Ever Decreasing Battery Power

[Fil]

Heeeeeello, :D

I have an O2 XDA for around two weeks now.

Ever since I started using it I've had Omega Ones' Battery Bar 2003 installed. When I first began I have a fully charged battery time of over 3h 50m.

Then it started to dwindle.

This morning the trial for Battery Bar ran out so I registered it (£6.50 - who can't resist!) -- now it seems my fully charged battery time is just 1h 51m ???

Its been going downhill ever since I started using it?

Help - I fear that in a few weeks time I won't have any battery time left!!!!

[William Yeung]

You got to check couple things about ur battery life:
1. If you use USB charging- use AC adapter to charge whenever u can, USB doesnt provide enought current, just use that as backup instead.
2. Battery lifetime- every battery has its lifetime, but I guess your XDA is new... so not likely.
3. The meter- are you sure you are getting correct information from the software or you have made a not complete recharge, for example, and then the counter is not counting a full cycle?
See if these info helps.

[Fil]

Will,

I'm only ever charging the XDA whilst its in its cradle, so it should be A/C anyhow.

Your third point is exactly what I was thinking. I'm going to leave the XDA on charge all afternoon and see if the battery time rises!

I'll let you know. :)

[smittyofdhs]

using a battery meter to judge amount of time left is not an accurate way of metering. All these apps do is judge how long of use you get out of the battery, but that time can fluctuate greatly. Say you are listening to mp3 files for 2 hours. That's going to take up way more battery then using the calendar for 2 hours. So these battery meters judge how much battery was used, and it charts the info. The end result is that one day a full charge may say 3 hours, the next it may say 2 hours. I've had every one of these battery meters before and they all work the same...

In fact, one day my current battery meter said I had 80% left in the battery which was equal to 2 minutes of battery life. HUH???? only 2 minutes? Obviously, it wasn't correctly judging the battery time remaining.

The apps get more accurate as time goes on, but at any time, one or two bad readings could cause the entire timing to be off. Your best bet is to use a percentage to judge battery life.

[Fil]

Thanks smitty!

Excellent reasoning, and very informative. I didn't know the meter would judge your power based on previous usage. Thats clever, but slightly annoying. I like to watch movies on my PPC, Goldmember recently, and that could drain the battery quickly.

I shall switch over to percentages.

Thanks again!

[smittyofdhs]

Thanks smitty!

Excellent reasoning, and very informative. I didn't know the meter would judge your power based on previous usage. Thats clever, but slightly annoying. I like to watch movies on my PPC, Goldmember recently, and that could drain the battery quickly.

I shall switch over to percentages.

Thanks again!
no problem...watching movies? that's the biggest culprit of bad battery usage calculations. Watching movie throws those battery meters off the most. Stick with percents and you should see better results.

[Janak Parekh]

using a battery meter to judge amount of time left is not an accurate way of metering.
Totally agreed. That's why I changed my Pocket Plus battery meter to read %, not time.

That said, I wish the built-in XDA batter was a bit stronger, but I've never drained it completely, even when using it heavily.

--janak

[griph]

That said, I wish the built-in XDA batter was a bit stronger, but I've never drained it completely, even when using it heavily.
--janak
The problem I find is the back light is on or off - no in between like my iPaq 3870 - don't understand why this function isn't available in the O2 XDA - bearing in mind they are both made by HTC???!!! Really drains the battery.
Anyway - I must admit to having used the hack to disable the ridiculous 50% battery warning level in PPPC2002, and I regularly take her down to the switch off at 10% (never lost any data) - mainly because I read a lot of ebooks - which seem to eat memory too [anyone else notice that - try running Pocket Informant when you have a 500kB book open at the same time - PI crashes out (oops getting off topic)]. I agree about the battery level time estimates - they always seem to be so wildly out, I only ever have it set to percentage and not time.