It's been a couple of days.

Anyone knows more about the battery life now?


Thank you!

Can't really comment yet other than to say mine has never shown the battery as full. It has been on & off the PC like a fiddler's elbow trying to get software & dictionaries to work, pointlessly...
I am now leaving it for a most of Saturday with a different mains charger to see what happens as I will be busy this weekend.

I've posted a few threads since I received my Reader last Thursday, 10/9. I've had horrible battery life thus far. I don't know if it's the "breaking in period" or what. (I'm beginning to think it's the 'or what')

As I wrote in another thread about problems with the battery; today I used it primarily for reading. 3 hours then the battery was kaput! After some issues again, and some frantic discussion here :mrrox:and on iRex forum, I was able to get it up and running (thought it was dead!).
Currently,
It has been on - NOT USED, just on - for the last 4 hours. I am down to one bar.
4 bars lasted 15"
3 bars lasted 90"
2 bars lasted 100"
1 bar lasted .... I don't know yet, it's been going for 45" so far.
(I'll update the post tomorrow and give a final reading on how long it lasted.)

Given the times above, I do not see this Reader lasting any longer than 6 hours and again, that IS NOT BEING USED. It is just sitting here on my desk while I work on my computer.

This cannot possibly be normal. If so, as an expensive devise, this will not do. I easily spend 10-12+ hours reading journals and papers every day. If I have to carry the briefcase of papers with me as a 'backup', what good is this Reader?

That said, I think my Reader might have some problems that are not common with other owners of the DR1000S, which may be contributing to the very short battery life. Otherwise, I do enjoy using (what little I have) this Reader, and it is rather wonderful!

How is everyone else's battery life holding up?
CJP

Thank you, CJP, for the detailed benchmark.
Irex should PAY early adopters for all the testing & frustration.



How is everyone else's battery life holding up?
CJP



Based on other posts, I suspect that the reader works about 4 hours
with regular page turns.

This is NOT acceptable, given that the screen does not use power once
a page is shown.

Take the smartphone/PDA as an example, we turn it on, draw a page,
suspend it. If it takes a while to finish this page, the device
remains in power-saving suspend state. My smartphone can work in
standby mode for 7 days (with GSM on).

I don't know why it is so difficult for them to implement this "suspend"
feature in the initial product release. As a very basic example, they can
support a "reading profile" which just does "on-display-suspend".

Hanlin v9, for example, weighing just 320g (with battery), has a much
much longer battery life.

Another problem is the boot time. EEE PC 901, with a modified boot loader
from Intel engineers, can boot the Linux system in 5 seconds. Irex has
a less powerful CPU, so, how about 15 seconds?

I still believe in Irex with their wonderful hardware. It is the software
that causes so much trouble.

With the coming of Plastic Logic Reader, the only idea I have for Irex is
to ask their system engineers to work harder and get some experts.

If they can't, release their source code, so that someone else can
help.

Again, after all the time charging-recharging (I've spent more time doing that or tied to an adapter to charge it than I ever have using it!) here's the latest on battery life.

After a full charge AND NOT USING IT - AT ALL. I'll repeat, NOT. AT. ALL.

4 bars lasted 15" (6:05-6:20pm)
3 bars lasted 90" (6:20-7:50pm)
2 bars lasted 100" (7:50-9:30pm)
1 bar lasted 80" (9:30-10:50pm)
0 bar lasted 35" (10:50-11:25pm)

At 11:25 the message displayed, "The battery is almost empty. Connect to a power source as soon as possible to begin charging."

The flashing orange light turned red and then at 11:40 the DR1000S shut down.

So, NOT USING IT the battery life (after a few full cycled charge-recharges) is ~5 1/2 hours.

This just cannot be right. What devise runs out of power - doing nothing, after less than 6 hours???

So, by these calculations and by simply reading PDF's today, I can only expect it to hold a charge for a few hours? Someone tell me you are getting much m-u-c-h longer battery times than I am.

If this is all the DR1000S is capable of, then it is pretty useless even for all its great qualities of a full size PDF reader.
CJP

Hi CJP.
Welcome on board.

I see you are new here (By looking at your join date! There is nothing wrong with your posts ;-) ).
If you search the archives for discussions dating to the iRex *Iliad* release you will be much less surprised that the new reader from iRex does not deliver the promised battery life and other features (like, for example, stylus calibration issue on iLiad) you might expect.
Like the thread here http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7093
By the way, the promised firmware update did come eventually, but it turned out the hardware itself did not support any dramatic battery consumptiom improvement
Search forward from here http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=99&order=desc&page=27

And as I see the history to repeat itself here, I would not recommand to you to hold your breath for a firmware update that would miraculously dramaticaly improve battery life ...

So you got about 5 1/2 hours, as I had posted from my own experience in the other thread. Seems to be the ballpark figure then.

As I also mentioned, as well as iRex did on their forum's FAQ, power management is not really implemented yet. That means that the reader itself (CPU and all) runs at full power for those 5 1/2 hours REGARDLESS OF YOUR USAGE. The screen technology alone plays very little into that.

No surprise there. You are buying a product that is the bleeding edge of ebook technology, from a fairly small company (compared to Sony for instance) that has a long history of struggling to meet their user's expectation (see the whole Iliad forum) But they also DID work on their code and improved things after a while.

