked, and that he believed it was a battery problem. I read up on the manual factory reset method and was all set to try 10 different things to get it to work, but about an hour after I connected the charger, simply pressing the power button started up the device!
It seems the battery had gone dead in the middle of a firmware update. It was updating when I got it to power on, and since I had the charger connected the whole time, it completed successfully this time. I did the factory reset (from the settings menu) and loaded up my books on it, everything SEEMS okay, but as the seller said, it seems there is indeed a battery problem.
After an hour of charging from zero, it was showing 70%. After a factory reset and sideloading 50 epubs using Calibre, it was down to 43%. After about an hour or so of reading with the light at 10%, it was down to 23%. I connected the charger, and in about 5 minutes, it was showing 50%. After two hours, it seems to now be happy at 96% and is not budging. Wifi is on and connected, the device is not in its sleep cover, but the sleep cover automation was enabled in the settings.
I found one discussion that suggested letting the battery charge for 24 hours and then "calibrating" it by letting it die and charging it to 100% a few times. BUT my concern is that the crazy jumps in battery status COULD be a short circuit in the battery, and if thats the case, it might explode and kill the screen if I leave it charging for 24 hours!
What do the experts here think?
1) Charge 24 hours and try to calibrate it.
2) Leave it alone and enjoy the device as long as the battery was able to power it long enough to read for a few hours.
3) REPLACE it immediately.
I don't care about the waterproofing, and its an old device way out of warranty, so I have no qualms about opening it up. If the consensus is to go ahead and open it, then two more questions :
1) Does this use the same battery as the first generation Aura (N514)? If yes, I have two spare Auras, one of them exclusively serving as a spare parts device! My research seems to indicate they use the same battery, but I was unable to find conclusive information on this.
2) The teardown looked pretty simple, just get the bezel off CAREFULLY and the rest is straightforward. Any surprises that I should be ready for?
Thanks,
Karthik
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