ipaq 3630 battery life?

[platinum]

Hey,

I just bought an ipaq 3630, which has been unopened and unused... a company bought a bulk load of them and sold the excess ones off cheaply- anyway, I loaded it up and let it charge (amber light flashing) and once it had finished (amber light on ?) I used it for around 10mins on medium backlight and it popped up an extremly low battery warning 8O...

Could the battery have been damaged by not being used for a few years, or will it get better after a few more charges (i've charged if 2-3 times now and it hasn't really gotten much better).

Thanks!

[Ojster]

Hello,

I suggest you to always use your iPAQ with the light set to minimum in order to achieve longer battery life.
When you charge it for the first time you need to leave it to charge for quite some time - I don't remember how long but it was around 6 or 10 hours I guess - and I am also not sure whether the light was already on or flashing but I guess you should try and leave it charging for some more time.
Without backlight you should get around 10 hours of battery life but not when playing games or something - some games really drain your battery :) With backlight to minimum you will not get more than 6 hours - at least this is my experience. I still have this first iPAQ and I now get even less battery life even though I replaced the battery so I guess there must be something with the new PPC OS or something - it is a difference that I can not explain otherwise. I now get max four hours with the backlight to minimum with the new battery (original replacement part).

Best regards,
Peter

[platinum]

Thanks Peter,

It only took a few hours to charge the first time, and I was messing around with some mp3's, movies and full backlight, so I guess it wore it down quickly the first time ;) But what seems to be happening now, it'll show "dead" and then charge for around 1/2 hour or 45 mins and show "full" and stop charging.. very weird.

[Johnny Blaze]

Sounds like a bad battery. Once the light stops flashing the unit is fully charged so Id look into getting battery checked by HP.

[platinum]

What would cause the battery to die like this?

[Shadowcat]

You didn't charge your battery correctly the first time. Supposedly you should charge the battery 10 to 12 hours before using it. In fact I am told this everytime I buy a piece of computer equipment (PDA, laptop). I found it silly but I always followed the advice (and I didn't fiddle around with the device while it was charging for the first time). Perhaps their advice is good afterall. Regardless, 10 min of battery life is just simply not right. Get a replacement unit from Compaq.

Good luck!