How long does the standard battery last for most people?

[guinness]

I'm becoming convinced that my battery isn't up to snuff. I run my Axim at full brightness about 90 % of the time and I can usually get about 3 hours of use before it begins to die. This a replacement unit that I got back in Jan, the first one I had for about a week before sending it back and I never really noticed the battery life that it had. Would Dell replace the battery even though I've been using it for about 3 months?

[PetiteFlower]

3 hours of use doing what? That makes a big difference. I almost never have mine at full brightness anyway, 50-75% is all I need most of the time. But if I spend 3 hours listening to music with the screen off, I'll probably be in the 60-70% battery range I think. What do you mean by it "begins to die"? That's not very specific.

[QYV]

I'm not surprised by your results - from what I've read, the screen lighting is the most battery-intensive aspect of any Pocket PC. I keep my Axim at the lowest brightness setting and find it very usable indoors, and the battery lasts forever. With my old iPAQ 3600, it got to the point where I'd see half the battery drained after an hour of writing text with Transcriber on the lowest brightness setting, so I'm extremely pleased with the Axim's battery life.

Are you by chance a Palm user? Palm-based devices have historically had significantly better battery life than Pocket PCs, so if your Axim is your first PPC, you might be unpleasantly surprised in that regard.

[TopDog]

I run my Axim at full brightness about 90 % of the time and I can usually get about 3 hours of use before it begins to die.
Why having it at 90%? I have it on third lowest and think it's excelent there! Light eats battery on any device.

[bdegroodt]

I'm becoming convinced that my battery isn't up to snuff. I run my Axim at full brightness about 90 % of the time and I can usually get about 3 hours of use before it begins to die.

Define begins to die. Do you mean you get the first warning at 40% battery life or the final battery warning at 10% after 3 hours?

I can run my iPaq for 3 hours with no screen on playing OGG files and get my first warning (40%) at that time. I'm good for another hour or so after that until I get my final warning.

[guinness]

I'm becoming convinced that my battery isn't up to snuff. I run my Axim at full brightness about 90 % of the time and I can usually get about 3 hours of use before it begins to die.

Define begins to die. Do you mean you get the first warning at 40% battery life or the final battery warning at 10% after 3 hours?

I can run my iPaq for 3 hours with no screen on playing OGG files and get my first warning (40%) at that time. I'm good for another hour or so after that until I get my final warning.

Begins to die, as in around 20% of battery left if I play wma's in WMP with the screen off, I might coax 4 hours out of it before I get warnings about not enough power to play music anymore. I usually leave at the brighter settings because I like have a bright screen, makes it easier to read, unless I'm outside a lot.

It doesn't seem like I'm getting the same 6 hours or so life out of the battery like in most of the reviews. I'm going to run some tests in Pocket MVP on how many times I can play a 2 min video clip at the lowest backlight setting and then at the brightest before I get warnings and see if it my imagination or what.

[PetiteFlower]

Let us know what your tests find.....because that does seem a little odd; I've played music with the screen off for more then 4 hours with the screen off before and never got below 40%.

Are you running the upgraded ROM? That was supposed to have a battery monitoring fix in it. If not, try upgrading and see if that helps. If not, I'd call for a new battery.

[spursdude]

If you want to know exactly how long you've been using your device, you can use UpTime Meter (http://www.pdacentral.com/pocket/preview/232216.html). I use it, and it's really convenient in knowing how long your PPC has been running. It takes up a little space on the Today screen, but it's really valuable to me (but it's freeware :) )