Battery live of Axim 30?

[DavidB]

I'm considering getting the low end Axim 30 (no wireless, lower speed cpu) after several years of mostly happy Palm use. But my sense is that all PPCs, and the Axim 30 in particular, use a log of juice just sitting there. How long can I expect this model to go assuming I have it on a total of 20 min a day (I really do only want it as an organizer)?

[Jason Dunn]

Only 20 minutes a day? I'd expect it to last about five to seven days - Axim's are GREAT for standby battery life. My hunch is that you'll end up using it more than 20 minutes a day though once you see all the cool stuff you can do on it that you can't do on an old Palm. ;-)

[DavidB]

You have me confused, Jason. In one of your battery life posts ( http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,33593 ) you wrote, "X30, Zero Utilization, Backlight Off, Extended Battery: 28 hours 7 minutes" (this was for the 624 mhz Axim with an extended battery!) which I took to mean that it would only last 28 hrs idleing, doing nothing!!. What am I missing?

Thanks in advance

[Jason Dunn]

Aha! Well, that's with no backlight - the backlight is the most power-hungry part of your device, so yes, it would last 28 hours with the backlight never coming on. But every time you press the power button to your your Pocket PC on, the backlight will come on, so that's just an artificial test for research purposes, not something that matches up with a user scenario.