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View Full Version : Battery life and other tweaky questions


netBEUI
05-06-2003, 07:38 PM
My first PDA was a Sony Clie PEG-S300 then palm m505. My current PDA is a HP Jornada 568 and I'm on the list to get the freebie Viewsonic V37. I want to make the V37 last as long as possible and I learned a few things along the way which I'd like your advice on.

On the Sony I played so much solitaire that I damaged the top right corner of the screen from tapping that area to deal cards. You'd think I would have learned from this but sure enough my current HP has a mark on the upper left corner from tapping the Start Menu and the upper right corner from tapping the X to close the current app. This mark is very hard to see, most people wouldn't notice it. But I can clearly see it if I angle the screen to a bright light. Ever since I realized this I mapped a hardware button to the Start Menu and another hardware button to a program called ZapIt which kills the current app. I am definitely going to follow this route when I get the V37 but I wanted opinions or suggestions on how anyone else out there gets around without using the stylus or using it as little as possible.

I read somewhere that lithium-ion batteries can only be recharged a certain amount of times. The V37 battery is not replaceable. Apparently the 900mAh lithium-ion battery in the V37 will die or severely diminish after 500 recharges or about 18 months if you recharge it every day. My questions are:

1. Is this true?
2. If this is true, is there any problem with draining the battery almost completely before recharging? (My thought being that this will prolong the life of the V37)
3. How many of you, if any, unplug the AC power to your cradle and ONLY plug the AC power when the battery is very low? In other words, would it be severely anal of me to only plug the USB portion of the cradle 100% of the time and plug the AC power part ONLY whenever I need to recharge?

Any advice or feedback is appreciated.

PetiteFlower
05-07-2003, 12:35 AM
1. Get a screen protector, much easier then remapping hardware buttons, and protects the WHOLE screen!

2. Yes LI batteries have a finite lifespan, I don't know how long it is, it should last several years though.

3. It's a BAD idea to let your battery get very low before you recharge it, LI batteries lose capacity the more often they are "deep discharged". This is the opposite of the last generation of batteries which would lose capacity if you did NOT discharge them all the way once in a while. You'll get the best battery life(in terms of minutes of use and also overall lifespan) if you recharge it every day.

netBEUI
05-07-2003, 09:02 PM
It's a BAD idea to let your battery get very low before you recharge it, LI batteries lose capacity the more often they are "deep discharged". This is the opposite of the last generation of batteries which would lose capacity if you did NOT discharge them all the way once in a while. You'll get the best battery life(in terms of minutes of use and also overall lifespan) if you recharge it every day.

Thanks for the info PetiteFlower. Now that you've mentioned it, I think I've read about this myself before. Can anyone else back this up? I'd feel better hearing it from more than 1 person... :wink:

Oh yeah I wanted to also ask about "non-replaceable" batteries. My HP 568 battery pops right out which means anyone should be able to replace it but the V37 is known to have a permanent battery. Even though the battery is "permanent" couldn't someone just open the unit up and replace whatever component(s) need to be replaced?

spursdude
05-07-2003, 11:53 PM
Can anyone else back this up? I'd feel better hearing it from more than 1 person... :wink:
I've heard this several times, and not just from Petite Flower. I think there was a front-page post a long whiles back stating this, citing a battery expert.

Oh yeah I wanted to also ask about "non-replaceable" batteries. My HP 568 battery pops right out which means anyone should be able to replace it but the V37 is known to have a permanent battery. Even though the battery is "permanent" couldn't someone just open the unit up and replace whatever component(s) need to be replaced?
You could get the battery replaced by a specialty site... Pocket PC Techs (http://www.pocketpctechs.com) might be able to do such a thing.