Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 16

Neo Battery Life

Hi,

How much runtime are other neo users out there getting from alkaline batteries? I get less than a week of use per set of batteries even though handspring claims 2 months of use. I use batterylog to track actual on time and it shows around 20 hours for a set of batteries. Maybe using it 20 hours in a week is considered very high usage.

Anyone else have runtime figures on their batteries?

Thanks!

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Lake City, PA
Posts: 19

I have used the new improved copper tops and the silver label energizer alkalines and I get about 2 weeks of heavy use. I also have the 32mb upgrade and it uses a bit more battery power. I was getting 3 weeks without the upgrade.

My feeling (others may not agree) is that it is not the actual use of the handheld that uses the majority of battery power but rather the hotsync. Heres why I think this.

My wife has a neo and I have one too. She doesnt use avantgo and doesnt change calendar extensively so she hotsyncs a couple of times per week. The actual sync's are short too.

I have a long list of avantgo channels along with docs to go, etc and my hotsync times are 1-2 minutes.

She routinely gets over a month of use on her batteries and sometimes almost 2 months while I get a couple of weeks.

Anyway, usually I use rechargables now and they last a week before I get cold feet and recharge.
HTH
Gene

Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 16

What's this 32 Meg upgrade you have in your neo? Is that for the main memory? That might be something I might get instead of the flash memory upgrade which is limited in it's uses.

I hotsync very rarely, actually for the last set of batteries I hotsynced only once. I wonder if the games my gf plays on it drains more power than normal, she seems to use it a lot just to play palm games.

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Lake City, PA
Posts: 19

It replaces the 8mb main memory with 32mb main memory. Check out www.palmpilotupgrades.com for the info. I use mapopolis and a gps and so I need the space for maps.
Gene

Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 206

20 hrs of use? Compared to me that is a good amount for one set of batteries. I use Runtime to track my usage and I average about 12-15 hours of runtime for set of batteries. I guess it all depends on what your using your Neo for. If you're playing games, the batteries go fast. If your hotsynching every other hour, your batteries will be sapped really fast (also applicable if your constantly beaming stuff). If your using the regular functions or reading e-books, I'd say you've got a pretty good average at 20 hrs. That's a lot of use for 7 days (~3 hrs a day).

- Burns

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 16

GeneR, do you think your neo uses up batteries more because of the 32 Meg upgrade? By the way, I heard that only certain neo's can be upgraded, do you happen to have a link to the program that can test if the neo can be upgraded to 32 Meg?

I've got a backup module which I probably backup twice a week, and sync with my computer every other day. I have been using energizer e2 and duracell ultra to get these 20 hour runtimes. But to me it just seems kinda short. If you calculate that it uses 20 hours, and handspring rates it at 2 months, then they probably expect you to use it less than 20 minutes a day. Probably even less because at 2 months run time there is a lot more standby time which drains power too. Using 700mah nimh in my tests get me around 10-11 hours of use before it turns off.

Has anyone gotten significantly longer runtimes out of a set of batteries?

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Lake City, PA
Posts: 19

As I said:
>>
I have used the new improved copper tops and the silver label energizer alkalines and I get about 2 weeks of heavy use. I also have the 32mb upgrade and it uses a bit more battery power. I was getting 3 weeks without the upgrade.
<<
The 32mb upgrade uses a bit more power, but not a lot. As for the upgrade itself, the problem is only with very early production neo's. If you email Tony at palmpilotupgrades.com he will email you a little utility which will determine if your neo can be upgraded.
Gene

Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 16

Oh sorry, what I meant was maybe your neo was upgraded to 32 meg while your wife's neo wasn't. But if her's has got 32 megs of ram and can last that long I might get it too.

Did you notice any speed increase or decrease with the additional memory? I notice when my neo has got lots of programs to come close to filling up to 8 megs, things seems slower. Especially going to the info and beam utilities, it has to display all the installed stuff, it takes a few seconds while it shows the "wait" logo.

By silver label energizers I assume you're referring to the e2? Cause the regular energizer have about half it's label silver too.

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Lake City, PA
Posts: 19

Yeh, the silver label are the E2's. I really like them. As an aside, the blue ones (really expensive e2 photo lithium) are truly amazing, but they dont make them in AAA. I use AA's in my digital camera and the E2's silvers last about 20 pictures while the blue labels last easily over 100. Makes the extra cost worthwhile especially if I am on a trip.

Anyway, I am going to have to do some measurements to find out exactly what the pre and post upgrade current drain is. I have not noticed any speed decrease as the memory fills, but I will volunteer that the most I have had is about 22mb filled so far.

Just to clarify, my wife's neo is still 8mb. When mine was 8mb I got almost 3 weeks out of a set of batteries while she got probably on average 6 weeks. The big difference was in the hotsync time and frequency. Thats why I say that the hotsync is the battery drain. neither of us typically beam anything so I dont think that is a factor for us. Then when I upgraded my life went down to 2 weeks, so I would say that my battery life was cut by about 1/3 with the extra memory but all this is very un scientific.
Gene

Registered: Feb 2002
Location:
Posts: 5

You think two weeks is bad? What about two days?

Like the subject says - I get two days at the most. The last few days it has been about every day that I have to switch my NIMH rechargeables.

Of course... I do keep my CF memplug in it ALL the time, plus I use the keyboard every once in a while. Still... I would guess I get three or so hours of _actual_ use (using task list, reading MyBible from off my memplug, typing memos/docs with Wordsmith) with one set of batteries.

Other Neo users, is this normal?

But heehee, I'm hoping my problems will be over soon. I should get my FullCharge (http://www.extendcomputer.com/html/..._for_visor.html) system tomorrow or Monday. Wahoo! My troubles will be over.

I hope

David

Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 16

Uh, 2 days doesn't seem normal. I didn't think the CF memplug used up that much battery. I wonder if there's something wrong with your neo. On some other posts I've heard some damaged visors would drain a new battery in one or two days without even being used at all.

Just to let you know, Fullcharge probably won't help your situation since it uses 650 mah nimh batteries in the kit. You can get 700 mah nimh batteries for the visor nowadays. Maybe the charger you currently use isn't up to snuff. A smart charger like the rayovac ps4 or the quest q2 work really well at giving a full charge. Some chargers out there that I've tried only seem to get the batteries half full even after waiting a very long time, way longer than their specified charge time.

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Lake City, PA
Posts: 19

2 days seems really short. OTOH, some of the compact flash memory cards use a lot of power. Even so, I would want to do some serious testing to see whats going on. Some brands of card are lots worse than others in this regard. Just thinking out loud here if your guess of three hours of use is correct and the batteries are 600mah (typical) then you are drawing 200mah in use. The culprit (if your neo is not defective) must be the CF card you use. The memplug site www.memplug.com has a group which is very active. My suggestion would be to post your question along with the brand of card you have and see what folks there say. I have memplug but only use it for backups which has minimal effect on my battery life.
Gene