K3 battery life stinks... what?

[RiddleMeThis]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Why would anyone load 750 books on their Kindle.

Because I want access to all my books at once. And I read a lot of series, and if a character gets mentioned in one book and I don't remember who it is, I want to be able to do a quick search of the characters name and find out who it is.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by TomF

If you truly understand the technology behind e-ink you'll realize that "shut down mode" doesn't save any more power than sleep mode. A tear down of the K2 indicated that when power was completely removed the screen continued to display the last image. That's the way it's designed to work. With Wi-Fi off and no indexing being done, the only time a Kindle uses power while reading is when it does a page turn. It doesn't operate like other electronic devices and there really is no "off".

Then what is the difference between Sleep Mode and Shut Down Mode? At a minimum I believe Shut Down Mode would also stop the WiFi from working. Perhaps, just shutting down WiFi would have the same effect.

With the PRS 900 those two modes DEFINITELY made a difference in battery life.

[TomF]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Then what is the difference between Sleep Mode and Shut Down Mode? At a minimum I believe Shut Down Mode would also stop the WiFi from working. Perhaps, just shutting down WiFi would have the same effect.

With the PRS 900 those two modes DEFINITELY made a difference in battery life.

I believe the difference you mentioned is probably right, Shut Down Mode probably does turn off wireless, but turning it off manually, which is the way a lot of people use it on a daily basis, would accomplish the same thing. I think it's easier to leave wireless off and then let the Kindle go to sleep or to manually turn wireless off if it's already on than to hold the switch but YMMV.

I can't speak to Sony battery life as I've never owned one.

[Viseguy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The battery doesn't need priming, but on many devices (and I don't know whether or not the Kindle is among them) it can take a couple of charge/discharge cycles to accurately calibrate the battery meter.

Ah. Thanks for clarifying that. I'll probably discharge my K3 fully a few times -- after it arrives (tomorrow, I hope!! ) -- on the assumption that it can't hurt and might help.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by TomF

I believe the difference you mentioned is probably right, Shut Down Mode probably does turn off wireless, but turning it off manually, which is the way a lot of people use it on a daily basis, would accomplish the same thing. I think it's easier to leave wireless off and then let the Kindle go to sleep or to manually turn wireless off if it's already on than to hold the switch but YMMV.

You convinced me. I'll just leave wireless off when not being used. I'm going to use the K3 differently anyway than I used the Sony. I'm going to make the K3 my primary reading device. When I was using the Sony, my primary reading device was the PC.

Legibility is FAR better on the K3 since the Sony had lighter print, less contrast and significant glare even though it's screen was much larger.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Because Amazon wants to keep things simple. The Kindle OS is not Windows or Linux.

I thought the Kindle was Linux-based? Well was with the K2, have things changed with the K3?

[NiLuJe]

It is Linux based. But that doesn't mean you get to use & tinker with it like <insert favorite distribution here>.

It's a somewhat closed & constrained environment.

[Pushka]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Why would anyone load 750 books on their Kindle. I read 2 books simultaneously per month and discard (archive) all read books.

Even when I used to read pBooks, I threw out the read ones. The only book I have ever re-read is the Bible - 50 times in 50 years.

Because we can.

I still have several of my childhood books, and my kids are way grown up. Guess that makes them vintage.

[sirmaru]

I decided to keep new eBooks on my K3 since my highlighting and old notes will be accessible to me now. They occupy very little space.

After loading on some MP3 songs I like plus some bibles and 2 new eBooks, I'm starting with 3 Gb left. They warn in the manual not to let that get less than 500 Mb for indexing and searching reasons. I doubt if I will ever get that low.

Plus, I noticed that, if I turn WiFi off when not in use, I get the available WiFi networks from neighbors on when I turn it back on. That's confusing.

Thus, I'm leaving WiFi on all the time and will use Sleep Mode in the day when I'm using the K3 but go to Shutdown Mode at night or days when I will not use it.

Amazon rates the K3 battery for 3 weeks with WiFi on using Sleep Mode and 4 weeks with WiFi off. I'll see how long my battery lasts with this doctrine. I also use Text to Speech and play MP3 music at times. That will add to battery drain.

I'm using my K3 as my Primary reading device. When I used the Sony PRS 900, my PC was my Primary reading device. This K3 is great for reading and very clear.

[Percyiris]

An owner of an on-line battery site offered this opinion when I ordered a new lithium battery. Even with their highly touted advantages, for the first five cycles the battery should be almost fully discharged before fully recharging. I'm not sure how correct that advice is, but I don't think it can hurt. Has anyone heard a similar comment on this topic?