I realistically hope for a USAGE time extension (via CPU underclocking etc.) to about 8 hours so it gets me through a normal working day. Once the advance power management is implemented, it will be possible to quickly turn it "on" and "off" while greatly extending the battery life i.e. "days".

(As happens with Sony reader when you use the sliding button at the top. This reader also, when completely shut down via a special menu, takes quite a while to start up. And I had some battery indicator issues with it as well, noticeably shorter than Sony claimed, and their own firmware update improved things too.)

But it's probably going to be a while before they release the firmware with these improvements (and many more) It's a work in progress and will require some patience on our part. Or a request for a refund. I'm not making excuses for iRex, their biggest blunder is once again making big promises that they will be hard pressed to live up to (aka marketing) and rushing a product to market before it has matured sufficiently.

I made this purchase knowing the above full well, and the trade-off is worth it to me. I'm honestly sorry if you got into this unaware of any of this.

As far as FlyingTablet's comment goes:
Those comparisons are not realistic. No cellphone can display full PDF files in a useable manner. Cellphone tech has a billion-dollar industry behind it with legions of engineers that have been squeezing out every bit of battery life for years. Recently a Newsweek editorial complained about how it's not possible to get through a day using the fancy iPhone without recharging, a common problem with the new generation of powerful PDA/phones.

Also, as a longtime Linux user, I'm very familiar with the longtime struggle to get APM to work properly on most laptops. Open Source is not a magic solution (esp. if the hardware makers aren't supportive) Speaking of laptops, which ones get 5 1/2 hours of usage? Especially without a big "Extended" battery... my EEE PC certainly doesn't (and the screen is tiny)

I have yet to see a true Hanlin V9 (the big one) early adopters review like ours here, so claims of their better battery life are at this point every bit as much hype as iRex's, assuming it will even offer the same level of actual performance. Plastic Logic is another bit of pure speculation at this point. (I'm really looking forward to our forum members getting their hands on all this cool new technology!)

As I wrote in another thread about problems with the battery; today I used it primarily for reading. 3 hours then the battery was kaput! After some issues again, and some frantic discussion here :mrrox:and on iRex forum, I was able to get it up and running (thought it was dead!).
Currently,
It has been on - NOT USED, just on - for the last 4 hours. I am down to one bar.
4 bars lasted 15"
3 bars lasted 90"
2 bars lasted 100"
1 bar lasted .... I don't know yet, it's been going for 45" so far.
(I'll update the post tomorrow and give a final reading on how long it lasted.)


Hi CJP,

I was very confused by your posts until I realised that you're using the incorrect symbol for minutes. 15" means 15 seconds - if (as I assume) you mean 15 minutes you should write 15'.

5 1/2 hours ? wow, I can't believe it! If that's really so, I'll have to cancel my order. I've had iLiad and it lasts at least 12 hours...this is more than frustrating!

Hi CJP,

I was very confused by your posts until I realised that you're using the incorrect symbol for minutes. 15" means 15 seconds - if (as I assume) you mean 15 minutes you should write 15'.

Funny! In the US, " is minutes. But you hightlighted the point that I should be more aware that this forum is international, thus to avoid confusion, it would have been more appropriate just to write out "minutes."

It is a good thing to keep in mind. :thanks:

Funny! In the US, " is minutes. But you hightlighted the point that I should be more aware that this forum is international, thus to avoid confusion, it would have been more appropriate just to write out "minutes."

In what notation? Using sexagesimal notation minutes is notated with ' and seconds with ''. From Wikipedia:

Modern time separates each position by a colon or point. For example, the time might be 10:25:59 (10 hours 25 minutes 59 seconds). Angles use similar notation. For example, an angle might be 10°25'59" (10 degrees 25 minutes 59 seconds). In both cases, only minutes and seconds use sexagesimal notation — angular degrees can be larger than 59 (one rotation around a circle is 360°, two rotations are 720°, etc.), and both time and angles use decimal fractions of a second.


I'm in the US and have always seen 1 tick to notate minutes. As said about these notations are not often used... most common usage is in specifying geographical locations.

BOb

Allovertheglobe, I have been very grateful for your continued discussion. First, I really am so enamored with the DR1000S. Very much. However, it is true that I was lead to believe (press releases?) that the Reader could go for at least a full day, which would have been great. Disappointed is an understatment in the realization that most likely nothing is wrong with my DR1000S, that's all it is really capable of.

This very short battery life really is problematic for me. If you don't mind giving me a little advice, I'd appreciate knowing what you think if I returned the DR1000S (just the thought makes me sad!) to exchange it for the iLiad Book Edition. (I have no real use for WiFi etc. I am connected either at home or at the university, so what I want is a PDF reader, that will work for at least a full day without needing to be charged.)
What are your thoughts?

Anyone else who has an iLiad to use for academic work (PDF journals) please feel free to send along your input too.

That said, you present a fair picture of iRex and their quest to develop the newest technology. I'm not angry or anything, but had higher hopes for a great deal of money spent. I know that I am committed to finding a PDF reader (no time for anything else to read!) and so any contributions about DR1000S vs. iLiad would be appreciated.
Again, many thanks for your interest and help.
CJP

This just cannot be right. What devise runs out of power - doing nothing, after less than 6 hours???


It is probably that in actual use you would get the same usage out of it. Since the eInk screen uses very little power, and only needed to display a page change. The bulk of the power is being used keeping the CPU running.

