battery life question

20LEgend · 11-05-2011, 11:20 AM

Sorry not meaning to hog the forum this morning but I was hoping for feedback from you guys regarding battery life. I bought my mother a kindle 3 and she reads about 5 hours a day. She says the battery needs charging about once a week. Would you say this is good/bad?

Atilla · 11-05-2011, 12:16 PM

It depends on the amount of page turns. If she is using large fonts I would say charging once a week is normal. make sure she has Wi-Fi off.

Greg_E · 11-05-2011, 12:57 PM

With Wifi or 3G on I would consider this normal, if wifi or 3G is off then you might have a problem.

Shack70 · 11-05-2011, 01:00 PM

Sounds about right with Wifi on

Blossom · 11-05-2011, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 20LEgend

Sorry not meaning to hog the forum this morning but I was hoping for feedback from you guys regarding battery life. I bought my mother a kindle 3 and she reads about 5 hours a day. She says the battery needs charging about once a week. Would you say this is good/bad?

If she turns WiFi off it will last much longer. I read about the same on mine but kept WiFi off and got 3 weeks of use before I needed to charge it.

DustyDisks · 11-05-2011, 06:09 PM

Question, is there any relationship with battery life and number of books stored on the unit? I would think not seeing that once in memory power is not required to keep it.

I have never made it past two weeks , more likely only only one week before having to charge again. But also I am a very heavy reader 4-6+ hours per day.

dwig · 11-05-2011, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 20LEgend

...she reads about 5 hours a day. She says the battery needs charging about once a week...

Sounds pretty normal to me.

I'm under the impression that Amazon's stated life is based on roughly 1 hr/day at a normal reading pace. Five hours a day is a lot more than most people will read. Also, if she uses larger than normal fonts she will be changing pages more often per hour than the "average" reader and will see shorter battery life. I do agree that you should confirm that she keeps all wireless turned off except when needed.

The big sources of battery drain in a Kindle are:

Wireless - this is the big #1
Indexing - this is the background indexing for the search engine that the Kindle does every time a new book is loaded. At 5hr/day she's probably burning through more books than average and if she's adding books as she goes along then this will impact battery life on a regular basis.
Page changing - I believe that Amazon predicts a max of about 3000 pages per charge regardless of time.

Blossom · 11-05-2011, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DustyDisks

Question, is there any relationship with battery life and number of books stored on the unit? I would think not seeing that once in memory power is not required to keep it.

I have never made it past two weeks , more likely only only one week before having to charge again. But also I am a very heavy reader 4-6+ hours per day.

I never noticed any but indexing books will drain a battery so I plug mine in if I am going to add a number of books. I get 3 Weeks of use with mine with WiFi off and I read 3 to 5 hours a day till I got my K4 which I now use instead.

InsulinJunkie72 · 11-05-2011, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwig

I'm under the impression that Amazon's stated life is based on roughly 1 hr/day at a normal reading pace.

They sort of got sneaky and now usually cite half-hour/day (w/wireless off) to get to 2 months on the Kindle Touch/Kindle Keyboard (1 month on the K4 NT).

Blossom · 11-05-2011, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by InsulinJunkie72

They sort of got sneaky and now usually cite half-hour/day (w/wireless off) to get to 2 months on the Kindle Touch/Kindle Keyboard (1 month on the K4 NT).

I see now way to get a 2 Month battery life out of the K3 or K4. 3 weeks is the norm for me. Maybe if just sits on the shelf with no indexing or no WiFi maybe then...

DustyDisks · 11-05-2011, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blossom

I never noticed any but indexing books will drain a battery so I plug mine in if I am going to add a number of books. I get 3 Weeks of use with mine with WiFi off and I read 3 to 5 hours a day till I got my K4 which I now use instead.

Yep , suspected that it was my reading doing it, tho the upgrade to 3.3 firmware did something too help, instead of 4-5 days , now it looks like I may make it 11 or so days between charges.

I am a fast reader, and use the smallest text size on my reader for more words per page. But a 700-900 page book if it is good , 3 days max.

Lot's and Lot's of page turning , forward and back.

Deja Moo · 11-06-2011, 01:39 AM

Another thing that uses battery: active content, especially games.

enkov · 11-06-2011, 09:57 AM

Also - regular using of the dictionary. It eats the power too.

I think for K3 is about 8000 page turns and for K4NT is about 4000-4500 page turns. For K4NT the WiFi is a lot optimised (new chips and firmware) so it will not eat so much power with the WiFi turned On.

I have K4NT - it used 10-12 days do get a half a charge with a 2-3h/day reading - no dictionary use, no indexing (load books once a week). But I own it for a two weeks only. My old Kindle 2 Intl. 3G used to last a month with the 3G off and reading a hour/two per day.

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11-05-2011, 11:20 AM	#1
20LEgend Connoisseur Posts: 68 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: UK Device: kindle 3	battery life question Sorry not meaning to hog the forum this morning but I was hoping for feedback from you guys regarding battery life. I bought my mother a kindle 3 and she reads about 5 hours a day. She says the battery needs charging about once a week. Would you say this is good/bad?

11-05-2011, 12:16 PM	#2
Atilla Addict Posts: 225 Karma: 619496 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Canada Device: Kindle 3, Kindle 3 3G, Kobo Touch, Playbook,Kobo Clara HD,Kobo Libra 2	It depends on the amount of page turns. If she is using large fonts I would say charging once a week is normal. make sure she has Wi-Fi off.

11-05-2011, 12:57 PM	#3
Greg_E Zealot Posts: 103 Karma: 1180 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: Acer Iconia a500, XP tablet PC	With Wifi or 3G on I would consider this normal, if wifi or 3G is off then you might have a problem.

11-05-2011, 01:00 PM	#4
Shack70 Guru Posts: 777 Karma: 1043626 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: York, Pa Device: Kindle Paperwhite 11th Generation	Sounds about right with Wifi on

11-05-2011, 06:09 PM	#6
DustyDisks Old Fart In Training Posts: 534 Karma: 2742476 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Gladewater, Texas Device: K3+3g/KFHD 7"/Nexus 7/Nexus 7.2	Question, is there any relationship with battery life and number of books stored on the unit? I would think not seeing that once in memory power is not required to keep it. I have never made it past two weeks , more likely only only one week before having to charge again. But also I am a very heavy reader 4-6+ hours per day.

11-06-2011, 01:39 AM	#12
Deja Moo Enthusiast Posts: 32 Karma: 8228 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: PaperWhite	Another thing that uses battery: active content, especially games.

11-06-2011, 09:57 AM	#13
enkov Advanced Dunno Posts: 80 Karma: 27094 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Plovdiv, Bulgaria Device: Kindle Fire HDX 7 + Paperwhite 2013	Also - regular using of the dictionary. It eats the power too. I think for K3 is about 8000 page turns and for K4NT is about 4000-4500 page turns. For K4NT the WiFi is a lot optimised (new chips and firmware) so it will not eat so much power with the WiFi turned On. I have K4NT - it used 10-12 days do get a half a charge with a 2-3h/day reading - no dictionary use, no indexing (load books once a week). But I own it for a two weeks only. My old Kindle 2 Intl. 3G used to last a month with the 3G off and reading a hour/two per day.