Battery issues and synching from card

[paulhayes]

Hi,

I recently received a 515 as a birthday present and absolutely love it. I had a revo before and that was ok, but the palm is second to none. I have picked up graffiti quite quickly and it is much smaller that the revo. I have installed a number of third party applications and all are working well.

I have a few questions:

I still cannot work out how much battery time I will have for continuous use and also how much standby I will have from a full charge. Can anyone help. The palm site is useless.

I have avantgo on the palm and love the information it gives me on the move, however, I would like to store it on an SD card but then it does not synch. Can anyone help.

I have read about this software called Jack Rabbit....or something like that to free up some more memory. Is this any good?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Kind regards,

Paul

[Calvados]

Paul,

I am not an expert on any of the areas that you are asking, but have read some things on the old posts and will try to relate them as I remember them.

As to the battery, I have seen people say things from a full charge that ranged from 3 hours to 10 hours. My experience is that I had some good advice from someone and it is to put my Palm on the craddle every night and keep it charged, since the lithium ion battery is not harmed by charging it often.

As to syncing your card. I have heard a lot of people talking about a program called "backup buddy" that will not only backup your card, but each & every file on your palm and you will thus be protected from loss.

Jack Rabbit or Jack Flash are programs that allow you to delete files you don't use from flash ROM. I have heard a lot of people say they use them with success, but I have always stayed away from them as deleting files from the ROM has always been a little scary for me, especially to only get a little space for the effort. I prefer adding SD cards, although they have their limits.

All of these programs can be found at PalmGear.com or on Palmblvd.com.

I know this is not much as far as fact in an answer, but I hope it helps.

Have a nice day,
Calvados

[dequardo]

Originally posted by paulhayes
Hi,

I recently received a 515 as a birthday present and absolutely love it. I had a revo before and that was ok, but the palm is second to none. I have picked up graffiti quite quickly and it is much smaller that the revo. I have installed a number of third party applications and all are working well.

I have a few questions:

I still cannot work out how much battery time I will have for continuous use and also how much standby I will have from a full charge. Can anyone help. The palm site is useless.

I have avantgo on the palm and love the information it gives me on the move, however, I would like to store it on an SD card but then it does not synch. Can anyone help.

I have read about this software called Jack Rabbit....or something like that to free up some more memory. Is this any good?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Kind regards,

Paul

Best I can offer you is varying lengths based on backlight setting. OFF obviously provides the most continual time-my guess is at least 9-10 hours. HIGH would be 5-6 and LOW in between the two.

There is a program called 'Avantage' that supposedly let's one store AvantGo pages on a memory card. I've not tried it. You'll find it on palmgear.com

What I do is simply store the avatgo.prc file on the card and leave the changeable data/pages in RAM.

[DrMud]

Personal experience: My 515, on low or no back light, lasts 6 to 7 hours before I worry. My wife's 505 which is older and is always used with the back light on only makes it for about 3 to 4 hours.

Avantage (PalmGear.com) loads Avantgo to the memory card then brings it back to RAM for HotSync updates. It finishes by moving it back to the card. Bear in mind you will need to have sufficient free memory in RAM for the Avantgo files to be moved in and out of.

There is also an excellent application that allows you to Zip files and by so doing improve your free RAM space. It is FLYZIP (PalmGear.com).

Regarding Flash products. I have not used JackFlash. My preference has always been FlashPro from HandEra. This product allows you to use the unused space in the Flash ROM area. You can move your third party apps in and out. An earlier post suggested it could be used to remove ROM apps that you do not want. System apps in ROM cannot be deleted using these tools.
DrMud

[Calvados]

DrMud,

Thanks for the note to clear things up about the flash ROM files. I have a foreign Palm 515 and someone posted a note to say that I could use JackFlash or one like it to delete the language files that I did not need to make more room for other files. That scared me thinking of messing with ROM files so I stayed away from it.

Sorry if my previous post caused some confusion or was in error. I now stand corrected.

Have a good day,
Calvados

[DrMud]

If it ever bacame a pressing need you could reflash the OS using the English ROM. It would free up space in the Flash ROM but you show wisdom when avioding that part of your Palm.
DrMud

[janjan]

Is it possible for the battery to drain and have shorter life due to prolong time on cradle after fully charged?

My friend's 505 shows 50% battery left after 2 hours use.

[PilotUser]

Something related ...

When I bought my new m515 less than 3 months ago, the battery life seems quite short. Fully charged, I can only get maybe 2 hours out of it. If I do not place it on the cradle every night, the battery will be fully drained (ie. I lose all data)

Contacted Palm & tried their suggestion of soft & hard reset while unit on cradle, but that didn't seem to help. Palm then suggested problem with the battery and recommended the unit be replaced. They said sometimes there's a chance the battery is the root cause of the short battery life.

Contacted Palm and had no problem arranging the return ... except have to wait for a unit to be shipped from down South. Disadvantage of being a foreigner up here in the Great White North, eh ?

Moral: If your Palm gives a very short battery life, contact Palm. I did through email and they always reply within a day. Beats being on hold over the phone.

[Kathy Alexander]

I have a little program that is named Backup All. There are 3 levels that the program does; force, all, and changed. It backs up everything, including the memory card, in the Palm 505. I don't recall if I got it on the program CD that came with the Palm or the Palm site.

[mapabl]

JackSprat is the program used to delete foreign languages or other programs stored in ROM.
It does sound scary - but I've used it on both my Clie and IBM (Palm m505) with no problems. The IBM (same as m505) I purchased was an international model and those languages are a memory hog. The documentation that comes with JackSprat tells what programs in ROM can be eliminated safely - you first BACK UP your ROM to your computer's hard drive (DO NOT ignore this step) and then you can delete files that you don't use. I've deleted the Welcome file, Grafitti, languages, and quite a few others on both the Clie and the Palm that I don't use.
JackFlash then allows you to move programs (not databases) into the newly created space available in ROM. That frees up space for downloading new programs on your handheld.
JackSafe can then be used to keep your new ROM on your handheld in case of a hard reset, etc.
I'm sorry - I don't know the correct ROM terms (flash, etc.) I just know what the programs did. As long as you follow the directions, there should be no problems. I've experienced none over the last 3 months with either the Clie or the IBM (Palm 505). Good luck.
Mary :)

[Sparticus Caine]

I have a Palm M5xx series unit myself, and my I use mine off and on all day. Refering to my old Neo which ran on two AAA's, they lasted me about a month. This lithium ion batter is supposed to be WAY better and hold a charge way longer, so the 5 - 7 hours guestimate is correct, however it depends on how long you use it. If in a continual stretch, probably about 2 - 3 hours. On and Off during the day? I'd say a couple weeks before I'd have to recharge mine (backlight always off, except the rare time at night). If lithium ion is better than two non-rechargable AAA batteries, then my analysis should be pretty darn close ;) I should probably add that the most time I'm on my unit when I'm using it is a couple minutes, absolute tops.

Just my $0.02 :)