BOb

Hi,

This does not sound very good. The original iLiad started with 4 hours as well. With all powersaving and what not, finally they reached lousy 12 hours!
My PRS 505 (which I believe has a crap battery) lasts for 2-3 weeks. Irrespective of that it is on or off, how many page turns do you make.

And also what you want to do with the iRex is to scribble for a full day as a minimum. When scribbling obviously powersaving makes absolutely no sense. So this means even if they implement power saving you are not going to get more than 5 hours scribbling.

My view is that do not believe that you ever going to get the 24 hours. I'm not going to buy this reader in the current state. All coputers should be able to go to stand-by, this is a standard.

I recommended from the very beginning: put in a huge battery if you can not implement power saving, like 10400mAh for EEE PC, but they said no because the device would be too heavy! What's the point with a light device that is useless? Rather be heavy but usable. For me 750 g would be still light in case of an A4 device, but they know better!

Im very disappointed iRex again messed it up with battery issue. You remember all the discussion about the iLiad?

I just can't believe they did it again. Glad I didnt buy one.

iRex, get this suspend thing on the way, now!

Gogolo

iRex, get this suspend thing on the way, now!


A "suspend" feature isn't going to help with "continuous use" battery life, which appears to be around 5-6h at present. That's worse than even the iLiad was :(.

A "suspend" feature isn't going to help with "continuous use" battery life, which appears to be around 5-6h at present. That's worse than even the iLiad was :(.

For device with such a big screen, you expect readers to stay on a page
for quite some seconds, or even minutes.
So the suspend feature can be like this (a very very simple one):

display a page;
wait for 2-3 seconds (configurable);
go to suspend mode; (the screen REMAINS THE SAME!)
if a button is pressed, wake up and turn to another page.

You'r right. This will be the fact when scribbling. It raises my hackles (had to translate this from german). :blink:

Gogolo

You'r right. This will be the fact when scribbling. It raises my hackles (had to translate this from german). :blink:

Gogolo

If you are scribbling all day, it's like talking on your cellphone all day.
You get 4-6 hours talk time. Better get a large battery. :)
Or you can also go get some e-paper that is designed for scribbling.

The key feature of this device is "reading". That's why it is called
"Irex digital reader", not "Irex digital scribbler".
All other features are just add-ons and come at a price.

Okay, but for now the device runs out of battery after 5 hours doing nothing.

I hope they fix the suspend fast...

Gogolo

Don't hold your breath.

:D I didnt buy one yet...

Gogolo

What suprised me is not that they didn't implement suspend in the first place, but the fact that they let cpu run 100% speed all the time. They experienced from iLiad what difference CPU throttling makes on battery life, but they didn't implement it. I guess they could easily achieve 10-15 hours with throttling only. 5 hours are just ridicuous!

5 1/2 hours ? wow, I can't believe it! If that's really so, I'll have to cancel my order. I've had iLiad and it lasts at least 12 hours...this is more than frustrating!

Do you read any PDF's on your iLiad? (Academic journal PDFs).
If indeed the DR1000s battery life is merely ~3-5 hours to simply read - digital reading is all I really need - very little writing, then I am trying to determine that if iRex says this is "normal" then should I go with the iLiad?
CJP

I read a lot of journals on my iLiad. Quite nice, although I use a lot of landscape mode and there sometimes I miss the overview, especially when having diagrams, footnotes etc. It's o.k., but I think the DR1000 will be a lot better for this purpose.

But this battery life sucks. I can't believe it. :smack:

Gogolo

Do you read any PDF's on your iLiad? (Academic journal PDFs).
If indeed the DR1000s battery life is merely ~3-5 hours to simply read - digital reading is all I really need - very little writing, then I am trying to determine that if iRex says this is "normal" then should I go with the iLiad?
CJP
yes, i read mostly academic papers on iLiad. If you're considering to switch to iLiad, you should be aware that 8.1 vs. 10.2 inches are huge difference. Reading academic papers on 8.1 inch screen is certainly ok, but that's not as good as reading printed A4 papers. i thought 10.2 inch would get us closer to the real size A4.

Do you read any PDF's on your iLiad? (Academic journal PDFs).
If indeed the DR1000s battery life is merely ~3-5 hours to simply read - digital reading is all I really need - very little writing, then I am trying to determine that if iRex says this is "normal" then should I go with the iLiad?
CJP
Yes, I read journal articles in PDF form on my iLiad frequently. It works well, though multi-column pages are still kind of annoying. I have good vision, so I usually read in portrait mode, zoom to eliminate margins, and use the "continuous" page advance. If the text is too small, I switch to landscape mode. You might want to try taking a journal page and photocopying it to different sizes, and looking at it through an A5 window cut in a piece of paper or cardboard, to get an idea of what the screen will look like.

I have the earlier model (before the larger battery was added) and I get 8-10 hours of note-taking per charge, or probably about 12 hours of reading with no stylus use.

Before I tunr into bashing Irex :
Can someone please measure the battery life when the Wacom pad is disabled ?!

Thank you

Before I tunr into bashing Irex :
Can someone please measure the battery life when the Wacom pad is disabled ?!
Thank you

I had mine turned off, same battery life. Which makes sense: In iRex's FAQ they say that at least that part is already implemented in the current firmware: it will automatically shut down IO devices not in use after a while.

But no CPU throttling, suspend to RAM etc. yet. They clearly state that the new hardware is much better at power-saving than the Iliad. They just haven't programmed in the functionality. The Iliad started off with (very) poor battery life as well, and not much hardware support, and they still managed to squeeze out ~12 hours of running time in the end, according to one post here.

