Someone modded a cheap Samsung phone with a 30,000 mAh battery

Ben Schoon | Mar 2 2023 - 2:47 pm PT

While smartphones are getting better and better at lasting through the day, battery life is still something many of us have to worry about. But one daring individual took it upon themselves to install a ludicrous 30,000 mAh battery onto their Samsung phone, which presumably will basically never die.

Reddit user u/Downtown_Cranberry44 took their Galaxy A32 5G, a midrange Samsung smartphone that can currently be had for around $150, and upgraded the battery life drastically by giving its six times its usual capacity.

The Galaxy A32 5G ships with a battery that measures in at 5,000 mAh. For reference, that’s already quite large, even by modern phone standards. Most smartphones sold today have batteries of around 3,500-4,500 mAh, with Apple’s highest-end iPhone at just over 4,300 mAh.

With its default battery installed, the Galaxy A32 5G is already an all-day device for most people, if not lasting two days between charges.

But with this modification, which straps a whopping 30,000 mAh (or 30Ah) battery on, this phone would easily be looking at a week or even two on a single charge. The user says that it has already lasted two days “so far.” The battery also took a whopping seven hours to fully charge.

How does this mod work? Well, it’s not exactly pretty.

Adding all that extra capacity came from using Samsung 50e battery cells, which sell for around $5 a piece, depending on where you buy. The modded phone weighs in at roughly a pound and is certainly chunky, to say the least. As a nice touch, the mod also has two USB-A output ports for charging other devices, as well as inputs for USB-C, micro USB, and Lightning.

Of course, there are countless reasons you shouldn’t do this. For one, there’s the safety aspect, as a modification like this, even with a solid housing, is more subject to damage than a typical battery setup. And on top of the sheer size just being impractical, the TSA actually bans batteries of this size from boarding a flight – the maximum size is 27,000 mAh, which is why many large battery banks stop at or around that figure.

Still, it’s always fun to see what enthusiasts come up with. Maybe just don’t try this one at home.