How is Dell battery usage?

[ECOslin]

How does the Axim do on battery life? Not standby.

I mean usage with 30% games, 60% apps, 10% tsrs(background apps) and backlighting.

Actual, not exclusively hard, usage? Is it something like 10 hours standby and 3.5 hours usage? I'm curious.

Edward

[Jason Dunn]

I charged my Dell on Sunday morning before I left for the MVP Summit. I listened to an hour of music on the plane with the screen off. I've used it fairly lightly over each day since they - a little gaming, turning it on to check an appointment, then turning it off again...perhaps 30 seconds each time, around 15 times a day. My battery is currently at 45%.

All in all, I'm quite happy with the Dell's battery life! :D

[PapaSmurfDan]

One word can describe the Dell's Battery Life: Kickass.

~5 hours of constant usage with the backlight 1/3-1/2 way up is what I get out of my Dell and it rarely ends up below 40% even with that usage. I would guess about an hour or so, my WiFi card is in it. When I play OGGs with the screen off the battery meter hardly nudges down after 1 hour of playback ;)

I never expected that the battery life would be this good with the way I use it.

-Dan

[Pat Logsdon]

I've also been very impressed with the Axim's battery life. It's gotten even better since I bought Pocket Hack Master, which can clock the processor down to conserve power when it's under light CPU load. Using PocketMVP to play my MP3's, I can get away with a clock speed of 99.5 mhz, and combine that with the screen being off...the battery lasts a LONG time. 8)

Pocket Hack Master affiliate link (to help Jason out) :D :
http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&jid=544EF67DB2EBX88XC64C543X182AE9D1&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0&sectionId=0&productId=52913

[pez]

PapaSmurfDan:

Did you mean it lasts only an hours with Wi Fi in it?

[johnm]

My battery life has been amazing. I can't believe how much better it is than my old Ipaq 3600. Last week I listened to about 2 hours of audible content from SD (backlight off.) And then about 1.5 hours surfing the web with my Symbol Wifi card backlight on 1 notch from minimum and still had about 65% power.

[spursdude]

(backlight off.)

Dunno if you know this, but you can turn the entire screen off while playing content on Windows Media Player...Tools>Settings>Buttons, then map a button to "Toggle Screen."

but oh boy do I envy the Axim's battery life... 1.5 hours of surfing with a WiFi CF card would probably drain my Maestro's battery.

[PetiteFlower]

Even with the screen on for most of the day but the backlight off, my little baby played mp3s for about 6 hours today and is at about 42% battery.

8O

[PapaSmurfDan]

PapaSmurfDan:

Did you mean it lasts only an hours with Wi Fi in it?

No, I use about 1 hour out of 5 with my wifi card in. Realsiticly, about 3-4 hours is what you could achive with a wifi card in all of the time (assuimg low power mode is turned on). WiFi does take a good amount of power to transmit.

-Dan

[ux4484]

I've got about 3 hours with the wi-fi card in and still used it at night at work for PIM and ereading (3hrs wifi+1hour ereading w/low backlight+ 15 min PIM before getting a low battery alarm).
Your wifi card and/or drivers can make a difference, many have power saving features.
I've found that with my D-link card the Intersil Prism drivers while great for use with sniffing apps (like WinC) were a real battery killer (about 2hrs 15 min using them). I changed back to the (updated) D-link drivers which seem to get me about an extra 45 min (to 3hrs), and still leave me some juice when I'm done (standard 1440mAh battery).
The D-link drivers also connected much more quickly to both my home and work networks (once the settings were saved) compared to the Prism drivers.

[Brad Adrian]

I've also had great battery life. One thing a few of us have noticed, though, is fluctuation in the stated power of the backup battery. One minute mine will say 80%, later it will say 100%. I'm not sure if that means I've got a bad battery or what, but several of my fellow MVPs have seen similar weirdness.

[ux4484]

I took my backup battery out and cleaned it with a pink pearl eraser, seems to give more stable/understandable readings since.

[mirkazemisaman]

Is the backup battery rechargeable? Does it recharge from the main battery if it runs down or do you have to replace it?

[ux4484]

for that type of battery, usualy a trickle charge is used just to keep it as alive as possible. It will sometimes pop up to 100% after being charged, but usually goes to it's "real" level after a few minutes of use. You'll see it really drop sometimes when you ignore serveral low battery alarms in a row and then pop back up to just below it's "typical" level after charging.