If the Reader is at the same point, considering it's more powerful (and thus powerhungry), the running time (battery) is already better than the Iliad.

Hopefully IRex won't take a year or more to get the firmware to the maturity the Iliad has at this point... :deadhorse:

They clearly state that the new hardware is much better at power-saving than the Iliad. They just haven't programmed in the functionality.


Unfortunately I can not trust iRex with that. I saw the same promises from iRex for the iLiad, and even the claimed 15h battery life were/are a bit less for a device that takes nearly a minute to boot up.

If the DR had 12-15h of battery power out of the box, I could live with that for now and hope for later firmware revisions to improve that, but 3-4 h of usage is a joke to me. Serious. My IBM tablet PC can be used for about 6-7 h if I only use it for reading and scribbling PDF with minimum back-light. Sure, it is heavier and a bit bigger and no e-ink, but... ?!:blink:

Unfortunately I can not trust iRex with that. I saw the same promises from iRex for the iLiad, and even the claimed 15h battery life were/are a bit less for a device that takes nearly a minute to boot up.



I think they must have already got lessons from Iliad. And in the FAQ, they
mentioned DR1000 with hardware support for power management.
Theoretically, battery life should be long if it is used for just reading.
Just draw a page and suspend, that's it.

It seems that they DO care about battery life. It's just they haven't
got it right. I do hope battery life is on top of their todo list.

The funny thing is in their FAQ, they never specifically mentioned the
battery life, claiming that "with suspend/hibernate mode, battery
is not a problem". In their tech spec, no battery life is mentioned either.
This makes me worried. Can they really make it run > 24 hours?
If so, when?

This thread certainly cooled down my will to buy this DR1000S. 3-5 hours of reading? Ok, it makes it useless as a portable device. But with this size, I think no one was really thinking about it's portability.

iRex made it clear this was a business product. I guess they think that "business" happens in offices, with a computer available where the DR can stay plugged.

It's still not that bad... Instead of reading in a monitor, you can read in a eink screen near it. Just don't think about seating in a couch or in bed for reading. :D

Well, in case you can read in bed for 4 hours without falling into sleep, than you can give it a run for its money :)
Kidding aside, I agree that with this size it is not the ideal mobile device. Reading A4 pdfs has to have a price though.

Well... If you can wait 4 hours to charge it (after a day using it) before going to bed... :D

BTW, how long is the cable?

IRex shop should add something like this (http://www.a-chainsaw.com/yamaha-inverter-generator-ef1000is-p-237.html) to the readers accessories and we finally have the runtime of the iLiad (at least) ;) .

IRex shop should add something like this (http://www.a-chainsaw.com/yamaha-inverter-generator-ef1000is-p-237.html) to the readers accessories and we finally have the runtime of the iLiad (at least) ;) .

More, if we just turn it on to charge. So 4 hours to charge, 4-5 hours to use de DR, more 4 to charge + 4-5 to use...

That would be 4+5+4+5+4+5=37 hours.

Although transporting 27lbs and refuelling it all the time might make it impractical. :rofl:

can a second source confirm the bad battery behaviour?

can a second source confirm the bad battery behaviour?
how about create a poll about battery life?

I share a similar concern/thread. I'll be a "business user" as they describe (aspire) to reach, but I've got to tell you the whole reason I would drop that much $$ is because I can cram even more work into my already chock full day. Having to "schedule battery stops" in my day is bogus.. Where's the productivity ????

can a second source confirm the bad battery behaviour?

I can. Using the reader to simply read PDF's = 3 hours.
Doing nothing = ~5 1/2 hours.

I have some threads going on here and on iRex forum with the full details.
I sent in a ticket at iRex today - but thus far, no word from them. It is as though they do not even exist - or perhaps I don't to them...
CJP

I can. Using the reader to simply read PDF's = 3 hours.
Doing nothing = ~5 1/2 hours.

I have some threads going on here and on iRex forum with the full details.
I sent in a ticket at iRex today - but thus far, no word from them. It is as though they do not even exist - or perhaps I don't to them...
CJP
3 hours when reading PDFs? If this is really so, I can no more convince myself investing $$. Any other people confirm this?

A fix for the problem of Mobipocket dictionaries is on its way, expected this or early next week.
Somehow this regression slipped our final firmware tests.
Updated software will be 1.01 with only the Mobipocket dictionary support addressed. We want to give you this update ASAP, but we need another internal test cycle to make sure nothing else has regressed.
We're sorry for this inconvenience.
When Karel is back, I expect more communication with you about the issues raised by all of you (mainly about battery life).
This just appeared on iRex forum

I can. Using the reader to simply read PDF's = 3 hours.
Doing nothing = ~5 1/2 hours.

I have some threads going on here and on iRex forum with the full details.
I sent in a ticket at iRex today - but thus far, no word from them. It is as though they do not even exist - or perhaps I don't to them...
CJP

3 hours? That's really a joke.

Oh well, I guess we have to look at this ereader as an eink monitor. Instead of reading a PDF in the Adobe Reader in my monitor, I would read it in the DR1000S. Both monitor and eread plugged to electricity.

Still better than reading in CRT or LCD monitors... But can't stop feeling disapointed with this device.

More, if we just turn it on to charge. So 4 hours to charge, 4-5 hours to use de DR, more 4 to charge + 4-5 to use...