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by vugtitan

Why?


you can disable indexing in xp and windows all flavours.

surely you can disable it on linux too?

no need for indexing contact apart from titles.

Because adding a user control will inevitably lead to more support contacts. Just people not knowing what it means and emailing support costs money, let alone people turning it off and then not understanding why their text searches don't work. Maybe you don't search your text but a lot of us do. And it also might shock you to know that there are lots of people who turn to customer support first, before they look at the manual or google around for an answer. These people are expensive. Customer support costs can kill your profits.

On the flip side, indexing is pretty quick. Once your books are indexed, that's it. This is a one-time performance hit. The Kindle only indexes additions. Most people don't add tons of books at a time, either. Those of us that have established libraries of DRM-free books do, but we're in the minority. Since I've had a Kindle before, I knew about this so I waited until I was done reading for the evening before doing a big book transfer. Then I plugged it in to charge and let it go. So we're looking at a rare issue with an easy workaround.

If you look at the cost/benefit from Amazon's perspective it makes no sense for them to add this as a feature. They'd have to take the time and money to develop and test the control plus deal with all the support issues so a small handful of people won't be put out that they get some battery drain when they plunk 100 books on their device. Do you think many people going to buy another model of ebook reader because it lets you disable searching? In an ideal world, every possible feature would be offered. In the real world, we have to do the math to figure out if it makes economic sense to do it. How much does it add to the cost? Does it add enough value to justify that? Will we gain or lose customers?

[vugtitan]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Because adding a user control will inevitably lead to more support contacts. Just people not knowing what it means and emailing support costs money, let alone people turning it off and then not understanding why their text searches don't work. Maybe you don't search your text but a lot of us do. And it also might shock you to know that there are lots of people who turn to customer support first, before they look at the manual or google around for an answer. These people are expensive. Customer support costs can kill your profits.

On the flip side, indexing is pretty quick. Once your books are indexed, that's it. This is a one-time performance hit. The Kindle only indexes additions. Most people don't add tons of books at a time, either. Those of us that have established libraries of DRM-free books do, but we're in the minority. Since I've had a Kindle before, I knew about this so I waited until I was done reading for the evening before doing a big book transfer. Then I plugged it in to charge and let it go. So we're looking at a rare issue with an easy workaround.

If you look at the cost/benefit from Amazon's perspective it makes no sense for them to add this as a feature. They'd have to take the time and money to develop and test the control plus deal with all the support issues so a small handful of people won't be put out that they get some battery drain when they plunk 100 books on their device. Do you think many people going to buy another model of ebook reader because it lets you disable searching? In an ideal world, every possible feature would be offered. In the real world, we have to do the math to figure out if it makes economic sense to do it. How much does it add to the cost? Does it add enough value to justify that? Will we gain or lose customers?

Te setting can be hidden in advanced settings.the cost is negligible as it is a software thing.plain english instructions from the kindle will tell you what indexing is and it has turned on/off.



amazon support can tell people to read the book instructions on auto responder.

[Strolls]

Originally Posted by Alisa

...
On the flip side, indexing is pretty quick. Once your books are indexed, that's it. This is a one-time performance hit. The Kindle only indexes additions. Most people don't add tons of books at a time, either. Those of us that have established libraries of DRM-free books do, but we're in the minority. Since I've had a Kindle before, I knew about this so I waited until I was done reading for the evening before doing a big book transfer. Then I plugged it in to charge and let it go. So we're looking at a rare issue with an easy workaround.

Considering that we're seeing support requests here on this issue, it might have been worth Amazon adding a warning when more than a dozen (or however many) books are added at once. "These books will be indexed, this consumes battery at a faster rate. It might be a good idea to leave your Kindle plugged in for awhile if you're able to do so".

[NiLuJe]

There are private commands supposed to start/stop the indexing process. Never tried them, no idea if they still work, use at your own risk, etc. (;debugOn & `help for details). One thing I'm pretty sure about is that, if they do work, I doubt they'll persist after a reboot.

[Josieb1]

I plan to try and load 100's of books on my Kindle evetually, probably about 30 at a time (I have nearly 800 in my Calibre library, and yes I want them all on), so is there a way to tell when the indexing has finished for each set?

I have two options and don't know which ones best, a) leave my kindle on charge over night as I will load the books in the evening, or b) let the battery run down and just accept the charge won't last very long.

Like other users I like to have my entire Calibre library on tap, whenever I want, my existing Sony Touch has 701 books on it now