PaperWhite: How's Your Battery?

[vxf]

I have read about 5-6 hours per day, wifi/3g on, depending on location, screen brightness half time at 12 (when home) at 20+ when not... been charging every second day. Granted, it was rarely completely drained... so, I would guess, I am getting about 14-15 hours. I posted about it in another thread, but this is after two extra days of observations.

On the other side, I played around with it and it seems wifi/3g really make the difference - more so than turning the screen on/off.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Sorry, meant to include that. I've read approx. 20 hours (19 hours 48 min. really). I've used the web browser for about 30 min. downloading books from DropBox (or trying too). I don't set the light very high. I'd say about 15 hours of my reading was with it all the way down and the rest with it set between 10 and 15. I'm by no means keeping great track of everything so some stuff is just approximate, just posting loosely my experiences in case it's of help to someone.

Wow, that's quite different from my experience. I wonder if I my battery is just not the best quality. It's really lasting less than I expected.

Your numbers are actually close to my experience with the KT.

[jswinden]

I suspect WiFi is a huge drain. Maybe if Amazon gets enough complaints to that effect they will give us a quicker and easier way to toggle it on/off.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I suspect WiFi is a huge drain. Maybe if Amazon gets enough complaints to that effect they will give us a quicker and easier way to toggle it on/off.

I wonder if usage is as effective as it should be.
For example, one thing I noticed is that my device seems to constantly sync. I am not sure when exactly it decides to sync, but I have played around with it - and if I highlight something, within a couple of minutes it is sync'd with the cloud. I am assuming that means that the connection is activated every time I take some sort of action. Or, at least, very often.

Does that really need to be the case?
Or, would it really hurt, to let us choose to turn some 'auto-sync' off? Like to sync only when you ask it to 'sync and check for content'?

My SONY devices never did sync so often. And wifi/3g did not seem to affect battery life as much. Just a thought....

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I suspect WiFi is a huge drain. Maybe if Amazon gets enough complaints to that effect they will give us a quicker and easier way to toggle it on/off.

I have WiFi on all the time since I switch a lot between my PW and Fire. The pages are always synced now.

So far as I can see it had little effect on battery usage. My only usage now is from turning the PW on and turning the pages.

At the begining indexing drew most of the current.

[ahintz]

@sirmaru - with leaving WiFi on all the time, how long is the battery lasting?

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by ahintz

@sirmaru - with leaving WiFi on all the time, how long is the battery lasting?

My last full charge was on Oct 6. I have only expended about 12% with WiFi on all the time after 3 days of use. I also leave my PW light at level 22 almost all the time. In a pitch dark room I have to drop it to level 8.

I find, when I close my PW, the Fire is right at the proper page without any sync button being pressed on either device.

However, when I finish reading in the Fire, I must press the sync button there to get the last page read to the PW. I also notice all bookmarks go from the PW to the Fire without any action on my part. The bookmarks are not sent from the Fire to the PW.

I am hoping my Fire HD 32 Gb due Oct 25 will sync the same way as the Paperwhite.
As with my 2 other Kindles, I will wait to do a full charge when I see the 15% indicator flash on the PW. There is no need to charge prior to the signal.

[schulzmc]

Don't forget affecting all this is how many books you have loaded. The indexing process eats into the battery. My first charge lasted only two days (reading about 1-2 hours a day) as indexing was going on. I'm still on my second charge (same 1-2 hours a day reading) and have well over half the battery (5 days and counting). I keep my wifi and 3G on all the time, BTW.

[ahintz]

Great news on battery life, and on the "it just works" syncing. Looking forward to getting my first Kindle when my PW comes in a couple of weeks. Really looking forward to syncing working between the Kindle apps and the PW without having to do anything special.

[vxf]

I had a couple of more days to observe.
I get about 12 hours, consistently, of reading. I charged last night to full, read about 6 hours today at screen 14, wifi on, now I got about 50% battery.
Seems like either I have a defective battery, or I will need to recharge every second day.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by vxf

I had a couple of more days to observe.
I get about 12 hours, consistently, of reading. I charged last night to full, read about 6 hours today at screen 14, wifi on, now I got about 50% battery.
Seems like either I have a defective battery, or I will need to recharge every second day.

