Database Users

Why Pocket PC generally consumes more battery than others?

I have always wondered why? As the battery issue has constantly become the one embarrasing issue for my Xda II.
Let's compare Xda II and Sony Ericsson P900 ...
Xda II uses LiPolymer 1200mAh, 64k color with 240x320pixels.
Whereas SE P900 uses LiPolymer 1260mAh, 64k color with 208x320pixels.
So, SE P900 has the extra 60mAh, and a wee bitty smaller screen ... but the myth remains that Xda II (or othe Pocket PCs) consumes much more power?? Why is that? Can someone throw some lights why is this so? I would really like to know.

well this is unfair.. comparing xdaII's battery time with something like p900.. hardware specifications are billion years apart :lol:
xdaII has 400mhz processor while p900 has 150mhz(in fact less than that)

I think the official Sony Ericsson score is 156mhz.
Ive owned both a P900 and XDA2, and i think the reason why the XDA consumes more power is because of it being a more powerful unit clockspeed and memory wise, it has a larger better quality screen with a more powerful backlight. The Bluetooth strength is much more powerful reliable ( even though its still 10m ), the speaker is louder, it has a better quality camera and can run more CPU intensive apps which in turn require more battery power.
The XDA2 is always on too, it has no startup like the P900 which is a phone. It has to warm up each time you switch it on. The XDA2 doesnt, it simply flicks on instantly the moment you hit the power button.

dimming the back light setting while on battery to close to the dimmest setting, your battery life will dramatically improve, and the backlight is bright enough in this setting not to make you squint.
I do this all of the time, as I think it is by default too bright anyhow....

One reason why the Pocket PC consumes more power than a regular cell phone is that Pocket PC owners usually use their Pocket PCs more often than regular cell phone owners use their phone. This is because the Pocket PC has a lot more uses than a regular cell phone. We constantly switch on our Pocket PCs to look at our schedule, to check our lists, to listen to music, to watch videos, to read e-books, to play games, to write notes, to surf web sites, to use the calculator, to record voice messages, or simply to look cool. In contrast, regular cell phone owners usually just use their phones to make or answer phone calls and send text messages.

Jargon said:
One reason why the Pocket PC consumes more power than a regular cell phone is that Pocket PC owners usually use their Pocket PCs more often than regular cell phone owners use their phone. This is because the Pocket PC has a lot more uses than a regular cell phone. We constantly switch on our Pocket PCs to look at our schedule, to check our lists, to listen to music, to watch videos, to read e-books, to play games, to write notes, to surf web sites, to use the calculator, to record voice messages, or simply to look cool. In contrast, regular cell phone owners usually just use their phones to make or answer phone calls and send text messages.
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You got a point :wink:

No, I'm comparing Xda II with P900 & Treo 600 (PDA + Phone) whose batteries last much longer than Xda II, not normal phones.
It makes sense that the CPU clockspeed cause the unit to be power hungry. Any indication there will be any battery with higher capacity for the Xda II?

..
The P900 is _not_ a PDA phone, it's a phone 19 year olds buy to look techy. It's a phone first, PDA (if at all) second. XDAs and the like are PDAs first, phone's second. In my opinion, anyway

Yeah, the P900 is a phone with some basic PDA features. The XDA II is a PDA with phone features. Actually, the XDA II is a general-purpose pocket-sized computer. It's even much more powerful and has more total memory and storage space than my first desktop PC (a 33-MHz i486 PC with 4-MB RAM and 130-MB hard disk).

The reason i sold my P900 and got a XDA2 was because i realised it really wasnt a PDA at all - i wanted a PDA. Sorry to all P900 owners, but the P900 is in no way a PDA, its simply a powerful phone with PDA like features - but that doesnt make it a PDA.
Another reason why the XDA2 would use more power than phones is the RAM, more RAM means more power - especially with the XDA2's storage being volatile memory.

I wonder if the new ROM has any new battery management features where it will clock down the processor speed when the device goes to sleep, and clock back up when it's in use ?