That would be 4+5+4+5+4+5=37 hours.

Although transporting 27lbs and refuelling it all the time might make it impractical. :rofl:

26 hours ;)

26 hours ;)

Ooops, that's what happens when you type as you sleep. :D

As Zerospinboson has mentioned, irex are obviously aware of the issues and have made an initial response to some concerns on their website. I suspect a battery fix won't be immediate, but won't be long. Looks like the dictionary issue may be sorted soon though.

I get around 5.5 - 6 hrs with light use and about 3 hrs to fully charge at present.
Howard

As Zerospinboson has mentioned, irex are obviously aware of the issues and have made an initial response to some concerns on their website. I suspect a battery fix won't be immediate, but won't be long. Looks like the dictionary issue may be sorted soon though.

I get around 5.5 - 6 hrs with light use and about 3 hrs to fully charge at present.
Howard

Additional comments from the iRex forum:

Unfortunately the documentation was made before the final release was ready (because it needed to be translated). This means that there is mention of some functionality that didn't make it into the 1.0 release in favor of system stability.

Software releases of both Companion Software and Embedded Software will address this in the future, but I cannot promise features and dates for coming releases yet.

As for battery life: I expect Karel to come with an official response on that. I can say that an immediate improvement can be made in a bug-fix release. Also, we have some power management features working in a lab environment already, but we still need to iron out the wrinkles...

I really hope this isn't a re-run of the iLiad battery-life fiasco, where 20h+ lifetime was promised (printed on the box, no less), but even after numerous firmware updates, barely half that was ever achieved.

Me too. I had high hopes that they actually learned something from the iLiad, but it's beginning to look like a repeat.

I can understand them wanting to get a jump on announcing the product prior to Sony's event, but maybe they should have delayed shipping a few more weeks to get some additional features (like power management) in the release. This comment on the iRex forum from an employee:

"Also, we have some power management features working in a lab environment already, but we still need to iron out the wrinkles..." gives me some concern. Mentioning "some power management features" doesn't give me a lot of confidence. I'm beginning to wonder if they really have much done in the way of power management and that there battery life claims are once again not based on anything real, but pure speculation on what they might achieve.

It is certainly beginning to feel like a repeat of the iLiad fiasco.

I am sorry to say this, but i can confirm the battery lifetime here. I get about 5 hours of a charge. This sucks bigtime.

The firmware i had on my edemo device alstet about 8 hours, but i thought it was an older firmware than the current one.

I am trying to find out, whats going on tomorrow, when i am at the bookfair and will talk to iRex directly.

This just appeared on iRex forum

This is excellent news indeed. When I arrived home last night, the DR1000S was fully charged with 4 bars showing (been charging since about noon). I turned if OFF about 11:30pm and unplugged it, mainly to see if it would hold a charge overnight (in case the battery issue was something with my devise). At 5 am I turned it on - and there were 4 bars showing. Good! At 6 am, I was down to 3 bars - just sitting there. Ok- still not so great.

I'm not sure how long it will run before shutting itself off, but I am (happily) beginning to think that nothing is terribly wrong with my Reader, just lousy battery life (...and the few other bugs we've disussed.)

Thanks for passing along this news!

Originally Posted by Matthijs
A fix for the problem of Mobipocket dictionaries is on its way, expected this or early next week.
Somehow this regression slipped our final firmware tests.
Updated software will be 1.01 with only the Mobipocket dictionary support addressed. We want to give you this update ASAP, but we need another internal test cycle to make sure nothing else has regressed.
We're sorry for this inconvenience.
When Karel is back, I expect more communication with you about the issues raised by all of you (mainly about battery life).

This just appeared on iRex forum

What? Their technical people do not know about the battery life?
And they ask marketing people to answer?
interesting, isn't it?

This was posted on iRex's forum this morning from Matthijs, an iRex employee:

"This is definitely not all the DR1000S is capable of. Battery life is now limited by unfinished power management in software. That's all I can say for now, I guess we have to wait for Karel or someone else from marketing to give a more official response..."

Hmmmm. "unfinished power management in software." This seems to point to that nothing is probably inherently wrong with my DR1000S, (that's the good part) , but the bad is that we ALL probably have horrible battery life - which is essential to work with documents. Anything less than 8-10 hours without a recharge is difficult at best for most of us who read and work with PDFs.

And let's not forget, iRex touted this Reader to operate much longer than a mere 8 or 10 hours - much less the reality of 3-6 hours. :oops2:

Why does this surprise anyone?

It's the iLiad all over again.

Why does this surprise anyone?

It's the iLiad all over again.

Some people are surprised that Irex did it again by surprising us.

I have a Cybook and never had an iRex device of any sort, so not familiar with the history.

I will start by pointing out the battery capacity which is around 1100 mAh (give or take 200 mAh). At 3.7V it contains only 4 Wh. Compared to a NiMH AA of about 2500 mAh, or 3 Wh, this one has slightly more energy content than a single NiMH AA!!!!

Consider that an average power tool or heater pulling 9A at 120V (North America) uses about 1 kW. It would run *ONLY* 14.4 seconds on this tiny battery!!! You should understand that all of the current readers using this small 1100 mAh battery actually have a *VERY* small power source!!! Tiny really. Its main advantage is the flat shape that fits nicely into most reader shapes. Still, the actual power content is very tiny.

