is the battery life difference between the k3 wifi only and wifi + 3g substantial?

[wyndslash]

Indexing?

[Blossom]

Indexing is what makes a book searchable. Believe me once you get alot of books on there this feature is a must to find anything! When you add a book to the Kindle it gets added into a searchable database. Someone else can probably give a more technically description but if you need to search for books that contain a word that's what makes it possible or a title of a book, author...and so on.

[wyndslash]

Ooh thanks. Well, I'm kind of expecting a new kindle to come out within the next two years so I might replace it by then. So I guess the wifi will do. I'm going to Singapore in June and I understand it's not 3G covered.

[karunaji]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What if you live in a country (as I do) where there is no surcharge for 3G purchase. Would you feel differently about it then?

Would I be unable to see it from the point of view of a resident of another country? I think that there is a 99% chance for this as it is too easy to become biased due to personal circumstances.

In the meantime I buy books from Amazon using these tricks to pretend having a US address to avoid this stupid $2 charge for my WiFi Kindle and be able to buy e-books that are for US market only.

[zooterkin]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Oh Indexing really drains your battery so plug the Kindle in when you add alot of books. It takes like 10 regular size books per 30 minutes to index on mine.

Ah, would this explain why I don't seem to be getting anything near to the advertised battery life? I've only had the Kindle for nearly two weeks, but I've had to charge it 3 times already. The last time was Saturday, and since then I've been turning off WiFi when I wasn't using it, and yet the battery level is down to half. However, I have loaded about a dozen books, plus a couple of news feeds daily. Would that account for it?

[fettpett]

Originally Posted by zooterkin

Ah, would this explain why I don't seem to be getting anything near to the advertised battery life? I've only had the Kindle for nearly two weeks, but I've had to charge it 3 times already. The last time was Saturday, and since then I've been turning off WiFi when I wasn't using it, and yet the battery level is down to half. However, I have loaded about a dozen books, plus a couple of news feeds daily. Would that account for it?

yeah, the wifi eats into battery life quickly. I noticed that my battery life wasn't lasting as long so I turned it off and it has lasted a lot longer

[zooterkin]

Originally Posted by fettpett

yeah, the wifi eats into battery life quickly. I noticed that my battery life wasn't lasting as long so I turned it off and it has lasted a lot longer

Thanks for the reply, but you misunderstood what I was asking. The quoted battery life is 4 weeks. I charged the Kindle last Saturday; I've only had WiFi on for a few minutes at a time, once or twice a day, but it's already showing as half-charged. In the previous week, it had to be charged twice, when WiFi was on, but it's supposed to last 10 days. I'm asking if the number of documents I downloaded is the cause, because of the indexing that gets done.

[monkeygirl351]

I only have wifi or 3 g on when I am actually going to buy a book or download things I have purchased and are waiting to be downloaded. the rest of the time it is off. I get about 3 to 3 a half weeks on a single charge which I think is pretty good. Is that average for a 3g kindle 3 model?

[janvanmaar]

Originally Posted by zooterkin

I'm asking if the number of documents I downloaded is the cause, because of the indexing that gets done.

Sounds like a plausible explanation. I certainly noticed improved battery lifetime after I disabled indexing and my wifi usage pattern is similar to yours (a few news documents downloaded almost daily but wifi turned off most of the time otherwise). Why don't you simply try not turning the wifi on or disabling indexing for a few days and see what you get? There is no other way to find out.

Originally Posted by monkeygirl351

I get about 3 to 3 a half weeks on a single charge which I think is pretty good. Is that average for a 3g kindle 3 model?

It always depends on how often is it actually used. If you turn it on once a week for a while then 3 weeks are poor I never got 3 weeks with mine but it is used rather heavily - around 1-2 hours a day on average, news downloaded almost daily, some hacking, some audiobooks...

