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Originally Posted by Renate
I am surprised, although it seems I've seen lots of battery replacement threads on the Onyx forum. Ok, batteries are a hassle, but they are not particularly expensive either. Actually, I've never replaced a battery on anything.
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It's not about the cost of the battery, but rather the time and risk (the devices are easy to damage) involved with replacing them, how fast they degrade, and the total lack of practical support from Onyx regarding them. They will not provide replacement batteries, nor do they provide any local service option, and no local third-party repair place in New Zealand will touch them - the only avenue open to me is to either DIY it with AliExpress batteries (which take a good 2+ months to arrive), or pay to ship the device back to China for service (which is quite expensive).
I want a reader that functions correctly, without crashing or failing to properly refresh the screen because the battery cannot supply the necessary current, and lasts for more than a few minutes of use. And I want it without having to pull the darn thing apart every few months to replace a battery that is not intended to be user-replaceable. That seems like a pretty reasonable set of expectations.
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By the time the battery has swelled it's time to do a battery-ectomy and either use the device in fixed service with a wired power supply or to just use it occasionally for regression testing.
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Poke 2 cannot operate in that mode; it requires a functional battery in order to boot, even if a charger is attached.
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I've had my Poke3 for a year now and never intentionally charged it. By that I mean that I do enough development and syncing that I never even pay attention to charge level. I think it's a great device and I ignore most of the Onyx stuff.
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That is great for you, but most buyers don't purchase these as dev devices. If they cannot handle normal usage as an ebook reader & perhaps a few light tablet tasks - which they cannot - then they are fundamentally unfit for purpose. They are certainly great devices, but the battery problem is not one that can reasonably be overlooked in most cases.