Gosh I hope not....... my battery was down just before we went on vacation by one fourth, (one notch on the screen) and then I charged it before we left. Well I didn't read much, maybe 30 minutes in the car and that was it..... I just get too distracted...... so we are now home, I opened up to read and noticed my battery is back down...... now there should be no reason for that battery to be down that low, I haven't used it.

I hope this isn't a sign I am going to have some kind of problem with my battery. :(

by any chance did you leave the reader on, with the cover closed?

The only issue I've had with the battery was one night when I didn't turn off the Reader because I thought the hibernate feature was supposed to turn it off. The next morning it was down a notch. Since then I always turn it off and the battery indicator hasn't budged.

However, I still think Hibernate should have kicked in. :huh:

It's supposed to turn itself off after 60 minutes of no activity, if that's not working properly, you should probalby talk to the support guys. :shrug:

No, I didn't leave it on at all. It was turned off and I turned it on and noticed it was half down.

well not half down, down one notch....... wrong wording on my part there.

I must have a ghost in my reader....... I turned it off to go and start working on dinner...... I just went and turned it on and now it reads a full charge again...

So I have a weird one, that is for sure whatever is going on............

That's common, actually. What happens is if the battery "rests" it developes a larger 'surface charge' (an apparent potential on the contacts, that is more than it can actually supply in any real quantity). Also, the meter has pretty low resolution 25% per block, so it 'slips' around a bit on top of that. Nothing to worry about, and as long as the charge is supposed to (and generally does) last, not really a problem. :)

Okay thanks. I think that happened once before as well. For the time being I won't worry about it. :)

I have also a strange problem. After my second charge I read like a 100 pages but my indicater is two bars down. I connected it to my computer many times and every time just as long as I was tranferring books to the reader. I don't know if transferring through the USB takes quite some power. I know this is the case with many devices that I have. Even the ones that charge through USB.

I will keep my eye one it but sending it back is no option since I'm in The Netherlands. In the worst case I just replace the battery myself.

Hmm.. my second charge wend down quite fast so it could be that my battery is faulty. Does anybody know the specs or maybe an address that has replacement batteries.

I noticed that too....... I went to do something with the reader connected to the usb to transfer books or something and when I turned it on later my charge was down another bar (2), BUT it did come back to just the one bar later one, it didn't remain that way......... the one charge down has remained. I can't see us having faulty batteries, or let's hope not... maybe it's a quirk?

I have charged it again and now I'm not going to connect it to the PC. Let's wait and see.

I have charged it again and now I'm not going to connect it to the PC. Let's wait and see.


Well my battery has run down after ~600 pages. So it is faulty. :(

But for the time being I will leave it like it is because the time between charges is still way longer than most commercial electronics. I don't have a problem charging it every few weeks.

If it really starts to be bad I will find a replacement battery and install that.

Maybe I'm being punished for my sig. :uhoh2:

Diablo - what if it is fully charged and you don't connect it to a PC? How long does it last then?

Also, just to be sure, you guys aren't keeping your Readers in a cold place are you? For example I went on a trip and I kept the Reader in my bag in the trunk on the way there. After a 6 hour drive with it being 35 degrees out, my Reader's battery was depleted, cold really messes with batteries and drains them.

Diablo - what if it is fully charged and you don't connect it to a PC? How long does it last then?

Also, just to be sure, you guys aren't keeping your Readers in a cold place are you? For example I went on a trip and I kept the Reader in my bag in the trunk on the way there. After a 6 hour drive with it being 35 degrees out, my Reader's battery was depleted, cold really messes with batteries and drains them.


This was on a full charge without connecting it to the PC. The Reader has been in room temperatures all that time. It took three weeks for the ~600 pages BTW. Maybe the Reader uses more energy than we think when it's off? When I get the change I'm going to test how many pages it can flip in one go. I will post back with the outcome.

That's a lot of flipping diabloNL, good luck with that.......

my reader went down to half again......seemed to happen after I connected it to the computer to get that last book purchase on it.... Either way, I haven't gone down to dead yet and it's easy enough to just plug the sucker in to recharge it so I guess in a way, why even worry about it until the battery just won't take a charge anymore?

I wonder if the purchased extra warranty covers a faulty battery? yea go and read the fine print. ha ha that print is so freakin small would need a magnyfying lens.

If my battery is really faulty the page flipping won't take that long. :p

The problem is that I'm now in Chile - Santiago and my battery is empty. Didn't take my charger but only the USB cable. When my battery wend down to one bar I connected it to my GF notebook only to find out it won't charge without the connect software (Why Sony? Why?!) Anyway, right now I'm scanning the people in the hotel with the hope someones got a PSP so I can charge it. :(

If my battery is really faulty the page flipping won't take that long. :p
When my battery wend down to one bar I connected it to my GF notebook only to find out it won't charge without the connect software (Why Sony? Why?!) :(

This may not be the place for it, but there is something more going on than just needing the Connect software. I just installed the software on my Mac using Parallels (windows environment on Intel Macs). Even when parallels is not running, if I plug the reader in I get the "USB Connected" message and the little read light on the side comes on (thats the charge light, right?).

So if you can't find a PSP look for a Mac -- it might work.

Diablo - what if it is fully charged and you don't connect it to a PC? How long does it last then?

I'll put my $0.02 worth in, as I was thinking my charge was not lasting long enough. After letting it go all the way down and then charging three times, I did not connect to the PC.

I kept a note of the page numbers so after reading a few books, I found the charge lasted a bit over 4,000 page turns.

