Irregular Battery Drain? Full brightness users read.

[Tek Phreak]

Ok, so i think i've been noticing a trend on my clie in that it seems to be holding a charge for 2-3% less each day... i know it sounds crazy, but try following me.

Today i had class and i normally take notes on my clie in class. Classes are an hour and 15 min, i got there about 5 min early but he let us out 10 min early, and i had my clie turned off 5 min during class. I had the clie on from the time class began. And including the 5 min that i had it off (during the lecture when i didn't need to take notes) it would have a total on time of about an hour and 5 min. I AM USING MY CLIE AT FULL BRIGHTNESS. Ok, so i turned it on when i got to class and the first thing i did was show one of my friends a movie i recorded in the dorm last night of my two other friends wrestling 3 other guys(for tap out submission mind you, it was a good match ;) ). The movie was only 1min 36sec long. From there i started taking notes. Word2Go all keyboard entry. I spent about a total of 5 min looking up scripture with Bible Reader and my Bibles are stored on memory stick. At the end of class (about an hour and 5 min total usage). I was at 83%. I swear that ealrier in the week at full brightness i could do about an hours worth of note taking (yes, note taking only) and still be at 92%.

I guess i'm just lookin for responses, is this about right as far as drainage, did the movie playing and memory stick-scripture look up eat up another 10%? Is it progressively getting worse, do i have a bad batter? How long are other full brightness users getting on that much battery life and performing what actions. Thank you for any responses, they are greatly appreciated.

Enjoy.
-Tek

[Unregistered]

I will start by saying that I do not use my Clie at full brightness. Did that for first week...hurt me to actually watch the battery power drain. I use about 1/4 - 1/3 brightness. That said, please take my opinion here with a grain of salt.

MS access does eat battery power significantly faster than rom access. Anything graphics intensive also pulls more power. I have also noticed that IR related functions are absolute murder on battery power. (tried newest version of Omni Remote tonight for about 10 minutes, went from full charge to about 85% that fast!).

With all the above things taken into consideration, it would only stand to reason that the day you described was definitely more taxing on the battery power than previous "normal" days. I would suggest you make note of the power consumption after another 1 or 2 "normal" days. I would also strongly suggest considering reducing your brightness level. It seems far to dark at first but your eyes will adjust to it surprisingly quickly. You will only need full brightness when you are in already bright areas. Just my 2 cents. :)

[Rosenkrantz]

I too have been having battery issues with my NX70. I read a lot of ebooks on it and I iused to be able to 3 hours on a single charge w/ the backlight about half. Now I don't seem to get more than 2 hours. Very depressing. Luckily i bought an extended warranty on it.

[Tek Phreak]

I used to use the brightness level at 1/3 but switched to full cause i figured i can charge it daily so i might as well enjoy the beautiful screen... and I have been :)

Enjoy.
-Tek

[rldunn]

Well, the batteries are definitely going to get worse over time, so it may be that the battery performance has dropped. Also, accessing the MS really takes a battery hit, as does anything that is computing-intensive, so your 1.5 minute movie probably dropped the battery more than 15 minutes of note taking would have.

[Tek Phreak]

really.... that's interesting, i guess if you couple that with 5 min of ms access that could account for the 8-10% variation that i've been experiencing. I guess i will just have to lower my backlight if i intend to do these things, thanks!

Enjoy.
-Tek

[rldunn]

I put stuff that I'll be accessing a lot into RAM, even if it eats up that valuable space. For example, even though PRP reads books fine off the MS, I put my current book in RAM. And I'll put large apps that I use a lot in RAM, even if they can run good off the MS. I'd hate to be in a situation where I can't use my Clie just because my battery went dead.

[Tek Phreak]

True dat, that's probably a good point, i can put my 2 most used Bibles in RAM (since i have nearly 5 mb empty) and keep the remaining 4 on the MS for reference. 2 Bibles is only about 3 mb, so that should be fine. Good tip rldunn, thanks, don't know why i didn't think of that, guess i was just too caught up in conserving space.

Enjoy.
-Tek