Is this true: "If the battery isn't charged, you lose all your data and apps"?

[peter_964rs]

So someone at work who has an early iPaq is very dismissive of them on the grounds that, apparently, if you don't constantly recharge them and the battery goes flat (which he bitterly maintains will be the case far quicker than you epect), not only do you lose all the data on them but you also lose the applications as well?

This I find surprising. Surely apps are held in ROM on these devices, and the memory on them is flash-type-stuff? So will retain data even when the power has completely gone?

Perhaps I'm missing something. I thought Compact Flash or SD cards would also retain data once copied on without needing a battery to back it up.

[aroma]

The base PocketPC OS and it's default apps are stored in ROM and are not lost do to a complete power loss. Howver any additional apps or data files stored in the system's RAM (ie, the default folders) are lost if you completely drain the batteries. Any files stored on any kind of flash memory (CF, SD, etc) are fine. This isn't an iPAQ issue... this is common with all PPC's.

[Janak Parekh]

This isn't an iPAQ issue... this is common with all PPC's.
Or, to be more precise, all handhelds. The only difference in Palms is that the battery drains a bit slower while off. But on any rechargeable PDA, you want to make sure you recharge it fairly often even when not being used.

Mind you, it's also worth keeping in mind that the early iPaqs were weaker batterywise than most of the new PPCs.

--janak

[JvanEkris]

To be more precise, all settings are lost as well.

Basically, draining a battery completely results in a hard reset of the device, in practice it means that it returns in the state like you got it from the factory. Storing important data on SD cards is possible and solves a lot of issues. Also the later Ipaqs can maintain copies of important databases in ROM (if there is any space left).

New PocketPC's are guarded against this. When the battery level reaches a certein limit it will not turn on any more. This to prevent the battery from being drained further by user actions. Depending on the machine and the settings (newer ipaqs allow this to be user-defined) the PocketPC can last from hours to days in this state without losing all power to the memory.

Jaap

[peter_964rs]

That's very helpful, thanks, it more or less confirms what I understood.

[PetiteFlower]

The Dell has a nice little coin-sized backup battery to protect against data loss in the event of a battery drain as well. And backing up your data to your desktop PC never hurts :)