We should note that eReaders unlike music players and other smaller gadgets run an entire OS plus a number of apps. Other similar gadgets like fancy phones face the same issue of short runtime. So they need more power and such a small battery is really not big enough.

Trying to compare it to older readers:
- bigger screen (takes 2x or 3x more power to change contents)
- more interactive features (pen, my Cybook has no such thing)
(and later wireless still more power)
- CPU (more powerful CPU than my Cybook)
- apps (more apps, more demanding processing when you consider PDF compared to Cybook doing only basic rendering and limited zooms)

So overall this one uses more power. Which is only natural to use more power as you get more features and more speed. Even Cybook runtime has declined a lot just within a single hardware version.

Which brings me to the core issues causing this poor runtime today.

As others explained this version appears to be running at 100% throttle all the time and the future software will add other modes. However, I would point out that those "other" modes are not so trivial to implement!!!

Of course, the actual suspend/hibernate modes are easy enough to implement given a hardware spec. However, they also have some costs:
a) how much power is used to enter and exit a mode
b) how much time is needed to enter and exit a mode

[A] will impact your decision making on *WHEN* to enter a mode as you could end up using more power entering and existing say suspend mode than actually saving while in suspend mode. As an example if you used a simple rule, "enter suspend after 3 seconds idle", while in practice users will often take 4-6 seconds choosing a next option on a menu then you'll end up just wasting a bunch of power entering/existing suspend more too often. So in fact setting up the rules/logic for deciding when to enter a particular mode is far from trivial.

Same goes for [B]. As entering/exiting a mode takes time if you did it too often the device would become less responsive as you would spend a lot of time waiting for mode changes. I could easily see how this sort of error would become even more annoying to most users. So once again this is a fine balancing act between keeping a device responsive while trying to save power.

This is the same problem facing all eReader makers. The main difference is that a smaller device like Cybook is less sensitive to power usage changes as it has a great runtime. This device uses more power so it is much more noticeable.

My guess is this:
Initially to keep the device functioning properly and ensure that it is responsive they decided to simply not include the other modes. Also, it is far safer to not include those modes than to configure them in a poor manner that could actually cause mode damage than good. Thus they picked the safer route of simple omitting them for now.

Now they are working on them and in particular making sure that the decision making for switching modes is correct and makes sense. Once all the testing verifies that modes are working properly they'll release the new software and runtime will increase a lot.

All that being said we should understand that this device will never have the runtime of simpler readers like Cybook and PRS!!! On the other hand we have some general expectations like minimum 24 hours that allows one to not worry about charging all the time. So this reader needs to meet this thershold of about 24 hours, give or take a few. Otherwise they'll need to reconsider the battery choice. As I pointed out it is about time we upgrade to a bigger one.

bob_ninja, thanks for the analysis of power requirements of this type of device. Even though you don't own an iRex product, I think you're aware of the history of iRex with the iLiad, and their failed commitment to better power management. While it is reasonable to point out that there are going to be limits to how long the larger, more complex device can run on the same battery as a smaller, simpler device, the fact remains that iRex has made and is continuing to make claims about battery life that are probably unrealistic, given the power requirements, power source (battery) and lack of tested power management functionality. iRex gets no slack from me on this one; putting off answering questions until "Karel comes back" doesn't help my opinion of them at all. It doesn't matter to me what iRex theoretically could do to improve the battery life on the DR1000, because I have virtually no confidence that they will ever do any of it. :(

Ahhh, yes forgot to mention, I am 100% in agreement on that one.
Certainly making claims like that they cannot backup with actual data of any sort is not right. Also being vague on this issue,..., just like politicians here (we have elections in both US and Canada ;)
Yep, they are not handling it very well. They should have stated simply initial devices have limited runtime but hope to improve it later.

Fort that reason I am waiting until the 2 modes are implemented *AND* subsequent tests show what will be the "real" runtime. Then I will re-evaluate it. For now I am not buying.

My motorola A1200 (ming) ran linux, had a touchscreen, GSM, and ran for several days on one charge, on a single battery.
The sony (and the cybook) manage to run linux, e-ink, and one battery load will last for several weeks.
I see no reason that the iREX iliad/1000S should not be able to do he same! Does the wacom pen use so much more battery than GSM for a cellphone?


I have a Cybook and never had an iRex device of any sort, so not familiar with the history.

I will start by pointing out the battery capacity which is around 1100 mAh (give or take 200 mAh). At 3.7V it contains only 4 Wh. Compared to a NiMH AA of about 2500 mAh, or 3 Wh, this one has slightly more energy content than a single NiMH AA!!!!

Consider that an average power tool or heater pulling 9A at 120V (North America) uses about 1 kW. It would run *ONLY* 14.4 seconds on this tiny battery!!! You should understand that all of the current readers using this small 1100 mAh battery actually have a *VERY* small power source!!! Tiny really. Its main advantage is the flat shape that fits nicely into most reader shapes. Still, the actual power content is very tiny.

We should note that eReaders unlike music players and other smaller gadgets run an entire OS plus a number of apps. Other similar gadgets like fancy phones face the same issue of short runtime. So they need more power and such a small battery is really not big enough.

Trying to compare it to older readers:
- bigger screen (takes 2x or 3x more power to change contents)
- more interactive features (pen, my Cybook has no such thing)
(and later wireless still more power)
- CPU (more powerful CPU than my Cybook)
- apps (more apps, more demanding processing when you consider PDF compared to Cybook doing only basic rendering and limited zooms)

So overall this one uses more power. Which is only natural to use more power as you get more features and more speed. Even Cybook runtime has declined a lot just within a single hardware version.

