So what is the deal with battery life?

[m-reader]

I love my iLiad! It's exactly what I wanted out of an eBook reader.
The only thing that I cannot understand is the batter life. Isn't eInk suppose to solve this problem?
I don't use Wi-Fi unless at home, and don't even use the stylus on daily basis. The digitiser is meant to be using power only if the stylus is removed from the cradle anyway ...
I charge the battery up in the evenining, turn the iLiad on in the morning, do a bit of reading on the train, and possibly some during lunch break. Then a few more pages on the train ride on the way back home.
I don't switch the iLiad off whole day, but page flipping only takes place during reading, so there should be really not much power usage during idle time.
By the evening the battery is down on its last legs ...
Is it possible to upgrade the battery, add a battery pack to it or something?

Other than that, I love it!

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by m-reader

I charge the battery up in the evenining, turn the iLiad on in the morning,

...

By the evening the battery is down on its last legs ...

Yup. That's about right. That's what I get on my iLiad now.

eInk only solves the problem with the screen eating up the battery. In a normal LCD device (like a Palm), most of the power usage is the backlight. Next is keeping the screen up to date. If you turned off the "auto power off" of a Palm TX and left it on, the battery would probably be dead in about 3 hours or less.

So getting 16+ hours out of the iLiad is actually very good.

Originally Posted by m-reader

Is it possible to upgrade the battery, add a battery pack to it or something?

Nope. 11 is what I got before the battery replacement recall that they had. 16+ is what I get now. I don't think that the iLiad is going to get better than that (at least the version 1 iLiad - maybe newer models will do better).

If you want an ebook reader to run for days without a charge, the Cybook Gen3 does a much better job at power management.

[moz]

If it charges via USB there are a variety of external battery pack options - try ebay.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by m-reader

The only thing that I cannot understand is the batter life. Isn't eInk suppose to solve this problem?

The SCREEN doesn't use any power when it's showing a static image, but the operating system is still running; CPU and RAM still require power. Going for a whole day on a battery charge is pretty good compared with a laptop.

A laptop is what you should be comparing the iLiad to, rather than the dedicated bookreaders such as the Sony or CyBook. Because those are dedicated machines, they can basically go into almost complete "hibernation" when not turning a page, and hence get much better battery life. The iLiad is a general-purpose computer, with more general-purpose hardware, so it doesn't do that.

[m-reader]

Originally Posted by moz

If it charges via USB there are a variety of external battery pack options - try ebay.

Good call - I'll try that ...

[m-reader]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The SCREEN doesn't use any power when it's showing a static image, but the operating system is still running; CPU and RAM still require power. Going for a whole day on a battery charge is pretty good compared with a laptop.

A laptop is what you should be comparing the iLiad to, rather than the dedicated bookreaders such as the Sony or CyBook. Because those are dedicated machines, they can basically go into almost complete "hibernation" when not turning a page, and hence get much better battery life. The iLiad is a general-purpose computer, with more general-purpose hardware, so it doesn't do that.

Ok fair enough, CPU and RAM eat up power, but I disagree with your assertion that iLiad is anything more than an eBook reader (with some additional features of course).
I just think that the iRex boys and girls have to look at improving power management side of things ...

[kacir]

Originally Posted by m-reader

The only thing that I cannot understand is the batter life. Isn't eInk suppose to solve this problem?

The old LCD based, very, very obsolete book reading devices conserved the power by switching off unnecessary circuits and slowing down the processor when you were not using them. The LCD display ('good ole' black and white non-backlit one) happily ate the power all the time.
The Illiad, on the other hand, leaves the processor running full speed all the time. Engineers at iRex initially believed that they would be able to slow the processor down in the moments when there was no demand for processing power (which is, in a book reading device, about 99% of the time ;-) )but due to some unspecified design and/or manufacturing flaw they are unable to fulfill promises of long battery life.

To summ it up -- battery-wise the Illiad is about equivalent to 11 year old Cassiopeia A-11 ( http://www.pdastock.com/Casio-Cassiopeia-A-11-673.html )
The only meaningfull difference (battery-wise of course) is that Cassiopeia runs on two rechargeable AA batteries, so you can carry a couple of charged spares in your pocket all the time.
:Evil grin:

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

The Illiad, on the other hand, leaves the processor running full speed all the time. Engineers at iRex initially believed that they would be able to slow the processor down in the moments when there was no demand for processing power

... which they did indeed do. ISTR this came in at firmware version 2.10 - there was a considerable "jump" in battery lifetime at that firmware upgrade. It went from about 6h to 10h for many people.

[rincewind]

Originally Posted by m-reader

Good call - I'll try that ...

Don't, the iLiad cannot charge over USB, it requires too much power.

/R