Battery life!

[somecanuck]

The battery in my brother's Kobo died after around 700-800 page flips. It has been fully charged (I left it plugged in for a good 6 hours). He's going to return the device now.

I imagine loading up new books, flipping through PDFs, and any other CPU-intensive task takes up more juice than just flipping pages. But should it really have drained this quickly?

[Duiker]

My reader was fully charged 2 days ago. All I've done is read on it and not even that much, maybe 200 pages. I'm currently at 1/4 battery life. That makes no sense. Anyone else? Considering returning.

[Turt99]

Hrm, I got mine on Saturday. I plugged it in and let it sit until the battery showed fully charged, after that I don't think I've plugged it in but I've used it for an hour or 2 each day. I have a 128mb SD card that I have all my books on, so I loaded from that.

My battery shows 80 - 90% full.

Okay I might have plugged it in since Saturday but not in the last couple of days.

[corona]

When I first got mine, the battery ran down very fast. I plugged it in; the red "charged" light came on after about 15 minutes, but the battery gauge didn't show a full charge. It ran down again in a very short time -- 1/2 hour or so, <50 page flips. Same thing again with the charging -- the light came on quickly but battery didn't show as full.

The next time I charged it, the red light never came on (and hasn't since, even though I've had it plugged in for hours). The gauge shows a full charge and hasn't gone down since. I've been using it, but plugging it in every 100 page-turns or so just because I've been putting books into it etc.

I don't think this is a good sign, and I guess I'll take it back once they've got more in stock. Besides this problem, annoyances around the desktop application not doing much, and the complex process to get PDFs into the thing (which seem to be common e-reader issues), I really do like the thing a lot.

[DaleDe]

The battery gauge needs to be calibrated for the battery. This is common for all eBook Readers. They need to be discharged and fully charged a few times to teach the gauge what full charge is and what discharged is. The battery isn't the usually the problem but the gauge calibration can make you believe there is a problem. I would give it a few more days to settle down before you take it back.

Dale

[HarryT]

What Dale says is absolutely right. You need several charge/discharge cycles to correctly calibrate the battery gauge, as I pointed out in a previous thread. To talk about returning the device because the initial charge drains quickly is being a little "premature".

[Bittybye]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What Dale says is absolutely right. You need several charge/discharge cycles to correctly calibrate the battery gauge, as I pointed out in a previous thread. To talk about returning the device because the initial charge drains quickly is being a little "premature".

Good to know. I thought that my battery was dying pretty quickly. Thanks for that.

(It would be nice if they told people this in the instruction manual.)

[mrkarl]

my libre did the same thing at first...after a few charges it's better now

[Gadget Guy]

Originally Posted by somecanuck

The battery in my brother's Kobo died after around 700-800 page flips. It has been fully charged (I left it plugged in for a good 6 hours). He's going to return the device now.

I imagine loading up new books, flipping through PDFs, and any other CPU-intensive task takes up more juice than just flipping pages. But should it really have drained this quickly?

Well, I am not sure it is an issue yet - but the initial charge on my unit only lasted 600 or 700 pages before it died. Now, I know the initial charge is not always the best gauge, so I am going to try a few more cycles to see if this is an issue or not. However, I am wondering if it has anything to do with the fact I had an SD card in the unit.

When I was first using the unit, I did not have a card in, and the battery meter did not move, but after putting a card in the battery drained almost overnight. Plus - once I removed the card, another issue I was having with cover art not displaying (for books I loaded via Calibre or ADE) when the unit was powered off went away.

GG

[Thrasher]

I had a similar experience. My battery went to almost zero after about 4 days and maybe 400-500 page flips. The charging process is very confusing. I charge it and maybe after 30 minutes the red light switches on, although the gauge does not show it's fully charged....

[corona]

Hmm. I've had el kobo plugged in for several hours now and the red light never comes on...

[Thrasher]

That red light is very strange. First time I charged my Kobo the red light wouldn't turn off even after unplugging the USB cable. Had to turn the unit off and on to get the light to turn off.

[corona]

Yes this happened to me also the first couple of times I charged the battery. Now I rather miss the cheerful red light.

[Gadget Guy]

I am also having the same issue with the red light when it is charging (comes on 15 minutes after plugging in) and have to turn off the device to get it to switch off.

GG

[corona]

I'm kind of cross-posting here, having just raised this question in the firmware upgrade thread. I'm wondering if the problems my Kobo seems to be having with the battery -- it's running down again, after 100 or so page turns and hours of charging with the red light never coming on -- might be addressed in a firmware update. Or if they're strictly hardware-related. ('Cause if it's the former then maybe I'll be patient.)