I just bought myself a new Zire 71. I ran it at the shop to see that it works.
When I came home I synced my stuff to the new palm and then went it to charge for the night (for about 5-6 hours).

When I woke up, ZLauncher was showing 100% as it should and so I took the Zire to work. However, while reading an ebook in the train for about 90 minutes the ZLauncher showed 80% charge. After another hour or so of use it drained to 60% and right now (top 3 hours of use) it went down to 52%.

Half the time I read an ebook, the other time I played a few games (with sound, but nothing too overhelming).

Now I am worried, is the battery messed up? Did I not charge the Zire enough? Or is it normal for it to go to 50% (or lower) that quick and then it holds it? :(

Thanks

That might be about right. It depends on what app's you are running as well as your backlight usage.

I hear that 3rd party launchers can drain the battery faster that the default Palm launcher. That said, I use SilverScreen 3 and realize about those same battery draining times.

To save battery life, you can turn off beam-receive and turn off the backlight, or turn it down to a still-usuable-but-not-full-powered level.

I keep my T|T well-charged, but when I travel, I have a travel charger to keep it fresh. I think those benchmark times they give us for battery life are based on whether we just use the basic PIM functions for 1/2 hr. a day with the backlight off. If we have the light on and are using app's constantly for any length of time, we will realize that battery draining that you're experiencing.

The POL9A Experience.

I have a sony sj22, and while it doesn't have sound or as fast a processor- it does have hires screen (the biggest battery drainer).

If you lose 20% of your battery in 90 mins then there MAY be something wrong. However, check to make sure the brightness wasn't All the way up (unnecessary and wasteful). I use the default launcher cause I like it, the small battery advantages are nice too :)

try it for a few more days, and if it doesn't get better return it asap. Crappy battery life will drive u insane, which is why I went w/ Palm instead of ppc.

Brightness is the biggest battery eater. Have a look at this (http://www.pocket-gizmos.com/chart.shtml) (outdated) webpage which compares different PDAs using high and low brightness settings.

I usually have my brightness set to the lowest 1/4 of the scale.