Mojo_LA

When the iPod first came out and I heard it was a non-repalceable battery, my first thought was "that's stupid - in a year or two it will hold half it's charge and eventually it will just stop working alltogether! In a few years there are going to be a lot of unamused iPod owners."

Sure enough:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...pod_batteries_3

Of course a battery that cannot be replaced on a high-power, high-usage item is a ticking clock. From day one, every time your charge the battery it loses a little life. If the LD gets 5 hours out of heavy usage now, in a year you'll be lucky if it gets 3. In 3 years, it may be down to 1 or 2.

What was Palm thinking?!

It's bad enough that you can't swap out the battery on the go if you need more juice - but a locked-in battery that will give you less and less time as you use the device??

What is Palm going to do when all it's LD owners start screaming in a year? Will they replace all the batteries for free? Will they have to get sued?

Of course, if the package had a clear warning that said something like: BATTERY WILL SHOW DECREASED LIFE WITH USAGE, WILL STOP WORKING IN 3-5 YEARS AND CANNOT BE REPLACED they could at least say people were warned.

But who would buy a $500 device with a warning like that??

It's incredibly deceptive.

Do the extra performance warranties that we buy from places like Best Buy and Compusa cover this?

I'd like to hear an official response from Palm on this time bomb.

tungsten t5

look, All palm devices have a non-removable battery. if it was removable it would increase the size of the device and Palmone would lose money. if it dies in a 13 months (warranty goes for a year) then people have to buy a new device and palm makes more money. Also I only keep my devices until the warranty runs out then I buy a new one. so as long as the warranty covers the battery I'm happy.

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ucfgrad93

And really, I only keep my PDAs for about a year anyway. The longest I've ever had a pda was 14 months, a hp1910 & a Palm T|3.

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Mojo_LA

Are you guys joking? The original Palms I had ran on AAA batteries! Many PDAs have removable batteries, too. Having an extra battery is very convienient in case you are in the middle of something important and need to swap!

And the idea of $500 PDAs being disposable is nonsense. I don't think you'll find many users who will be happy to just 'chuck it' a year from now if the LD battery goes bad.

Ezra4no1

I am sure you are not alone in thought over this. Give it a few months from now and I am sure there will be some sort of after market replacement for the LD. It may be a messy solution, but still better than chucking the device in the trash just cause the batter life craps out. The LD is too expensive for this to be totally ignored by third party companies.

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timepilot84

I've seen the pictures of the guts on another thread here, and it looks like the back is held on with 2 screws under the LRF. The battery itself is quite removable (and I'm hoping it's just a matter of time before someone comes out with a compatible 2500mAH monster for this baby).

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tungsten t5

I'm talking about PALMONE RECHARGABLE PDA's. yes other companys have removable batteries but not palmone. also the back of the device has the little holes to cool the hard drive. if you remove them to put a removable battery in it could overheat.

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poissonsouriant

You are getting way too worked up. They are not deceiving you. All published information on the LifeDrive says that it has a non-removable (at least not easily removable) battery. Deception would be if they said that it had a removable battery and it didn't.

They will not replace all the batteries for free. Your warranty will be expired by then. The warranty is a legal contract saying that the LD, if used properly, will be fully functional for a year. They factor in the cost of replacing those LDs that fail within one year into the overall cost of the unit. They obviously believe the odds to be rather low, otherwise they would charge more or just not sell it. The odds of a PDA failing in its second year are obviously much higher, otherwise it wouldn't cost so much to get an extended warranty.

I, too would love it if we could have an LD with a replaceable battery, but because I generally change PDA's every year and a half, I haven't seen much in the way of battery problems. I usually sell my old PDA's on eBay.

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Cyker

90% of LD owners will not keep it for more than a year or two, espescially if Palm come out with another one.
Hell, most of the people on this forum jump ship as soon as the next latest & greatest comes along, so Palm know that they can get away with it.

As for the rest, well tough. Palm don't care - they are first and foremost a for-profit company, so anything that makes you a repeat customer is in their interests.

Alan G

Just to be fair about this, the palmOne Treo 650 does have a user replacable battery. Do I think that palmOne is stupid for not having a replacable batter on the LifeDrive? No. (By the way, I don't have a LifeDrive yet as I just purchased a T5.)

I agree with poissonsouriant and Cyker on this one. People will either live with a battery after the first year of "normal use", and that means different things for different people, or they will get an after market replacement battery and install it either themselves or by a third party like Get High Tech. Me? I usually fall into the category of "I'll upgrade before something like battery life becomes and issue." As for the iPod, I've had my 3rd generation unit for about a year and a half now. I listen to it for a few hours a day (2 - 3) and I recharge it over night every other or every third night. Works good for me.

Alan G

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Adrenochrome

If they put a swappable battery in there, it would cost even more, and then you'd complain about the price.

The LD, like every handheld, is a study in balance. This balance works for me, thus it's a good PDA for me. If battery life and replaceable batteries is a priority for you, then an LD probably isn't for you.

Mojo_LA

It is a deception, because even though Palm does tell you the battery is non-replaceable, they DON'T warn you that it will slowly loose it's ability to hold a charge; people don't know how batteries work. Do you think Palm would advertise that after a year you'll only get half the battery life? Of course not. They don't want people to realize that.

And you guys are in the minority - people on a forum like this are power users who always want to up grade. The majority of people who buy a PDA will keep it for years - just like they keep a computer for years.

And if you really think most people don't care or will just buy a new one after the battery weakens, then why is there a lawsuit against Apple over it? Because people feel deceived. Apple new the battery would be an issue, but they never bothered to inform consumers that their '10 hour battery' would be a 5 hour battery after a year.

If people didin't care, there would be no uproar.

Palm will have no choice but to replace batteries for free if they don't tell people that it will slowly die. Even if it's only under the 1-year waranty, I'd say that a battery which only lasts half as long as when you bought it is defective if you're not told up-front to expect it.

intellidryad

All batteries will eventually die. I think that most people who already own a cell phone should know that. Even if it's replacable, a battery will still show it's age after a year or two. I know you would really want a replacable battery, but this has nothing to do with cheating on people.

Should milk venders attach a great big sticker on each milk carton saying "milk could go sour after 2 weeks"? Would you say that it is a deception not to attach those stickers to milk cartons?

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timepilot84

WARNING! The posts on this message board will be unreadable in 10 years, because the hard drive on which they are stored will lose the data.

WARNING! Nothing lasts forever.

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