I've seen some posts about certain third-party programs (Battery Pack, etc.) that might be draining the battery quickly.

XDA II Battery Life
I have just upgraded to the O2 Asia 1.60WWE ROM, and have found a deterioration in the already short battery life of the XDA II. However, I have a second battery and can live with that limitation. It is a PDA after all.
More significant is the drastic shortening of the battery life of my Bluetooth Headset, a Sony Ericsson HBH-20. I used to get 2 - 3 days of life from it, but after the upgrade I get about 6 hours!! :x
It suspect the Bluetooth in the new ROM is much more active than the earlier 1.52 version and this constant querying of the headset by the phone shortens its life. I can't have a spare battery for the headset, so it is a right proper pain.
I have tried the headset with another BT phone, and I still get 3 days so it is not a dead headset battery.
Anyone else find this problem??
PS Towa's latest BT Tools can't help as in the auto power down mode the headset refuses to wake up when a call is received.

XDA II Battery Life
I have just upgraded to the O2 Asia 1.60WWE ROM, and have found a deterioration in the already short battery life of the XDA II. However, I have a second battery and can live with that limitation. It is a PDA after all.
More significant is the drastic shortening of the battery life of my Bluetooth Headset, a Sony Ericsson HBH-20. I used to get 2 - 3 days of life from it, but after the upgrade I get about 6 hours!! :x
It suspect the Bluetooth in the new ROM is much more active than the earlier 1.52 version and this constant querying of the headset by the phone shortens its life. I can't have a spare battery for the headset, so it is a right proper pain.
I have tried the headset with another BT phone, and I still get 3 days so it is not a dead headset battery.
Anyone else find this problem??
PS Towa's latest BT Tools can't help as in the auto power down mode the headset refuses to wake up when a call is received.

Short battery life on HTC, is this what you are seeing?

I've read a few posts on HTC Wizard battery life and I'm trying to quantify what I'm seeing (which is hard given varying conditions under which the device can be used and what features are active but I'll attempt that here). I'd really like to hear what other pepole are experiencing under similar conditoins.
I’m getting about two days worth of battery life before the unit is warning that the device needs to be recharged. Here’s what I’ve done with it over the past 2 days:
· 47 minutes time spent using the phone. I get the full 4 signal bars just about everywhere I go, including and the office and at home. I have not used the speakerphone at all.
· About 1 hour of PDA use
· Bluetooth and WiFi have been off. There was no GPRS use during this time.
· The screen brightness is set to the lowest level possible, one setting above the backlight being completely off.
· When on battery power, the backlight automatically shuts itself off after 30 seconds and the device turns itself off completely after one minute.
· I’m running Windows Mobile 5.0
The battery currently reads 18% after 2 days.
Is this in line with what other people are seeing?

I used to drain my wizard to about 50-60% in one day (from morning to evening), when I still let it go to standby, so that seems about right. It goes down a bit faster now because I always leave it on (just let the backlight go off of course) so agile messenger will stay online...
I'm pretty sure this battery life is pretty good for a pda phone though, you can't compare this to a regular phone.
I always connect it to the charger at night so it's no problem for me, and I bring a very small usb cable (like 15 cm) when I don't sleep at home. Usually there's an opportunity to connect the wizard to a computer somewhere so it'll charge, the computer doesn't need to recognize the wizard for that.

I need to charge my Wizard evry night, if it's friday with party etc alot of calls i need to have my samsung d600 with me becuase the qtek goes empty around 23.oo :/

Just done a typical "intensive" day, and I'm really pleased of that thing. Here's what I've done:
~50 min on the phone
~2h30 MP3 playing with TCPMP, LCD off of course
~30min e-mail and internet through wireless
obviously a bit more PDA use, cause uptime meter says 4h39 :wink:
I still have 54% battery at the moment.
Useful to mention, forgot to turn off wireless after browsing, so it stayed on for like 1hr with device off, and that still drains juice.
Backlight is set at the middle.
Once again, my BA would be dead by now. I had ~4h PDA use at standard clock settings, 2hr with wireless on. The Wizard just doubles both these figures. I definitely understand why they've dropped that guzzling XScale... wish there could be an optimised version of TCPMP soon though, video playback is the only thing where i see a real difference in speed, haven't managed to have a video playing smooth without hangups yet.
Skype doesn't run well, but it didn't either with the BA without overclocking it at the maximum it would hold, giving a stunning 1h30 battery life (with wireless on obviously). The device was really hot while doing this, and the standard charger would not give enough current even to power the device, battery was still going down when connected. Had to use a 2A Axim adapter to charge while skyping :shock:
So definitively a GREAT improvement.