Amazon stated that, if one leaves WiFi off and reads 30 minutes per day and leaves the light at maximum, the battery should last 2 months. That works out to 30 hours before a recharge.

If you are reading 6 hours per day with WiFi on, then 2 days would be correct. With WiFi off you'd get about 15 hours. WiFi on does use lots of juice.

On my Kindle Fire I use GSam Battery Monitor and it shows that my WiFi there uses 36% of my battery usage while the screen uses 44%. The PW screen uses a lot less juice and WiFi probably uses a lot more.

My PW got a full charge on Oct 6 and now on Oct 10 it has used about 33% of the battery charge. I leave WiFi on all the time. I've read about 6 hours on it. Thus, I should also get about 15 hours of reading over 12 days to get down to the 15% level where I recharge.

We do not have android battery meters for the PW like on the Fire. Thus, its all guessing and estimating here. On the Fire we know EXACTLY how our power is being used.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Amazon stated that, if one leaves WiFi off and reads 30 minutes per day and leaves the light at maximum, the battery should last 2 months. That works out to 30 hours before a recharge.

If you are reading 6 hours per day with WiFi on, then 2 days would be correct. With WiFi off you'd get about 15 hours. WiFi on does use lots of juice.

On my Kindle Fire I use GSam Battery Monitor and it shows that my WiFi there uses 36% of my battery usage while the screen uses 44%. The PW screen uses a lot less juice and WiFi probably uses a lot more.

My PW got a full charge on Oct 6 and now on Oct 10 it has used about 33% of the battery charge. I leave WiFi on all the time. I've read about 6 hours on it. Thus, I should also get about 15 hours of reading over 12 days to get down to the 15% level where I recharge.

We do not have android battery meters for the PW like on the Fire. Thus, its all guessing and estimating here. On the Fire we know EXACTLY how our power is being used.

Yes, I guess I am not terribly surprised.
But I use the KT in the same way (wifi/3g always on, as my PW) and the battery lasts about 30-40 hours. Of course, the PW battery has to last less - so 30 hours with wifi off seems reasonable.
On the other side, I cannot help feeling that wifi/3g is not managed optimally by Kindles. I think it checks for new items/syncs way too often, by default. I don't need my notes sync'd every 10 min, or whatever it is doing.

But it's not a big deal. If it was, I would just turn wifi off. I work all day at my PC and read at night usually (well, with exceptions...) but it is not a problem to just plug it in when sitting at my desk. Or charge it overnight.

On the other side, it might be a problem when travelling. I often fly to Europe, both for work and to see my family. Often, with connections, those flights end up taking 25-30 hours. Now, that is getting too close to the battery life for comfort, even with wifi off. Well, I guess I can use my ipad for 10 hours.... or maybe even sleep sometimes

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Amazon stated that, if one leaves WiFi off and reads 30 minutes per day and leaves the light at maximum, the battery should last 2 months. That works out to 30 hours before a recharge.

Actually, light at '10':

Uncompromised Battery Life
A single charge lasts up to eight weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light setting at 10. Our breakthrough power management technology allows you to leave the light on at all times for the best possible contrast without sacrificing battery life.

[tomsem]

I have not found PW noticeably different than KT in terms of power management. I leave wireless on all the time, and have to charge it every 3 or 4 days or so (though I do so before I see any battery warning). I was hoping PW would be a little better, after all without the speakers and whatnot there should be a little more space for battery storage, and storage densities continue to increase. But it's no big deal.

[jswinden]

I'm consistently getting about 10 to 12 hours from fully charged to 30% with WiFi/3G always on and light level around 14 on average.

At least it goes all day and then some as I cannot read more than 12 hours during any day. Usually long before 12 hours my eyes will give up, not to mention that I would rarely have 12 free hours in which to read on any given day.

My screen is bad so when the 2nd replacement arrives today hopefully it will have a better screen which will allow me to use a lower light level. If so it might get better battery life.