Karel details plans for Power Mangement

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Morffius

You may be technically right, but it makes sense to me that when touting something with low power profile it is plainly implied that battery life will be extended compared to other products. I think that is quite obvious with marketing of eink devices touting "days" worth of battery life.

What other products are you comparing it to? Even an EInk device that hasn't implemented power management yet still gets better battery life than a laptop or tablet PC.

[Morffius]

I was comparing eink reading devices to other electronic reading devices from dedicated LCD type to PCs to phones/PDAs. Your second statement seems to agree with what I was saying.

Originally Posted by Shaggy

What other products are you comparing it to? Even an EInk device that hasn't implemented power management yet still gets better battery life than a laptop or tablet PC.

[JSWolf]

This issue is that iRex added a lot more power draining functionality to the DR and then put in a wimpy battery. They could have put in a higher capacity battery and if they wanted to keep costs down, made a slot for a second battery that would be an option for the user. That way the user can pay to add in another high capacity battery. This makes a lot more sense then what they did. What they did was give a battery that was underpowered (overall) and then not have proper power management from day one. There is no justification for this. It's a mistake that will cost them big time.

[Shaggy]

I think the only mistake was releasing it before power management was ready. Assuming their estimates are correct (yeah, I know), the battery life should be pretty good once they get suspend and sleep completed.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is no justification for this. It's a mistake that will cost them big time.

Perhaps. But, batteries get better too. Maybe the figure in a year the same battery size/format will be available at a larger capacity. I know that when I replaced my iPod and Phone batteries the capacity was larger in the same format size. THey are thinking long term here.

BOb

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Maybe the figure in a year the same battery size/format will be available at a larger capacity.

I would not be surprised if they are using the identical battery to that in the iLiad (which has two cells, vs one in the DR). If so, this is already year old technology. Similar sized batteries rated for 1800-2000 mAh are readily available, and 2800 mAh is possible (iLiad Battery Hacks: Part 2).

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A 1300mAh battery would probably have only powered a machine with an LCD screen for half an hour. The battery life may be short, but it would undoubtedly have been a lot shorter still with an LCD screen.

Nobody ever said that no device with an eInk screen is ever going to have a short battery life; merely that eInk screens use less power than LCD screens. That statement remains true.

Yes and no. That fact about the screens is true, Harry, but it is usually bandied about as a selling point for devices with Eink screens. It is usually said that you choose a device with an Eink screen so you will have a longer battery life. This is when it becomes not true. It has become marketing hype.

I think the difference in our views is because you are talking about Eink screens, and I am talking about _devices_ with Eink screens. We're not quite talking about the same thing.

BTW, I have two devices with a similar sized battery to the DR1000S and longer battery life. One is the NEC MobilePro 880. It's a laptop with a 9.4" touchscreen. I'm getting about 8 hours battery life from a 1.4Ah battery. And my PenCentra 130 with an 8" touchscreen used to get about 5 hours from a 1.3Ah battery.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Yes and no. That fact about the screens is true, Harry, but it is usually bandied about as a selling point for devices with Eink screens. It is usually said that you choose a device with an Eink screen so you will have a longer battery life. This is when it becomes not true. It has become marketing hype.

It's true if you're comparing apples to apples. If you have two devices which are otherwise identical, then the one with the EInk screen will last longer than the one with the LCD screen. That's what the selling point is talking about.

Usually though when comparing random device A with random device B, there is a lot more going on that effects the battery life than just the screen.

[nekokami]

But from a consumer's point of view, "apples" are devices with similar cost, functionality, and perhaps size/weight, completely regardless of technology or the current state of firmware such as power management software. And what I'm hearing people say is that there are tablets, possibly for comparable price, but in any case similar size and weight, that do more for longer on a single charge than the DR1000. I think most business users (the market iRex seems to be targeting) will not care that the DR1000 uses e ink, unless it grants them a clear advantage, such as extended battery life.