I used my MDA Vario the other day and it went down to 18% in approx 4 1/2 hours.
Screen was at max brightness and on for the whole time,
Tom Tom running.
Bluetooth on
About what I'd expect. I don't think my Treo 650 would be much better in similar circumstances.

I just updated the other thread about the battery that up till now its been fine but two days ago the dreaded issue started with me too
I've just lost 20% in 3 hours without doing anything (its been off since)

AKU2 rom gives a definite improvement, I can have 85% left after a day of normal use.

meschle said:
AKU2 rom gives a definite improvement, I can have 85% left after a day of normal use.
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Which AKU2 rom. T mobile hasn't released one for my phone yet, to my knowledge.

The qtek rom, many vario users are using this rom out of frustration for t-mobile not releasing theirs.

meschle said:
The qtek rom, many vario users are using this rom out of frustration for t-mobile not releasing theirs.
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Thanks

Hey if you upgrade the ROM you should run some tests before installing any applications. It would be a definite advantage to make sure it's not some buggy app that's causing your battery drain.

agreed... I think that is my issue too that it could be a memory leak somewhere in one of the programs
can only put it down to registrywizard, uptime, or resco, the latter i doubt very much though

I upgraded my vario to the newest imate rom and would totally recommend doing so.. my battery life is about double what it used to be now (may have installed something dodgy that was draining it though)
Its also much faster in operation and seems to be a lot more stable too (I suffered a lot from the random reboot problem previously)

what did you upgrade from?
and what rom version are you running? the ones on the ftp for kjam are numbered a bit strange and can be confusing

The numbers are confusing for me as a noob to WM5/wizard.
What is the difference between the Qtek & the Imate roms?

kilrah said:
... Useful to mention, forgot to turn off wireless after browsing, so it stayed on for like 1hr with device off, and that still drains juice.
Backlight is set at the middle. ...
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WiFi doesn't drain battery when the device is turned off, cause the WiFi module will also be turned off automatically - just test it: leave WiFi on and press the power button - after a few hours look at the effect on the battery... :wink:
I usually recharge my Vario every 3-4 days. Although I don't use WiFi and I also don't make many long calls I usually use GPRS always on to receive my mails. I also use BT quite often to listen to music over my A2DP headset - maybe one hour per day on average...
So there must be something wrong with the devices of some of the people posting here... :!:

Battery????

Hey, my S200 shows unusual battery drainage behaviour. it seems like if the battery empties to fast. I have the newest DOPOD rom and some programs like Pocket plus, diary and weather running.
Let me give you an example, If I have just finished charing the device and it displays a battery charge of 100% I unplug it and 1 minute later it goes down by 1% to 99 - an additional minute and the battery meter displays 98. By the end of the day i seem to have a charge of maybe 40% while using the device for maybe 1 hour intensly and the rest just phone standby with maybe 2 calls of 2 min avrg length.
On top i noticed that the left side of the device gets a littel warm when I am using the device extensively or charging it. Is that also normal?
Whats the deal with my device? i dont know a whole lot about pda's. Is that a normal power consumption?
How can I measure if my device performs well in terms of CPU speed because I have the feeling it also runs slow.
Thanks a lot

Similar to my S200. When I tried to use S200 with my old O2 XDA mini's battery, everything is OK. Battery of S200 has problem ???

I am not sure ? anyone has experience ?

