3950 vs. 5555 battery life

[Fish]

I picked a new 5555 on a whim the other day. I was attracted to the integrated WiFi and BT, and alleged speed increases.

While the device seems a little slower than my 3950, and the screen isn't nearly as rich, my main issue is with the battery life. It's HORRIBLE.

With my 3950 I can leave work on Friday fully charged, check my mail over a CF WiFi card about 5 times over the weekend, and read ebooks in bed for a total of about 6 hours. By Monday morning, I might be getting low power warnings, but not usually.

The 5555? I leave work fully charged, check my mail via WiFi twice, start reading an ebook, and the battery's almost toast before I go to sleep that night. I have BT disabled, and only turn on WiFi when in use.

I did a little test last night. I was at 100% when I left work, 91% when I got home 30 minutes later, and about 50% a couple hours after that. Seems that there's a huge power drain going on when the device is "off".

I'll be returning this device and going back to my 3950.

[ChristopherTD]

Don't be too hasty!

The 5450 and 5550 series have lots of power hungry devices in them that need to be actively managed to preserve battery life.

A few things to try.

Leave the WiFI and Bluetooth powered off unless you want to use them. This will save significant amounts of power.

Lower the backlight brightness (I have mine on the 2nd lowest setting).

Also, it may be that software is affecting the battery life. Some of the today plugins have an excessive drain because they poll too actively, consuming power. You may like to try disabling any Today plugins that monitor power (like Battery Pack) to see if that improves things.

I get 6-7 hours life on my 5450 reading books and occasionally checking for mail (Bluetooth).

Good luck!

[ChristopherTD]

Sorry - I missed the bit in your message that you only turned on Wifi when in use.

But it could still be worth looking to see if software is contributing to the drain - especially as not all vendors have checked their software against WM2003.

[Fish]

I had, in my excitement, enabled scheduled server sync. Oops. My device was waking up every 15 minutes, enabling WiFi, and syncing mail. That'll kill the battery pretty quick, eh? :?

I'll try it out for a few more days. Maybe it's not so bad after all.

[petvas]

I also own a H5555. With WiFi on I get max 2.5 hours usage...
Having Bluetooth enabled all the time and checking email every 2 hours (through Bluetooth GPRS) keeps my iPaq alive for more than a day...(with standby periods of course)