[sarikan]

Here is my question along with a (potential) comment.
Yesterday, I was playing with the device just to see what it would be like when the battery is completely drained.
Just when it was about to shut down, I did a reboot, watched it boot, and just a second after the main screen appeared, I pressed the reset button.
The device froze. It stopped responding to reset button at the bottom, anyting else. I waited to see it shut down, but it did not. After about 30 mins, I was quite curious. There was no way enough battery that'd last for 30 secs, and after one more press to reset, the red led on the top also turned down.
Until I found a laptop around about 5 mins later, the screen stayed exactly the same. I do not know anything about e-ink, other than it looks amazing
Does this mean that once you display an image on screen, you can completely cut the power, and it will stay as it is? If this is the case, a standby during page displays can really change the battery life story at a remarkable level. About 4-5 hours with full cpu usage can go up to 8-10 I guess. Of course all of this is pure speculation, without proper information, which I hope to get as responses to this message

Kind regards
Seref

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by sarikan

Does this mean that once you display an image on screen, you can completely cut the power, and it will stay as it is?

Yes, that is why eInk is so power efficient. Power is only needed to display something on the page. Once it is there is will persist "forever" without any need to power or refresh it as you need to do with CRT and LCD and PLASMA and OLED, etc.

BOb

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by sarikan

Does this mean that once you display an image on screen, you can completely cut the power, and it will stay as it is?

That's exactly what it means.

If this is the case, a standby during page displays can really change the battery life story at a remarkable level. About 4-5 hours with full cpu usage can go up to 8-10 I guess. Of course all of this is pure speculation, without proper information, which I hope to get as responses to this message

Yes. That's why they're saying that it will only last up to 8 hours in full cpu mode, but once they implement standby it'll last up to 24 hours.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by nekokami

But from a consumer's point of view, "apples" are devices with similar cost, functionality, and perhaps size/weight, completely regardless of technology or the current state of firmware such as power management software.

Except that it's the technology and power management that defines the battery life. Cost, functionality, size/weight have nothing to do with battery life.

And what I'm hearing people say is that there are tablets, possibly for comparable price, but in any case similar size and weight, that do more for longer on a single charge than the DR1000.

Likely because the tablet is using power management, which doesn't exist on the DR1000 yet. As I said, there is a lot more going on with the battery life story than just the screen. However, saying that eInk uses a lot less power than LCD is absolutely correct. Saying that a device with an eInk screen will have better battery life than the exact same device with an LCD screen is absolutely correct. Saying that a DR1000 doesn't last as long as your cell phone is meaningless with regards to the benefits of eInk.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by nekokami

And what I'm hearing people say is that there are tablets, possibly for comparable price, but in any case similar size and weight, that do more for longer on a single charge than the DR1000

The tablets are more capable, but they are also heavier and have much larger batteries. For example, the Gigabyte M912M is a Windows XP convertable tablet with a 8.9" screen but it weighs 1350g (vs 570g) and its "small" battery has a capacity of 32 W/hr (vs 4.8 W/hr) and only lasts ~3 hours (vs ~5 hrs).

There really isn't anything like the DR1000S out there now, but that would be even more true if iRex put a 2x capacity battery in the device. Many laptop/tablet vendors are now offering 2x larger batteries as options. Laptops are so power hungry that this gives a major hit in weight and device thickness. In the case of the DR1000S is would be a minor hit in these areas for a major advance in per charge life.

[ghostwheel]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

There really isn't anything like the DR1000S out there now, but that would be even more true if iRex put a 2x capacity battery in the device. Many laptop/tablet vendors are now offering 2x larger batteries as options. Laptops are so power hungry that this gives a major hit in weight and device thickness. In the case of the DR1000S is would be a minor hit in these areas for a major advance in per charge life.

Glue together two sony prs700.
Total weight 570g, resolution 800x1200, 170dpi, touchscreen,
total price 620 euro

Battery will last for 2 weeks

For DR 1000, use two PRS 505,
for a price of 465 euro.

cons: annoying black bar at center of screen, have to hit 2 buttons to turn page