Battery life problems??

Thanks for the answer Boris.

Guess I may as well chime in. Received my eDGe late yesterday, and while I mostly like it, there are a few disappointments....the biggest for me is the poor battery life. No matter what I do (short of powering down) I don't get decent life. I can shut off the wireless card, then lock the screen, and close the lid. A couple hours later I open the lid and me battery has gone from 90% to 40%. This surely isn't as good as advertised.

Are you sure the screen is staying off? Mine turns itself back on, which is bad for the battery life. But I can get a fairly long use time, even with Wifi and lcd on. I just have to turn it off every time I plan on leaving it for any length of time without being plugged in.

One of the first problems I encountered with my Edge had to do with screen timeout -I set the screen to timeout ater 10 minutes in an attempt to save battery life, however, It refused to wake. I closed the edge and put it aside for about a half hour, when I attempted to wake the screen no amount of button pressing worked. I tried menu, home and back several times and resorted to a restart. I know this is bit different from my G1 phone, but the screen wakes from timeout on my phone with a press to menu or any incoming activity. - so I scratched that as an option for saving battery. Anyone else have a similar experience, or was this just an isolated instance?

The lack of a true "standby mode" is the real culprit. If you read with the Edge on your lap (which, given its weight, is necessary when not at a table), every touch of the LCD side against your knee, even when it is "off" is registered and presumably draws power. This is also a problem for using the eBook side - I was finding that highlighting wasn't working on my eBooks and the problem turned out to be that the LCD side, though off, was being constantly triggered by resting on my knee, which was using up all the processor's resources and leaving nothing to run the eBook side. The LCD should really go off when you turn it off.

I've been using my edge for over a week now and my battery experience is about the same as reported by Boris (5-6 using everything, about 10 just using e-ink and turning off wi-fi). I have my lcd sleep set at 10 minutes and I haven't had any problems with the screen not coming back on. I have had the problem of triggering the lcd with the edge on my lap and not being able to write on the e-ink side. I think a true sleep mode for the lcd side will resolve all of these problems.

I was just going to purchase one of these babies, but this seems like a Big problem. I want to be able to not charge the device when reading on eInk/ebook side for at least couple of days.

Let me know if you guys fix this, until then I'll look elsewhere.

Originally Posted by borisb

In my own usage, I find a 100% battery charge lasts 5-6 hours under steady LCD and wifi (browser) usage.
- Boris

This is what I get as well. So I guess I can't complain but if they can start selling spare batteries and external chargers, I think this will close a major gap.

Originally Posted by borisb

In my own usage, I find a 100% battery charge lasts 5-6 hours under steady LCD and wifi (browser) usage.

I'll 3rd that. 5-6 hours is pretty much what I was getting, with everything on. So I'd say it's safe to reasonably expect that from the device, at least when it's new.

If you look at battery use stats (under About Edge in Settings) you'll see that the LCD takes the vast majority of the power, followed by WiFi. Everything else together takes a miniscule proportion of battery power. This suggests to me that lowering LCD brightness (as well as setting a short LCD time-out time) can have a dramatic effect on battery life. Those who have the LCD at max brightness may deplete the battery especially fast.

I recommend adding Power Widget to your eDGe home screen. This way, you can easily toggle screen brightness, among other items.

Power Widget controls (from left to right):

(1) Wi-FI,
(2) BLUETOOTH (turns on, but not yet functional, so leave off for now),
(3) GPS (obviously does not apply to the eDGe),
(4) