Salon on the iPhone as an e-reader: Much love little hate - Page 2

pagansoul · 07-28-2008, 04:24 PM

No one should leave 3G on their phone unless they plan on using it at that moment. Always switch to Edge when you do casual reading or playing with any of the games. Also switch off WiFi unless you are using it. They cut the battery time more than half. I can go all day at work with my iphone on (over 8 hours) if I don't use WiFi or watch any videos. I listen to music on and off and read a chapter at lunch. I keep the light setting on low, my cube is bright enough. Note that I have the EDGE phone and not the 3G.

radleyp · 07-28-2008, 05:11 PM

That means that you, the user, have to exercise careful battery management, and remember to turn certain things off. You will turn them back on to use them, of course, but if you are like me and many others, you will forget to turn them off. I have Verizon EV-DO on my MotoQ, and the phone switches to it automatically when I am in the right place. I can't turn if off without turning off the phone functions altogether. I normally get 6 to 7 hours of battery life, and EV-DO is faster than the iphone 3G. No one should have to do what you suggest to get decent battery life.

JSWolf · 08-04-2008, 02:02 PM

To get decent battery life, stop buying these do it all phones. The extra features like video, music, 3G, GPS, eBook reading etc are all going to kill the battery and when you actually do want to make a call, you'll be well and truly without battery. So just get a phone to be a phone. I would not want to be someplace where I needed to use my phone but because I was doing other things with my phone, I had no battery life left.

questionfear · 08-05-2008, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by radleyp

How can he miss the one feature that makes the iphone2 a truly deficient reader, namely the poor battery life? My wife played with one two days ago for a whole afternoon, with 3G on, and got barely three hours of battery life. You have to carry your charger all the time and be sure you are near an outlet. Not for me! And for me there is no comparison between reading a backlit lcd and eink, eink is far superior. I was all set to charge into the Apple store to buy the new iphone, when I started reading all these complaints about battery life. It's beautiful hardware, but I'll stick to my (far from perfect) MotoQ - with Skyfire beta installed, it can definitely hold its own as a browser. The RIM people must be delighted, this device will never make it as a business tool.

It's not just the 3G...I have an original iPhone and the battery has been worse since the 2.0 update. It didn't bother me too much, as I generally charge it nightly anyway, but it did cause me a problem this past weekend. I was at a rugby tournament and had to take a friend to the ER (she busted her shoulder when she got tackled), and I had to carefully manage the power on my phone to insure it didn't crap out on me while we were there. I couldn't take advantage of any of the things that make my iPhone fun, like music, ebooks, web surfing, etc. The signal was bad, and I couldn't turn it to airplane mode because our teammates were calling for updates, and I couldn't entertain myself while she was in xray because using the phone to read ebooks would have drained the battery...

And all I could think about was "As soon as we get home I am ordering a Kindle."

(I haven't yet, but I will.)

Alexander Turcic · 08-05-2008, 01:11 PM

I don't own an iPhone, but if had I one, I wouldn't mind using it as an extra e-book reader. I would use it to complement my Sony Reader.

What would be great is to have a way to synchronize bookmarks of books from various devices... this way I could switch devices and still continue reading where I had previously stopped. Of course, there is also the problem with DRM, so I would need to be able to buy books that could be installed on multiple devices...

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
I love my Sony Reader, but I hate Sony (software question)...	Ler0y Jenkins	Sony Reader	1	09-17-2010 11:09 AM
What do you love/hate about your EZ Reader/BeBook?	Rique	HanLin eBook	22	05-29-2009 09:08 AM
My love and hate	stevierg	Amazon Kindle	9	03-01-2009 01:19 AM
Love the reader, Hate the software	revmike	Sony Reader	18	01-10-2009 05:21 PM
Love it or hate it?	grimo1re	Lounge	9	08-03-2008 05:38 AM

07-28-2008, 04:24 PM	#16
pagansoul Fanatic Posts: 509 Karma: 1098204 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Earth Device: iPhone5, iPad Gen3, Kobo, Kindle Fire, Kobo Vox. Samsung Galaxy Tab 7	No one should leave 3G on their phone unless they plan on using it at that moment. Always switch to Edge when you do casual reading or playing with any of the games. Also switch off WiFi unless you are using it. They cut the battery time more than half. I can go all day at work with my iphone on (over 8 hours) if I don't use WiFi or watch any videos. I listen to music on and off and read a chapter at lunch. I keep the light setting on low, my cube is bright enough. Note that I have the EDGE phone and not the 3G.

07-28-2008, 05:11 PM	#17
radleyp Evangelist Posts: 499 Karma: 20623 Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: North Salem & NYC, NY Device: Kindle Global, iphone4, ipad	That means that you, the user, have to exercise careful battery management, and remember to turn certain things off. You will turn them back on to use them, of course, but if you are like me and many others, you will forget to turn them off. I have Verizon EV-DO on my MotoQ, and the phone switches to it automatically when I am in the right place. I can't turn if off without turning off the phone functions altogether. I normally get 6 to 7 hours of battery life, and EV-DO is faster than the iphone 3G. No one should have to do what you suggest to get decent battery life.

08-04-2008, 02:02 PM	#18
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 73,931 Karma: 128903250 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	To get decent battery life, stop buying these do it all phones. The extra features like video, music, 3G, GPS, eBook reading etc are all going to kill the battery and when you actually do want to make a call, you'll be well and truly without battery. So just get a phone to be a phone. I would not want to be someplace where I needed to use my phone but because I was doing other things with my phone, I had no battery life left.

08-05-2008, 01:11 PM	#20
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	I don't own an iPhone, but if had I one, I wouldn't mind using it as an extra e-book reader. I would use it to complement my Sony Reader. What would be great is to have a way to synchronize bookmarks of books from various devices... this way I could switch devices and still continue reading where I had previously stopped. Of course, there is also the problem with DRM, so I would need to be able to buy books that could be installed on multiple devices...

Advert

Advert