Which brings me to the core issues causing this poor runtime today.

As others explained this version appears to be running at 100% throttle all the time and the future software will add other modes. However, I would point out that those "other" modes are not so trivial to implement!!!

Of course, the actual suspend/hibernate modes are easy enough to implement given a hardware spec. However, they also have some costs:
a) how much power is used to enter and exit a mode
b) how much time is needed to enter and exit a mode

[A] will impact your decision making on *WHEN* to enter a mode as you could end up using more power entering and existing say suspend mode than actually saving while in suspend mode. As an example if you used a simple rule, "enter suspend after 3 seconds idle", while in practice users will often take 4-6 seconds choosing a next option on a menu then you'll end up just wasting a bunch of power entering/existing suspend more too often. So in fact setting up the rules/logic for deciding when to enter a particular mode is far from trivial.

Same goes for [B]. As entering/exiting a mode takes time if you did it too often the device would become less responsive as you would spend a lot of time waiting for mode changes. I could easily see how this sort of error would become even more annoying to most users. So once again this is a fine balancing act between keeping a device responsive while trying to save power.

This is the same problem facing all eReader makers. The main difference is that a smaller device like Cybook is less sensitive to power usage changes as it has a great runtime. This device uses more power so it is much more noticeable.

My guess is this:
Initially to keep the device functioning properly and ensure that it is responsive they decided to simply not include the other modes. Also, it is far safer to not include those modes than to configure them in a poor manner that could actually cause mode damage than good. Thus they picked the safer route of simple omitting them for now.

Now they are working on them and in particular making sure that the decision making for switching modes is correct and makes sense. Once all the testing verifies that modes are working properly they'll release the new software and runtime will increase a lot.

All that being said we should understand that this device will never have the runtime of simpler readers like Cybook and PRS!!! On the other hand we have some general expectations like minimum 24 hours that allows one to not worry about charging all the time. So this reader needs to meet this thershold of about 24 hours, give or take a few. Otherwise they'll need to reconsider the battery choice. As I pointed out it is about time we upgrade to a bigger one.

My motorola A1200 (ming) ran linux, had a touchscreen, GSM, and ran for several days on one charge, on a single battery.
The sony (and the cybook) manage to run linux, e-ink, and one battery load will last for several weeks.
I see no reason that the iREX iliad/1000S should not be able to do he same! Does the wacom pen use so much more battery than GSM for a cellphone?

I don't understand how any eReader could "run for weeks" on a single charge??? The last I remember for Cybook sitting idle used to be 5 days and now is less with the latest firmware. Don't know about Sony.

Certainly some devices that spend most of the time in suspend/hibernate mode can go for a long time, but then they are not actually doing anything. Once they bring hibernate mode to DR I am sure it will keep working for weeks or months in hibernate mode.

In the past some PDAs could work on a couple of AAs or AAAs for a long time. They built custom chips and custom software that optimized power use. These days most component are standard GPUs and open source software which is not optimized for minimal power use. It is a compromise to bring down overall device cost while perhaps using more power than necessary.

I don't understand how any eReader could "run for weeks" on a single charge??? The last I remember for Cybook sitting idle used to be 5 days and now is less with the latest firmware. Don't know about Sony.

My Sony 500 I would need to charge about every 2 weeks. My Kindle I charge about that often too.

BOb

Sorry, I know nothing about the cybook, I just assumed it is like the sony. The sony reader survives easily 2-3 weeks on reading a couple of hours each night, and flipping it off to standby between reads. I once tried to run it with a slideshow that changed a picture every 30 seconds. In this case it ran for maybe 6-8 hours, and then the battery was almost dead.


EDIT: Hmmm... I don't seem to be consistent. Both are not scientific measures. I know I need to charge the sony only every 2-3 week, but I'm not sure how many hours of reading this includes....

I don't understand how any eReader could "run for weeks" on a single charge??? The last I remember for Cybook sitting idle used to be 5 days and now is less with the latest firmware. Don't know about Sony.

Using that pattern, 6 / 2 = 3 days for DR
Sure, my Cybook lasts entire month because I am a light reader. DR would last several days if used only 1-2 hours each day.

However, note who are early adopters! These are heavy duty super-readers spending several hours per day reading. So using their pattern of say 6 hrs/day, even Sony wouldn't last very long (less than a week I imagine, same as Cybook).

Another way to put it, imagine DR supported 24 hours of active use (reading, flipping pages, etc.) An active busy reader using 6 hrs/day would get a decent 4 days of use. However, a light reader like myself doing only 1 hr/day on average would get almost a full month.

The bottom line is that we expect several days of use on a single charge *EVEN* for the most active users. This is what I am looking for when the 2 modes are implemented.

The iLiad v2 has two ~1300 mAh batteries. Am I correct in thinking that the DR1000S has a single 1300 mAh battery, i.e. about half the capacity of the iLiad?

http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/IRex_Digital_Reader

"rechargebable 1300mAh Lithium-Ion battery"

According to this a single 1300

The iLiad v2 has two ~1300 mAh batteries. Am I correct in thinking that the DR1000S has a single 1300 mAh battery, i.e. about half the capacity of the iLiad?
There is a thread someplace here where someone fitted in 2 high capacity batteries into a V2 iLiad. and got I think 20 hours of life.

