Ok, here's the problem. My wife and I signed up for a family plan with AT&T about 2 months before they announced a merger with Cingular Wireless. We both got LG 1150 model cell phones. The batteries in those phones are supposed to last for 150 minutes of "talk time" or 144 hours of "stand by" time. My wife's phone works as advertised.

However, the battery in my phone works for about 30 minutes of "talk time" or approximately 1 day of "stand by" time. It is a huge pain. Essentially, I don't even have a cell phone because it always has to be plugged in or the battery will die.

I called customer service when I first noticed the problem and they sent me a new battery. However, the same thing happens with this second battery.

The problem is that now that AT&T and Cingular have merged, all the "AT&T phones" are gone. They are willing to let me out of my contract with AT&T and allow me to sign up with a new Cingular plan. However, if I do that, my wife would have to switch as well so that we can still be on a family plan. In other words, we'd both have to buy new phones and would end up spending about $300 in the process.

Before I go ahead and waste another $300 to fix this problem, is there ANYTHING I can do to make sure this is necessary? In other words, is there ANYTHING I can do to be certain I can't get this battery to work properly?

Since this is the 2nd battery to have this problem with this phone, it seems likely there's a problem with the phone. I just don't want to spend another $300 on top of the money we already spent on these phones less than a year ago.

Any ideas?