Zire 71 to V36 PPC - backup battery on PPCs die out fast when "off"?

[yakuza]

I just got a Viewsonic V36 PPC and I'm excited that Xcom the game is coming out for it's platform. I've owned a Zire71 for less than a month prior to it.

Now, I read some of the manual, know how to sync and all that jazz, even loaded up some good games on my V36.

Here's the problem :

My Zire71 has as much life as I leave in it. I turn it off, it can be turned on days later with the same battery life and at the exact same state. It has a better brighter screen (although a bit smaller in size) and can stay on for more hours.

I turn off my V36, for a little bit less than a day. Turn it back on, dead. I start charging it and turn it on, all my saved information and apps gone, and I'm back to the Welcome screen.

Instructions say 8 hrs usage with backlight off, so every 8 hrs a PPC dies and you lose all info? That's a bit harsh.



Hopefully I'm just confused because I got used to my Palm. :lol:

[Brad Adrian]

Well, the Pocket PC battery life is NOT going to be as long as the Zire, but it's really not an apples-to-apples comparison. The Pocket PC screen is much brighter (even when at low levels) and uses more power. It sounds as though you're leaving your Pocket PC turned on 24 hours a day, but if you set it to automatically power off if left unattended, you won't completely deplete the battery and you will be able to use it after days of lying dormant.

I know the model here is very different than with the Zire, but I'm convinced that once you get used to your Pocket PC, very soon you'll realize that there's no going back.

[yakuza]

It sounds as though you're leaving your Pocket PC turned on 24 hours a day, but if you set it to automatically power off if left unattended, you won't completely deplete the battery and you will be able to use it after days of lying dormant.

Ok thanks! that is the answer I'm looking for.

I must have done that.

See, with Palms, all you do(on the Zire71 anyway), is press the magic button, and it conserves energy + saves state for many days, battery meter not even moving. With the PPC I'm guessing it was staying "on" and you cannot save state without draining the backup battery, is this all correct?

I will first charge the V36 for like 48 hours then play with the setting. It must not be powering off correctly. Then do this process again. Hopefully it will be as satisfying as the Palm. I wonder if there's a way to completely shut it off manually though?

But, outside of this little mishap there's no question the PPC is an amazing toy, it is much more entertaining(and that's what I need at work, can't use the PC as they monitor it's usage) than any Palm product.

Thanks again.

[Pony99CA]

It sounds as though you're leaving your Pocket PC turned on 24 hours a day, but if you set it to automatically power off if left unattended, you won't completely deplete the battery and you will be able to use it after days of lying dormant.
I must have done that.

See, with Palms, all you do(on the Zire71 anyway), is press the magic button, and it conserves energy + saves state for many days, battery meter not even moving. With the PPC I'm guessing it was staying "on" and you cannot save state without draining the backup battery, is this all correct?
No, the main battery is used to keep the Pocket PC's memory intact. When you press the power button on a Pocket PC, you're really just suspending it. When you press the power button again, your applications should be in the same state that you left them. Battery power is required to keep them in that state.

Even while suspended, the Pocket PC will turn on occasionally. For example, at midnight, it turns on to update alarms for the coming day.

Short of removing the battery (and losing your data), there is no way to actually turn a Pocket PC off.

Steve

[Janak Parekh]

My Zire71 has as much life as I leave in it. I turn it off, it can be turned on days later with the same battery life and at the exact same state.
Actually, it'll drain, but a bit slower than Pocket PCs. It seems Palm devices sleep a little more "deeply". Wait a few weeks or months and you'll find even your Zire 71 drains.

--janak

[yakuza]

I see.

So both devices are in essence like a laptop.

It's just the Palm hides this fact better.

I charged it 48 hrs, turned it on and it said (incorrectly) that the backup battery was low.

I went to the screen that displays battery life, it began to update and the backup battery bar went from 0 to 100, and has stayed at 100 since then, and the main battery is lasting much longer than last usage.

Satisfactory now, although that warning about the battery is odd unless it was reporting the last battery state(which was 0) before the charge.

[Sven Johannsen]

No, neither are like a laptop. The laptop really does power off, though there is some residual power drainage. You could remove a laptop battery and it would last a long time. Replace the battery and you could reboot the laptop and everything would essentially be intact. (The backup battery on the laptop has to keep a very small amount of data intact). All of the settings are stored on the hard drive.

The laptop in suspend is a bit more like a PDA, either Palm or PPC. The kicker on the PDA's is that the operating system and many personalization settings are always in RAM, so that you get the instant on effect. That RAM needs to be powered, and that will drain the battery. There can be processes running even when suspended that can drain the battery more quickly. Some of them should be running, the one that is checking the time and seeing if there are any alarms that need to be accted on for example, and there are others that shouldn't still be running, screen refresh processing for a program that is backgrounded for instance. The latter can be due to less than optimal programming.

If you are really not going to use your PPC for a good while, it doesn't hurt to soft rest the device before powering it off (suspending it). That would ensure that the minimal number of processes are running and thereby use the minimal processor time, which equates to power use. Do be aware that anything that was open when you soft reset, is unceremoneously stopped. If you were half way through an essay in Word, openned excell to get some numbers (which backgrounds word in the current state) and then soft reset, your essay is gone. If you close your essay, and get back to the Word file list, then soft reset, you are OK.

[Pony99CA]

The kicker on the PDA's is that the operating system and many personalization settings are always in RAM, so that you get the instant on effect.
I don't think that's quite right. The operating system is mostly in ROM (and can execute there on most Pocket PCs, I believe). Only items that change need to be kept in RAM (like the registry and the personalization settings you mentioned).

Steve

[mboonyap]

If you want a gaming PDA, just stick with Palm OS and get a Tapwave Zodiac 2. It's much less bulkier than moast pocket pcs and you don't have to worry about that soft-reset nonsense just to conserve battery life.
on top of that Documents to go blows away microsoft's own pocket pc word, and there's not even a powerpoint presenter bundled with. Show me a pocket pc with the ergonomics to truly be a real gaming machine.

[sylvangale]

Pocket PCs shall strive on the support of the left-handed! :byebye:

Here's a PPC with good ergonomics. Too bad the design didn't stick around:

http://www.mobilenews.ne.jp/news/2001/09/20/pcworld/other/20.jpg