Battery life decreases after appling the patch

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Blossom

The number of books you have on a Kindle counts toward battery life as well. Especially if you do alot of searches. You also have to take into account adding books which have to be index.

Can you explain why you believe the number of books will affect the battery life? Obviously it takes effort to index them when they're added, but once they've been indexed, I can think of no reason at all that having more books should decrease battery life.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you explain why you believe the number of books will affect the battery life? Obviously it takes effort to index them when they're added, but once they've been indexed, I can think of no reason at all that having more books should decrease battery life.

There is thread someone on here that explains it better but Syncing is one reason that was explained to me and searching the index is another drain on the battery as well if you have a large library. If you don't do alot of this then I guess it wouldn't matter much. The K3 is the worst because of how it syncs, the K4 is a little better. The PW which I've had for one day so I can't say how much it's effected by a large library seeing I have only 3 books on it so far but on my other Kindles I noticed a different after I got to oh about 120 books.

[HarryT]

I have over 500 books on my PW and have noticed absolutely no difference in battery life. I'd be interested to see some quantitative data on this effect from someone who's experienced it.

[DrunkenDonkey]

Maybe you all have different definition of "lot" of books, with 500 may not even scratch it
But even with a big db, how often do you really search... once to get to the book and thats it. The inability to turn off, however, is not that great Batteries have limited number of charges, so the less the better

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DrunkenDonkey

The inability to turn off, however, is not that great Batteries have limited number of charges, so the less the better

The battery drain in "sleep" mode is negligible. The saving through being able to turn the Kindle completely off and sleep mode, really would be infinitesimal.

Lithium batteries have two factors which determine capacity:

1. The number of charge cycles. Capacity decreases with the number of charge cycles.

2. The age of the battery. A typical lithium battery will have lost something like a third of its capacity through natural aging after 3-4 years.

For a laptop the first of these factors is significant, but for a low-power device like the Kindle, the second completely dominates. I recharge my Kindle perhaps once every 3 weeks. That means that I has about 15 charge cycles in a year, which is completely negligible compared to the effect of natural ageing.

[DrunkenDonkey]

True about natural aging, however it is not that drastic. My good old trusty bb, which I used drain to zero, charge to max policy is still holding close to 2 weeks on a charge with 15+ min of conversations daily, thats on its 4th year. Used to be 3 weeks when new. Same holds for the shaver and the toothbrush, last device I needed to replace the battery was very old siemens phone, still using ni-mh battery and that was 12 years ago, so a little care for the batteries goes a long way.
The reason I asked about standby consumption is because of Sony PRS-505, which is dead for 3 weeks even without reading a single page, but if pw does have a better power saving mode then it is okay.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DrunkenDonkey

True about natural aging, however it is not that drastic. My good old trusty bb, which I used drain to zero, charge to max policy is still holding close to 2 weeks on a charge with 15+ min of conversations daily, thats on its 4th year. Used to be 3 weeks when new. Same holds for the shaver and the toothbrush, last device I needed to replace the battery was very old siemens phone, still using ni-mh battery and that was 12 years ago, so a little care for the batteries goes a long way.

Sorry - there was an omission in my previous post which rather changes the meaning. I meant to say that a 3-4 year old Lithium battery will typically have lost around a third of its original capacity. I left out the word "lost". Now corrected.

[DrunkenDonkey]

Ah, then yeah, thats pretty much it
I do work with embedded cpus and these can go to extremely low consumption, way below 1mA, which should be able to last at least half an year on a single charge (with wifi off), it is only about implementing the features properly.

[sirmaru]

My NowBible manual says that its Lithium battery has a life of 500 charge cycles. If that applies to our Kindles, then we have nothing to worry about. We will probably buy the latest and greatest EVERY year and just give the old unit away or throw it out.

I've had my Kindle Keyboard for 2.5 years now I only have 29 charge cyles on it. I gave away my KF1G after one year of use and it had 92 charge cycles. I've had my KFHD7-32 for 2.5 months and have 14 charge cycles on it. I've had my PW for 3 months and have 8 charge cycles on it. I've had my NowBible for 3 years and have 25 charge cycles on it.

Remember, the purpose of these devices is ENJOYMENT, not maximization of battery life.

I also heard on NPR that new types of betteries called 3D will be out later this year. We now use 2D batteries. The 3D batteries will last 5 times as long as the ones we are using now. The 2D batteries store current in various 2D layers. The 3D ones will not have layers but will have storage done accross and up and down in one solid unit. Plus the 3D batteries will be 1/10th of the size of the 2D batteries.

Thus, next year's Kindles will probably make this year's models totally obsolete.