As I read it in the horizontal position, it takes two presses of the button for one page, so doubled the number of pages to get this.

Far from the 7500 they tout, so just for kicks, called Sony and told them this. I was told that if I had doubts about the battery, I could send it in for checking, but declined. From what I read here, 4K sounds pretty good. Sure beats the old Rocket eBook!

Sony says battery only used for page turns, but I wonder about using the Mark and the on/off switch. Suppose that must take some power too, or not?

Sony says battery only used for page turns, but I wonder about using the Mark and the on/off switch. Suppose that must take some power too, or not?

Clearly the rest of the hardware - CPU, memory, LEDs, etc etc etc must use some power. I suspect that what Sony mean is that, unlike an LCD display, which constantly uses power, the eInk screen only uses power when its contents change.

I'm going to look for an universal power adaptor here in Chile. Can somebody confirm that the middle pin is the +?

I'm going to look for an universal power adaptor here in Chile. Can somebody confirm that the middle pin is the +?


Yep. Its plus for the tip and negative for the ring..

You will need one that can do 2.5 Amps.

Yep. Its plus for the tip and negative for the ring..

You will need one that can do 2.5 Amps.


Thanks Nightwing! What would happen if I would take a 1 Amp one? Wouldn't it work? I think it should work or I'm I wrong? Probably just takes longer to charge.

Part of me says would take longer... But could pop the power supply also. Depends on the PS designed.

You should be able to find a PSP charger some where there.

Part of me says would take longer... But could pop the power supply also. Depends on the PS designed.

You should be able to find a PSP charger some where there.


I don't mind if it's the power supply that pops as long it is not the reader. :D I want to prevent buying a PSP charger because it's a little expensive known to the fact I need to charge it only ones with it.

If you could borrow one. Would take about 5 hours to charge...

Have you been able to find anyone that would loan one for a while.

If you travel a lot the number and weight of transformers quickly becomes overpowering. There is a line of "everywhere" adapters called iGo. In the USA it is available at Radio Shack and on-line. (Maybe elsewhere, not sure.) So I carry one transformer and a bunch of adapters that allow me to charge my laptop, cell phone, camera, handycam, mp3, and my Reader. If you are interested, it is adapter (or "tip" as they call it) A54. It is rated at 5.4V, produces 5.41 V without other loads on the circuit. The Reader charger produces 5.39 V. Both fit the same plug and have '+' tip and '-' collar (ring.)

The main unit that I am using will work from a wall outlet, auto jack, or airplane connection.

If you could borrow one. Would take about 5 hours to charge...

Have you been able to find anyone that would loan one for a while.


Not yet. The first guy I asked if he has a PSP said: "what's a PSP?"And the annoying thing is that you have your answer ut still need to explain what a PSP is. :sleepy:

RWood thanks for the tip I will look in to that. ;)

What were you plugging the Reader via the USB into?

Wondering now if a stand along of just the Reader driver only could be used to trick it into charging it. Would solve some problems with people esp Mac to chard up the little thing.

I plugged it in the notebook of my GF. PC with Windows XP.

Tnks for the information.

Cant promess anything but wondering if just the USB driver would wake the port enough to allow it to feed current to the reader.

Even tried a hub without hooking it to a computer. No dice.

Joy! :cool: I found a small gamestore and it had a third party PSP charger for like $15,-. It's charging right now so I finally can read the last 30 pages of "Chasing the dead" .

Excellent news :p.

Glad you found a unit!

Good price too!

Well, I just managed to drain my batter this afternoon, it would be at half and then down 3/4's and then I was playing with the little toggle button and well it killed it, said I needed to charge that I was low.......... so lets see, I have had to small charges in between and have read 4 books with them being on the large side of fonts if at all possible and approximately 3350 pages total of what I have read and am reading at this time..... sure isn't no 7000, is that what they claimed? I think font size has a lot to do with it..... either way, I have it charging in the wall unit and wish it would hurry up....... :)

They claimed (and still do) 7500 pages, but that was probably machine tested along the lines of:

1) click
2) wait five second
3) repeat 'til the battery's flat
4) report number of clicks.

And who can tell what sort of effect the actual testing approach itself might have had on the battery drain? :shrug:

For instance, we know that it does use some small amount of power between page changes for monitoring the buttons. I'm guessing the pause between pages which an actual person requires to actually read the page may make up a lot of the difference. If they waited my above assumed 5 seconds between flips in their testing, but it takes me 30 seconds to read the page then right there I've increased the 'waiting' power consumption by a factor of 6 per page.

Then there're the times I set the Reader aside 'just for a minute' while I'm doing something else 'real quick' and come back to it half an hour later.

I don't know how we'd even figure that into the equation without knowing the exact power consumption during the 'wait' state (and good luck getting that info). :nice:

I don't think I will be worrying about it too much. At least it came with a rechargeable batter and cables to do so. So when I think it's about time to charge it up, will do so a day before and so I am not stuck here waiting for it to charge as I am now. This is usually the time I am reading so now instead I am waiting........@@


How can I complain, at least I can read books on it and transfer stuff I have on this computer to it........ still love it regardless.

I'd guess it was more like:

1) click
2a) wait five second
2b) repeat for 500 clicks (guesstimate of average daily use)
2c) turn off unit for 24 hours
3) repeat step 2 'til the battery's flat
4) report number of clicks.

That gives the battery a little more time to bounce back between sessions and can be legitimately claimed as "practical usage".