"E" Battery Short Life

[knightsog]

A couple of threads here talk about the reeeeeeeeaaaaaaallly short battery life in the E. I wrote to the gentleman who wrote the review on the new Tungstens in "Computing Unplugged" (<http://www.computingunplugged.com/issues/issue200310/00001107001.html>) and asked him to use his leverage to look into this. He replied saying he would contact Palm.

To update, I received my E on 16Oct and loaded in everything from my M500. Battery went down fast like there was a short to ground. I charged it all night, used it for a total of about 1 hr and left work with 20% capacity.

Some suggested removing third party software; so I did that and used it for a day...no difference.

Yesterday I had the E out and operating for 1.5 hours continuously and it was down to 23% and not even close to lunch time.

Last night I wrote to Palm support about this battery issue. Palm currently sells no chargers for the E so we're stuck with carting around the one that came with it. Weak-assed batteries and no support.

I do a lot of traveling around Asia (I live and work in Japan) and with long flights and transportation waiting and delays I need batteries with reasonable longevity. Here's hoping the Palm folks will read our inputs and realize how this problem will affect their sales and marketing.

[Telyx]

It's a quality control issue for sure. My first E had the same problem as yours. My brother went to Target and bought one, then we traded and he returned the defective one; the new one works great and the battery easily lasts all day under relatively heavy use (viewing pictures, playing FreeCell and Patience, stuff like that). I have to work pretty hard to get it below 70%, and it recharges within half an hour.

I wonder when someone will come out with a car charger... but I've read that some Samsung phone chargers work fine with the E. For now, just in case, I bring my wall wart to work.

[knightsog]

Telyx-san,

Yer probably right, but, for all of the years we have been spending money on Palm upgrades (this is my fourth) to their PDAs, you would think that stuff like this wouldn't happen. I live in Japan and can't just take the thing back to Target. I have to save all of the packing material, etc, etc, etc. Then I'm without my "pocket brain" while some yo-yo who can't spell PDA figures out what to do with my "unit".

As a devoted Palm customer for all of 6 years I'm concerned about Palms loss of their previous attention to detail.

Think about this: when you spend a bunch of bucks to buy a car do you want to take it back because of QA problems? Chrysler almost went out of business because of that.

I want my product as advertised...no excuses.

I hope Palm is listening.

[Telyx]

That's true. Even worse, you may remember the "good old days" of U.S. Robotics Palms. If you had a defective Pilot, you would contact Palm and they would send you a new unit so you could HotSync your data into it, then you would put the defective one in the new one's box and send it back. They wouldn't let you be Palmless. Now, you have to contact them and get a RMA number, and pack the thing up and send it in. When they get it, they have to check to see if they think it's defective, and if it is they send you a replacement that will likely be a refurbished unit (unless the thing is too new for any refurbs to be sitting around).

How about when every time a new device came out, Palm made an upgrade to give the older units the same capability? I bought a "Palm III" 2MB/IR upgrade card for my PalmPilot Personal shortly after the Palm III came out because 1MB just wasn't quite enough. Imagine if they did that now--you could have a PalmPilot Personal with a 124-MHz processor, OS 5, and 32 MB of RAM. And probably a SD slot, since that could be built into an upgrade card like the IR transceiver was. (No USB connector or color screen, though.)

It was those ideas (replace first and ask questions later, allow older units to be easily upgraded) that really helped build customer satisfaction and loyalty--even beyond the charms of the Palm OS itself. Of all the Palm Powered PDAs I've had (Pilot 1000, Palm Personal, Visor Deluxe, Palm m105, Palm m125, and Tungsten E), ONLY ONE (the E) has ever had a defect of any kind, so I'm willing to let the battery problem slide. A first-time buyer, though, would probably look to Sony pretty quickly. And someone like you, who can't easily exchange the defective handheld and would have to "go without" until Palm ships a replacement, might not be willing to take a chance again.

Palm does need to pay closer attention to quality.

[Techsan]

Does anyone know if it is a good idea to let your battery run down most of the way before recharging, or place it on the charger every day to keep it full? I've just upgraded from a Handspring Platinum that uses AAA batteries, so I'm not used to the rechargable option yet.

[Telyx]

From what I've always read, LiIon batteries do best when charged frequently rather than deeply. I top mine off every evening.

[nlinecomputers]

I just got my unit a few days ago. How long should the battery last? Mine is used up in only a couple hours of use. Is that normal for this unit?

[rick417]

I am new to Palm handhelds and just bought the T/E for my wife. I have a Palm OS PDA/GPS made by Garmin that uses the hi-res screen. Don't know about all the factors involved, but my Garmin device has short battery life issues as well. Dimming the screen brightness adds significant battery life to the unit while it is being used away from the charger. I know this does not address the problems being reported about the battery draining while switched off, but it may help lengthen battery life while in use if you can adjust to a dim screen.

[nlinecomputers]

I am at full dimm now which is still quite bright. Any hacks to further dim the screen?

[rick417]

You may want to give Energy Dimmer a try-out. It's available at Palmgear and probably others.

http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&sid=9ACCCBCA-38EB-4741-A03B370B9F835E5B&prodID=28880

I use it on my other PDA but have not tried it on the T/E yet...will have to wait until I get off work tonight to check it out. On my iQue, it gave me a better range for the brightness display setting, so it may do that on the T/E as well. Plus the profiles feature is nice, but I don't think profiles are supported in the trial version...or at least it won't let you save your profiles.

[rick417]

I just loaded Energy Dimmer on the T/E, and it gives a much broader range of screen brightness settings from full off to 100%. Maybe this will address some of the battery drain issues while being used away from the power supply.

[CPSethGT]

Man, I'm getting nervous. I just switched from a Zire 71 (I like the E better). My E hasn't come yet, but I'm really hoping it doesn't have a problem. I bought it from the Palm store - does that mean I have to go through that long process to get it replaced if it does have a problem?

Do you think maybe they worked on the problem? I just ordered it today....