Nexus 5 Battery Capacity Upgrade

Google's Nexus 5 is a great phone running vanilla Android, but it could never really hold its own in the battery department. I "upgraded" to Samsung's Galaxy S6 a few months back, but I have found myself missing the stock Android experience, so when I found my old Nexus sitting unused in my desk I got to thinking. After reading a post on Reddit about fitting the battery from LG's G2 into the Nexus 5, I couldn't resist a little side project that could breathe new life into my old phone.

Ingredients:

• Google Nexus 5 phone
• LG G2 3000 battery
• Screwdriver
• Soldering equipment
• Dremel and grinding bit
• Masking tape

The stock Nexus 5 battery is 2300 mAh, whereas the G2's is 3000 mAh for about a 30% increase of capacity. Not bad, as long as we can make it fit!

The disassembly of the phone was pretty straightforward, just pop off the back plate and remove all visible screws.

Here are the two batteries side by side, G2 is on the right.

In order to make the new cell function properly with the phone, we'll need to transfer the circuit board from the original battery to the new one. I de-soldered both boards, and then attached the N5's to the G2 battery after double checking polarity.

The new battery is about 3mm taller than the original, so to make it fit we need to remove some of the chassis material above the area where it fits into the phone. I removed all circuit boards from the phone and then masked off the area I'll be removing.

And after a few minutes with the dremel

The main circuit board still fits nicely

With the battery pcb folded compactly next to the cell, it now fits into the phone nicely. Remember that the chassis material is conductive; I covered any possible problem areas with electrical tape to reduce the chance of a short.

And that's it! The phone can now be put back together the same way it cane apart, and with any luck you should have a functioning Nexus 5 with a significantly larger battery.