Treo 680 battery question

[garyrandall]

I have had my AT&T unlocked 680 for a few days, now. Thank you all who have answered my questions thus far. I did the AT&T upgrade, as it had not yet been done. Do I understand that that is supposed to have solved or minimized the camera battery drain issue?
My experience so far is this thing has VERY poor battery usage. My TX-5 lasts a few days without getting critical, and my Nokia 6133 was getting about 2-3 days before insisting on more juice. I am by no means either a heavy texter, or even a very active phone user, but I do need to have it on a lot. So far I am only getting less than a day. From the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" school, I have tried the battery out reset trick mentioned in some old posts.
What should my expectations be, for leaving the phone on stand-by, all the time, for battery life? At this rate I am going to have to get a spare battery and a charger/cradle.
I am also looking at the silicon rubber cases to give it a tackier feel, I'm scared to death of dropping it, its so little and slippery. Seems to me an ideal Palm phone would be the size of the T5-TX with that screen as well. LOL, they didn't ask me though did they?
Comments are solicited, welcome, and avidly read.
Thanks

[Greek]

The upgrade will make the battery to last longer. How much? Depends on usage. You can do some other things to increase battery life. (1) Prefs, Power, Beam receive (Off). (2) Bluetooth (Off) In these cases, obviously turn them off if you are not using them. (3) lower the screen brightness as the Treos are very bright and light eats battery.

Finally, you can try to increase the battery juice by plugging the charger, taking battery and putting it back (soft reset) and leaving the battery to get fully charger. You can repeat procedure the next time you'll charge.

With a 680, you won't get much more than 1 and a half or 2 days as the battery is very thin compared to that on a 600 or 680. There is a very small "casing" where you put a spare battery and plug the charger to it, very convenient to carry. Check the accessories in the Palm website.

Regards,

[danielmaradona]

Try to get the Sedio 2400 mAh Extended battery. For my own usage I also suffering from quick battery drain after a heavy day of usage especially with emails and making lot of phone calls.

[projectman]

I am a new 680 (unlocked/non-branded) owner as well. I have been scouring the 'Net for info on this ridiculous battery drain issue. I have seen several spots (Treonauts being one of them) in which it was reported that the battery drain is not actually a power usage or loss scenario. It is reported that the actual problem is a mis-read of the power; a meter issue. To illustrate this point... I have charged my unit to capacity each night (the indicator light is green) and immediately following the disconnect from the power supply I have checked the power. One day it was 94%, another day it was 91%. Either the battery is defective or the metering issue pointed out by other users is the real culprit.
Can anyone confirm this?
I have attempted the battery reset steps 2 nights in a row with no success. I also have the update from Palm's website...still no success. Does anyone know if Dmitry has a fix for this?

[danielmaradona]

I am a new 680 (unlocked/non-branded) owner as well. I have been scouring the 'Net for info on this ridiculous battery drain issue. I have seen several spots (Treonauts being one of them) in which it was reported that the battery drain is not actually a power usage or loss scenario. It is reported that the actual problem is a mis-read of the power; a meter issue. To illustrate this point... I have charged my unit to capacity each night (the indicator light is green) and immediately following the disconnect from the power supply I have checked the power. One day it was 94%, another day it was 91%. Either the battery is defective or the metering issue pointed out by other users is the real culprit.
Can anyone confirm this?
I have attempted the battery reset steps 2 nights in a row with no success. I also have the update from Palm's website...still no success. Does anyone know if Dmitry has a fix for this?
You're not alone on this, I have 2 Treo 680 and both of them suffers from the same inconsistencies in battery meter reading. Maybe there is a flaw from the software from Palm that reads the voltage and the available power on the battery. I also conducted several calibration test and still the battery does not read accurately after unplugging from the Charger. I've searched the other forums and most of the users are encountering this minor defect.

