Quote:
Originally Posted by MidknytOwl
Pardon the ignorance but I haven't stumbled across that advice before...why?
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This advice is in a number of forum posts. It started with the 500, which is capable of charging at a pretty fast rate. The USB 1 spec guarantees a minimum amount of current to all new devices. You can get more, but some laptops don't enable higher power unless the device is "active", which usually means having drivers so it is a recognized device. In USB 2 I think the spec raised the minimum current, but not everybody implemented it differently. The laptop guys are more concerned about battery life, so they like to switch stuff off. If the 500 couldn't get high power, it takes nothing. Sony being a laptop company, this is probably the "polite" thing to do.
I don't have a 505, but folks have reported that it is willing to charge with low power. That's essentially with the PSP cords do. They just dump however much power they can get form the USB port into the charge circuit. That's what users like me usually want. If you really have 5.2V (what the PSP charger provides) you can charge the battery more fully, so charging with the real round cord of a PSP charger does give a more complete fill. The USB brick I got with my cord is actually 5.2V, which seems common in a couple other bricks I tested. The laptop is 5.00V, of course, no extra power here.
The advice isn't probably as general as folks suggest, but it is the more general solution as it avoids any USD data uncertainty. Not to mention you can read while charging.