Quote:
Originally Posted by pilotbob
That's too bad. Why would you return something that was giving you a "two week" battery life? Does any other gadget you have last that long on a single charge?
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Why indeed... because the morons at tech support told me it could be fixed. Then when I got the refurb with the same life, they said, "Oh, that's what it's supposed to be."
I was distracted by the inflated "page-turn life" and hadn't read the fine print that it involved "turning 1 page per second continuously right after a full charge."
A LiIon cell will only degrade to about 50% over 6 months or so. My iPod lasts for 6 or 8 weeks when it's off. My computer battery lasts for months if it's off. Our new product, a wireless music streaming device, was designed to last 4-6 months when turned "off". It all depends on the quiescent power use when it's "off" because none of these electronic appliances are truly off (as I'm sure you know). I guess the eBook is using more current keeping DRAM refreshed or something (I don't remember the exact components in a PRS-500 right now -- it's been a year since I looked at a teardown so I'm guessing here). A flash-based system designed correctly need not draw much power at all quiescently.
But basically, you're right, two weeks' life is understandable and not too bad. I just wish they had told me that instead of encouraging me to blow my warranty for nothing.