MDA Pro - Phone/Radio cutout at 70% battery

First off, I have seen many threads on the MDA PRO (and all its variants) cutting out at high battery power levels and from what I can see there doesn't seem to be any concrete resolution. But here is my situation.
I bought a new sealed MDA Pro and immedialy flasshed to the latest T-Mobile rom. Thats where the problems began. I seem to be plagued by the MDA cutoff at 60-70% problem.
The way it manifests is the radion loses signal and cannot locate the carrier at or below 70%. At this stage a reset of the device and it reboots but as soon as you use the phone or wifi it crashes .. black screen.
As with others if I connect the USB cable and charge by PC or mains everything returns to normal. Not a very mobile solution!!
I have tried every variant of ROM out there and the problem remains. I have charged the battery for 16 hours etc etc. I have tried phone in Auto, GSM modes .. same problem :!:
The only thing I haven't done yet is buy a new battery and hence my post.
Will the purchase of a new battery solve the problem? As with other threads it would seem this came along with the latest roms. Does flashing a ROM when the battery is less than fully charged cause problems?
On a final note, if after the radio loses signal it is turned off I have been able to run the device down to 20% running videos and MP3. Is this a probem with radio levels above1.09.00 (Just thinking out loud)
HELP: This device is perfect for my daily use and having purchased a less than mobile device I am now close to getting rid .. but I dont want to
Any advice greatly appreciated... expecially from those who have fixed the problem.

I had this problem and a new battery fixed it.

Thanks. Look slike a new battery

There seems to be different speculations on what causes the battery problem on the Universal: the power charge cable quality theory, one idea about the battery level stored inside the batter which some claimed to registry heck could change and another idea about the battery 500 charges limitations.
But if yours is brand new, then none of the above applies... So the refresh to a new Rom definately must have something to do with it. Wonder anybody who had bought a new replacement battery after the power drop had done another rom refresh and whether the same problem returns?
I have just bought a replacement battery (1800m Ah at standard size by MoMax which gives me another 30% more power everyday which is something good I got from paying for a new battery) yesterday to change the old one out for the same reason. Looks like until someone found the real cause, I am keeping the old one for my next rom refresh...

New Battery ... problem resolved.

how many hours your wifi lasts ,mine drains too fast. any solutions to that?

how many hours your wifi lasts ,mine drains too fast. any solutions to that?
i just happened to use iphone 2g wifi safari browser (my friends),surfing was cool but i noticed that it hardly drains any battery , coming back to prophet opera surfing is sort of ok but wifi uses alot of battery on prophet ,may be due to incorrect drivers or dll ,so i was just wondering do your prophets with wifi last too little ,roughly how much time before you prophet resets suddenly ,mine some times seemed to reset at 40% battery all of a sudden on a skype call over wifi or while using it as a webcam over wifi, also it become alot heated too.
p.s.- i have set brightnes to minimum and 10 seconds and cleaned up startup forlder exept wifiinit.

WiFi on the Prophet will drain more battery than more recent devices.
The hardware is old, the battery is quite small, and in general, the device isn't that efficient...
To increase time, try a different radio ROM, and possibly a new battery.

There is a setting for WiFi power mode in Settings->Connection->Wifi (At least its in the ROM I have now and in the original)
Unfortunately though it may save battery the lower setting cuts the range significantly, it some cases you would have to be in the same room as the router...

i also used that setting ,the only part i want from this all i want to get solved is that my battery still discharges while a charger is being put on and wifi is switched on with skype or opera or webcam operating.
to begin with --*****i seriously want to solve the part that battery should not discharge while charger is being put on while using wifi ,because that means negative charging****.
in all the wifi sessions i observed that handset would reset around 40 minutes of use with skype or webcam or rdp or opera with wifi also it got hot, then i had to take off battery sometimes to switch it on later after cooling.
also if anyone of you have used wifi on wm5 i needed to know how long did wm5 wifi usage battery lasted,and did the battery get discharged while wifi used and charger plugged in this is just to clear my doubts that wm5 was able to use wifi much longer that wm6 or are they the same.
i use Prophet_S4V.19701.01_Clean rom most of the times