[projectman]

Try to get the Sedio 2400 mAh Extended battery. For my own usage I also suffering from quick battery drain after a heavy day of usage especially with emails and making lot of phone calls.
Is the 2400 mAH the extended life battery that requires a modified battery door? How much thickness does the 2400 add to the device?

[danielmaradona]

Is the 2400 mAH the extended life battery that requires a modified battery door? How much thickness does the 2400 add to the device?

It significantly increases the thickness of the 680, and a modified battery door is included. That's what you get from having extra juice for your device, there will be always pro's and cons.

[garyrandall]

Okay folks, I have a couple of related continuing questions re battery/charging.
I have not seen this specific scenario reported here yet.
I have charged the little guy all day, and unplugged it to leave my desk for lunch. When unplugged the battery symbol did not change back from showing the lightning bolt through the battery, and the led was showing red, like it was still connected.
This evening I unplugged about 5pm and it is now 12:30 and I am down to 32% and falling. Blue tooth was on about half the time. Is this as good as it gets? Lastly, now the red led is flickering randomly very much like an hard disk drive being written to. Turned off the phone, red light still going. Way more drama here than I want to cope with.

[Aces]

Are you in an area with marginal cell reception? I've seen a lot of battery usage when trying to establish a connection with the carrier. As an experiment, you could turn off your cell radio for a large chunk of time to see how much difference it makes.

[Clie Patra]

I have my Treo 680 for about a week now. My battery drops from fully charged to about 95% in just a few minutes after disconneccting the charger (IR and Bluetooth off, backligt around 30%). I have installed Power Hero (http://power-hero.en.softonic.com/palm) and this helps a bit. It allows you - among other things - to turn off the keyboard backlight with the side button.

I think some parts of the 680 keep pulling current, even when not in use, like maybe the camera. The phone part (in standby mode) also makes much more completely unnecessary connections to the carrier network than any other celphone I've ever used (you can hear the nagging noise when the Treo is near a playing AM radio).

Hopefully this gets resolved somehow, because as things are right now, the 680's battery life is even worse than Nokia N95.

:confused:

[Greek]

There's a patch from Palm, so the camera won't draw current if inactive:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo/680cameraupdate.html

And there's an update that corrects the camera using energy when idle, other power saving features, push email fixes, enhanced ringtones support, support for larger cards, etc.:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo680update/unlockedgsm.html

Regards,

[Clie Patra]

There's a patch from Palm, so the camera won't draw current if inactive:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo/680cameraupdate.html

And there's an update that corrects the camera using energy when idle, other power saving features, push email fixes, enhanced ringtones support, support for larger cards, etc.:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo680update/unlockedgsm.html

Regards,
Thank you, but my Treo does not need this (it's already up to date). But despite that, battery life is still horrible.

[Greek]

1 to 2 days is the average duration of the charge in a 680. A 650 lasts longer, because the battery is bigger, which adds bulk and weight. There are bigger capacity batteries for the 680, they are bigger in size and they come with a special battery door.

I think there's also one from Seidio, that it's the same size as the original but with more capacity.

Regards,

[projectman]

Thank you, but my Treo does not need this (it's already up to date). But despite that, battery life is still horrible.


On the advice of a co-worker I have intentionally run my 680 to 0 three times. This is supposed to reset the battery so that it can truly “fill up” while charging. My typical max when I first got the device was 91%. After 3 complete discharges my typical max is now 98%. While I don’t know if that addresses what the real power is or simply the errant report of what the power is, it does indicate something of an improvement. Time will tell. ;) I, for one, love the 680 for both size and utility (I was used to bigger Palm PDAs though) so I won’t be letting this power thing discourage me too much. :p

[Clie Patra]

I, for one, love the 680 for both size and utility (I was used to bigger Palm PDAs though) so I won’t be letting this power thing discourage me too much. :p
Couldn't agree more. The 680 is a jewel. And a second batt is cheap, replaced in seconds, and small to carry. And USB ports are everywhere, so a Sync'n'Load cable is a great solution.