Kindle 3 - Battery Issues

[abhiroopb]

I purchased the Kindle 3 Wi-Fi last Thursday.

Initially, I did not read the instructions and only charged it until the yellow light went out on the device and the green light came on.

I started reading soon after and in about a day the battery was at 25% (the battery indicator showed 25%).

So, yesterday I left it charging for about 4 hours, the battery indicator was full at the time.

I then read for an hour at night and left it. I usually "leave it" and I believe it goes into sleep mode after some time. The wireless is always switched off.

This morning I checked and the battery was at 80%.

Is there any reason why the battery is dropping so quickly? Should I be doing something different?

Thanks!

[RonF]

It is most likely indexing. If you put a lot of books on the Kindle it will index for awhile. Give it a couple of days with a complete charging and you should be good.

[abhiroopb]

Thanks I just read that it may be doing that on another forum. Glad to have confirmation of it!

But, I must say it would be nice if there was a clearer way of telling why the battery was dropping. It's a little strange to see the battery indicator drop for no apparent reason!

[clintbradford]

Please give the unit a full three or four discharge-charge cycles in the next few days ... and then let us know how battery performance is for you!

[Zerodime]

Hmm have somethign similar.
- checked if it is indexing (it's not)
- WifiOff
- but Screensaver off too
After about 2 days of heavy page-flipping the battery was at about 40%
Especialy when I left the device unattended (so it shows the last page open)
Have to see how it'll work with screensaver on again.

[Tiersten]

You turned the "screensaver" off? How did you do that?

[shanghaichica]

I got 8 days out of my first charge, I think I could have got a few more days but I was travelling so I charged it because I didnt want it to die on me whilst away from home. Now on my second charge.

But people are saying it needs a few charges before it reaches it's potential. So far it looks like the second charge will last just as long as the first one did!

[Buran]

Disabling the "screensaver" has no effect on powerdraw. e-ink screens only use power when the image on the screen changes. If an e-ink device is disassembled, the screen will continue to show the last-displayed image!

My battery life isn't as good so far as it was on my K2, but it's also a newer battery that hasn't been discharged/charged as often. Some types of rechargeable batteries have to "calibrate" before they start showing the long life they have in later service. It does seem to be behaving more now that all 300 books I dumped on it on day one are indexed.

[Tiersten]

Originally Posted by Buran

Disabling the "screensaver" has no effect on powerdraw. e-ink screens only use power when the image on the screen changes. If an e-ink device is disassembled, the screen will continue to show the last-displayed image!

I didn't think it was currently possible to alter the screensaver timer as there isn't an easy way to root the Kindle yet. If you've got root access then you can alter the power management configuration. Just curious as to how Zerodime did it.

The screensaver itself doesn't do anything as you said, eInk screens don't draw any power if they're not being updated. It will make the rest of the Kindle go into sleep mode though so the power consumption from that is slightly lower.

[CHARLES539]

HELLO
I recently bought a kindle 3, charged it and started reading.
I kept track of how many hours Ive read for and was wondering if anyone else has done the same?
I got 52 Hours and 20 Min. off my first charge.

anyone else keeping track?

[gargoyle67]

That's not really true is it, That e-ink uses no power unless updating the screen, How does the Kindle know a certain amount of time has passed and to then change the screen saver ? (Magic) It's a bit of a misconception that they only use power turning pages, After all if that were the case there would be no need for an On\Off button would there ? A truer statement would be that they use more power when turning\refreshing the screen and a little when idling.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by gargoyle67

That's not really true is it, That e-ink uses no power unless updating the screen, How does the Kindle know a certain amount of time has passed and to then change the screen saver ? (Magic) It's a bit of a misconception that they only use power turning pages, After all if that were the case there would be no need for an On\Off button would there ? I truer statement would be that they use more power when turning\refreshing the screen and a little when idling.

That's correct; the Kindle is in a "coma" when it's in sleep mode; it's not "dead". It's still doing background stuff like updating the clock, talking to Amazon's servers every so often (if you have 3G enabled), and so on.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by clintbradford

Please give the unit a full three or four discharge-charge cycles in the next few days ... and then let us know how battery performance is for you!

So you should let it run down completely a few times you mean?

bt

[mldavis2]

Most LiION batteries will tolerate shallow discharge/recharge cycles, unlike the older NiMH batteries that had a 'memory'.

[peitsao]

I must be lucky--I bought the k3 wifi over a month ago, left the wifi on all the time, (but it's been mostly in sleep mode) and have only charged it once and it's still at 30%!