01-03-2003, 08:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Better Battery Life For Mobile Devices?
Portable electronic devices have made huge advances over the years. Many of you are walking around with a Pocket PC that would embarrass your $3,000 desktop you purchased in 1996. One area though that is moving at a snails pace is battery technology. Yeah, I know, we no longer have memory effects, recharges are faster and overall lifetime is longer, but if the time between recharges had grown anything like the rest of the technology in your hand over the past 5 years, all of our devices would last hundreds of hours before the low battery warning appeared.
Well, don't look for anything earth shattering down the road. :roll: "The improvement in battery life could be achieved by using smarter power-control algorithms." oh yay. Better algorithms. I can see us in 3-4 years where batteries are the huge limiting factor. As more and more places are enabled for wireless access and people are increasingly using cell phones for more than yacking and PDAs for more than cool day planners, getting 6 hours out of a device is really going to hurt productivity. The same can be said for laptops. With my WiFi card in my Latitude C610, I get maybe 2.5 hrs. I just find it interesting of all the things we've done in the past 100 years, advances in portable electricity is one of the areas that just moves too slow for the cool things we are trying to power, from cars to computers.
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01-03-2003, 08:22 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 143
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I have to say that battery life is one of the drawbacks from switching from Palm to Pocket PC. My old m100 could get a month or two of my kind of use without replacing the batteries. Now I have to charge my e310 every day or two days, which can get kind or annoying. I don't go on any trips without the charging cable at least (which, with the brick in the middle of it, is kind or a nucance. If there comes better battery technology, I'm sure that Thoughts will let us know. :wink:
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01-03-2003, 08:24 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by KyleC
I have to say that battery life is one of the drawbacks from switching from Palm to Pocket PC. My old m100 could get a month or two of my kind of use without replacing the batteries.
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Kyle, it makes no sense to compare a monochrome Dragonball unit to a Pocket PC running ARM with a large color display. All modern Palms and Pocket PC's suffer from poor battery life. The possible exceptions here include the Jornada 568, the iPaq 3970, the Pocket PC Phone, and the Axim, but even these guys max out at 10-20 hours of use. The Tungsten and the NX70 don't even achieve that much.
--janak
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01-03-2003, 08:28 PM
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5000+ Posts? I Should OWN This Site!
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 5,133
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Janak Parekh
Kyle, it makes no sense to compare a monochrome Dragonball unit to a Pocket PC running ARM with a large color display. All modern Palms and Pocket PC's suffer from poor battery life. The possible exceptions here include the Jornada 568, the iPaq 3970, the Pocket PC Phone, and the Axim, but even these guys max out at 10-20 hours of use. The Tungsten and the NX70 don't even achieve that much.
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Of course it doesn't make sense if you're comparing what each unit does and for how long, but I think it's fair to miss having a longer time between recharges. I think Kyle's adding to Ed's lament that battery technology hasn't improved along with the technology. I know that going from my old Palm IIIx to an Axim that I've gotten a ton more features and a lot more power. But the battery hasn't grown at pace with that. If it had, I would be able to do all the new cooler things for just as long using "new" battery technology along with new screen, processor, etc. technology.
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01-03-2003, 08:29 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 160
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I'm afraid we will have to wait for fuel cells.
Isn't one due out this year? :?
__________________
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Common Sense is Not Common
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01-03-2003, 08:31 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 143
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by kati42
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Janak Parekh
Kyle, it makes no sense to compare a monochrome Dragonball unit to a Pocket PC running ARM with a large color display. All modern Palms and Pocket PC's suffer from poor battery life. The possible exceptions here include the Jornada 568, the iPaq 3970, the Pocket PC Phone, and the Axim, but even these guys max out at 10-20 hours of use. The Tungsten and the NX70 don't even achieve that much.
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Of course it doesn't make sense if you're comparing what each unit does and for how long, but I think it's fair to miss having a longer time between recharges. I think Kyle's adding to Ed's lament that battery technology hasn't improved along with the technology. I know that going from my old Palm IIIx to an Axim that I've gotten a ton more features and a lot more power. But the battery hasn't grown at pace with that. If it had, I would be able to do all the new cooler things for just as long using "new" battery technology along with new screen, processor, etc. technology. |
Exactly. 
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01-03-2003, 08:32 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 717
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Speaking of battery life my Axim extended battery just came in, that thing is large but still very stylish. No more power problems for me.
And while we are on the subject I do agree with Janak on this, I used to kill the battery on my Palm 505 in 3 -5 hours of playing 1942 which is why I promptly sold it two weeks later and got an iPAQ instead.
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01-03-2003, 08:38 PM
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5000+ Posts? I Should OWN This Site!
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 5,133
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by szamot
And while we are on the subject I do agree with Janak on this, I used to kill the battery on my Palm 505 in 3 -5 hours of playing 1942 which is why I promptly sold it two weeks later and got an iPAQ instead.
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I don't see it as a "Palms have better battery life than PPCs" argument anymore. I think of it more as "Come on, guys! You all have poorer battery life than you should! Let's put some $ into battery research!" Battery life hasn't kept up with the changes in the Palm line either.
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01-03-2003, 08:38 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 94
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Did you have to put "better battery life" next to "Vaporware"? This is probably the biggest vaporware technology of all time. Lithium-Ion was the last advance in techology and I would not even call it a "major" advance. Almost all of the improvement we've seen has been in lower power devices, not better batteries. Given all the money to be made with better batteries, I have to think that this is just a really hard problem.
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01-03-2003, 08:41 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by johncj
I have to think that this is just a really hard problem.
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Indeed, it is. Sorry Kyle, I've just heard the "but my Palm used to last forever...!" argument one too many times.  Worse is the fact that even with the new Palm devices, the companies say "approximately one or two weeks' use, given typical situations". That worked when the Palm lasted for 30-40 hours or so on one set of batteries, but not anymore.
Ironically, I am much happier since I moved to my iPaq, because I hated having to go out and buy new AAA batteries for my Palm, and because I typically have recharging opportunities all the time. And with my double-battery setup (1400mah in the unit + 920mah in the CF+ sleeve), I've stopped looking at the battery gauge. 
--janak
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