[k9reeder]

Not to say that this is your situation, but the ALP Guide specifies that purchasers fully charge the battery before its first use -- perhaps implying that some battery capacity/longevity may otherwise be lost if one starts reading right out of the box. Don't know.

Anyway, these build-in rechargeable batteries are a nuisance. And the Guide doesn't give any guidance how to best manage/protect them. They all weaken, lose capacity and die sooner or later. but I'm pretty sure that some ways of treating a battery are better than others for preserving/extending the chemistry. Just no one seems to agree just what those best practices are (especially given that there are different types of rechargeable battery NiCd, NiMH, Li-ion to add to the confused advice).

In any case, for the ALP on what I believe is a fully charged battery, I can get about 5-6 hours straight before I lose the first of the three bars, that's with fairly frequent page turns, 2-3, similar to icedtea above. Also, and this may just be my imagination, but I think powering the device on also sucks up a chunk of juice, so I tend to leave mine running when I put it down for a reading break, rather than be constantly powering it up during a reading session).

Anyway, my battery has been holding the charge consistently so far. I've been using it daily for the past 5 or 6 months, and my practice (rightly or wrongly) has been to recharge fully every night (to never partially recharge, meaning never interrupt the recharging), and to always recharge (fully) as soon as there is only one bar remaining (I never risk draining it). I know from past experience with some other devices that if you let the battery fully drain, it may lose so much capacity permanently as to become almost useless. Yet other devices warn that if you don't use up full capacity now and then, or don't wait for full recharge each time, the device's chemical memory, the amount of charge it can hold, will shorten and shorten. Gad.