[fettpett]

Originally Posted by zooterkin

Thanks for the reply, but you misunderstood what I was asking. The quoted battery life is 4 weeks. I charged the Kindle last Saturday; I've only had WiFi on for a few minutes at a time, once or twice a day, but it's already showing as half-charged. In the previous week, it had to be charged twice, when WiFi was on, but it's supposed to last 10 days. I'm asking if the number of documents I downloaded is the cause, because of the indexing that gets done.

um...I'm wondering if the battery length has to do whether the kindle is turn off (held for the 7 sec) or if it's just put on the screensaver. I know it doesn't use much power once the e-ink is put in place. i know mine doesn't last 4 weeks on one charge putting it on the screensaver

[crich70]

I don't know about any difference between the two as far as battery life, but I understand that the 3G is a bit heavier than the Wi-Fi model. Wi-Fi weighs 8.5 ounces where as the 3G Kindle weighs 8.7 ounces. I'm assuming the difference in weight is due to the 3G connection hardware.

[zooterkin]

Originally Posted by janvanmaar

Sounds like a plausible explanation. I certainly noticed improved battery lifetime after I disabled indexing and my wifi usage pattern is similar to yours (a few news documents downloaded almost daily but wifi turned off most of the time otherwise). Why don't you simply try not turning the wifi on or disabling indexing for a few days and see what you get? There is no other way to find out.

Well, as I said originally, for the first week I had the wifi on all the time, and I had to recharge the Kindle twice, which is why I started turning it off to see if it made a difference. I previously had a non-3G Kindle on loan, and didn't have to recharge that at all for 2 or 3 weeks, and I left wifi on all the time; so I'm wondering if the 3G is much heavier on battery use. Anyone know if the Kindle tries to use the 3G if it is connected on wifi? At home we have wifi, but a very poor 3G signal. I've only had the Kindle for a couple of weeks so far, so it's hard to say what the normal battery usage is going to be, but I am a little concerned that it seems to going flat much sooner than expected, and was wondering if my experience was abnormal, so thanks for your response.

How do you disable indexing? I can't see that on the Settings pages.

[janvanmaar]

In short: yes, 3G is much heavier on battery, it is always active when wifi is on and there is no way to disable 3G only. If wifi is not turned off before sleep then the Kindle even contacts Amazon servers periodically via 3G during the sleep.

You can disable indexing temporarily by these commands:

;debugOn 
~disableIndexing

see this thread for more information:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=116981

[zooterkin]

Originally Posted by janvanmaar

In short: yes, 3G is much heavier on battery, it is always active when wifi is on and there is no way to disable 3G only. If wifi is not turned off before sleep then the Kindle even contacts Amazon servers periodically via 3G during the sleep.

That's interesting, thanks, that does seem to match what I've seen as far as battery life goes (though I've not worked out how to see if it's contacting the Amazon servers). I was looking through the manual today, and found this which seems to say the opposite:

Originally Posted by Kindle manual

Your Kindle automatically turns 3G coverage off when you connect using Wi-Fi. If you disconnect from a Wi-Fi network or if you move out of Wi-Fi range, Kindle automatically switches back to 3G coverage

Is the manual known to be wrong in this instance?

Originally Posted by janvanmaar

You can disable indexing temporarily by these commands:

;debugOn 
~disableIndexing

see this thread for more information:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=116981

Thank you, I'm still learning about all the add-ons and extra features!

[janvanmaar]

Originally Posted by zooterkin

Is the manual known to be wrong in this instance?

Connect to your wifi network and then go to Settings and type 611. Unless this changed in the 3.1 firmware (I am still on 3.0.3), you will see that the 3G connection is on even if you are on wifi... so yeah, I would say that the formulation in the manual is not really the best. They probably meant that 3G is "off" from the applications' points of view - the traffic from the applications is routed via wifi.

Originally Posted by zooterkin

Thank you, I'm still learning about all the add-ons and extra features!

You are welcome, I am gald if my comments helped. There are quite a few nice add-ons and extras indeed!