Found it... it was two 1800 mAh batteries and the life was about 21 hours.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26505

Very funny comment (http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=2932&start=15) (at least for me) on the battery life from an iRex employee in the iRex Forum:

Battery life is now limited by unfinished power management in software.
That's all I can say for now, I guess we have to wait for Karel or someone else from marketing to give a more official response...

Seriously.The last person I would like to hear a statement regarding such an issue from is a marketing guy. I want an engineer putting his cards on the table with an estimate on how much the battery live can be improved in the future realistically w/o changing the hardware !!!

Dam. Last person I would like to hear a statement from is a marketing guy. I want an engineer putting his cards on the table with an estimate on how much the battery live can be improved in the future realistically w/o changing the hardware !!!

No major company does that. And especially under the current circumstances where the battery life issue has devolved into some increasingly irrational rant, the engineers are certainly much better of letting the marketing people deal with it... So they can focus on trying to fix the actual issue. And then the update should speak for itself. And I'll just wait for that at this point.

Almost in every company, tech guys do not like making statements about problems, issues since

- They are not good at lying, a problem is a technical issue to them, not a sales killing annoyance.
- They get heavy fire from management/sales for not being political enough.

Until they can determine a carefully crafted answer, an engineer is trying to cool things down a little bit, that is what I see here. I've done both the technical bit and the sales part in the past, so I can not really blame them; however I want my toy, and I want it to live up to my expectations, I'm not going to give up on that, especially when paying more than 400£ :)

Kind regards
Seref

It's not very good marketing if the official response arrives later than the informal one :)

By the way, I have no problem with the battery life - be it 3 or 8 hours (definitely not going to be 21!) - it's just sad that currently the iRex is not value for money, and whereas I would gladly pay 200 pounds for it (to use it as a toy), I will never going to cash out 400-500 pounds under these circumstances, when you can be sure that you run out of battery exactly when you would need it, e.g. on a business trip or at a presentation, and honestly I wouldn't switch it on/off every minute just to save power, by the time the system has started my customer would have left the room. :)

I'm so sorry, because I wanted to support them with my money, but if my sony can run for 2-3 weeks with a charge then I would have expected at least 70 hours from a professional business tool (again don't compare with a laptop - the screen uses 0 power to show a constant image, I don't care what mobile phones or PDAs are doing, this supposed to replace paper).

No major company does that.

Other major companies in a such "new tech" areas acknowledge, that a lot of their customers are tech guys too and try to give them some hard facts instead of nebulous statements. Such companies have product managers, that have an engineering background to communicate with these customers. If I look at the history K. has, I can not rely much on his words.

I think iRex should develop a good plan - fast.

Personally I think that if there is nothing completely wrong in the 1.0 firmware (and if it was I think iRex would/should have given us some facts), that the DRs batterylife can never be boosted above 5 - 6 h w/o hardware upgrades (I would love to be proven wrong, but I do not have much hope). .

Hi Frank,
I guess the problem is that DR is actually produced to satisfy a slightly different set of requirements for a more narrow customer profile then perceived. We are all now trying to accept this, or denying all together :)
A business user at the office reading mostly supposed to be A4 size documents is not the same thing as the dedicated book worm who wants his/her library with him/her all the time. That is the impression I get from the situation.

Kind regards
Seref

http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/IRex_Digital_Reader

"rechargebable 1300mAh Lithium-Ion battery"

According to this a single 1300 Yes, but I think this came from Announced: the iRex Reader DR1000 #48 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=256951&postcount=48). I'm sure Robbeli got the 1300 mAh right, but this isn't definitive on one vs two cells. We need some brave sole to open up their brand new DR and take a look. Or is there another way to confirm this, e.g. what are the limits to USB charging of batteries (could USB fully charge two 1300 mAh cells in about 5 hours)?

On one level all that matters is device run time, but if iRex put only one cell into a larger device (and delivered it with a short run time) then it really calls into question their judgement after all the battery issues with the iLiad.

As JSWolf points out, higher capacity batteries are available too. Throwing hardware (more battery capacity) at the run time issue increases the device's weight and cost, but assuming that future software advances will make everything all right seems very risky. All that iRex seems to have learnt from the iLiad is to avoid quoting minimum run times. This means that early adopters are shouldering all the risk that iRex has once again made a major miscalculation in the needed battery capacity.

There is a thread someplace here where someone fitted in 2 high capacity batteries into a V2 iLiad. and got I think 20 hours of life.

Found it... it was two 1800 mAh batteries and the life was about 21 hours.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26505
That bit of soldering iron surgery was performed on a V1 iLiad, not V2. (Relevant to me because I have V1, and I'm considering trying this-- I'm just waiting to see if battery expansion becomes a problem later, as iRex warned. And I might have my brother do the actual soldering, as he has more practice than I do.)

I did this a few weeks ago to my v2 and no problems so far. I actually haven't done a full run time test, but it seems to be in the range already given. I've been using it extensively since I'm on a few weeks of vacation and I haven't seen any issues. One caution is that the connection tabs on the replacement batteries did not line up correctly so I essentially need to solder in a jumper for one of the terminals. If you feel comfortable enough to do the soldering this additional step shouldn't present a problem. There is still room around the batteries for expansion, especially from a thickness standpoint so I wouldn't expect to see any issues with the screen.

Excellent! Thanks for the update!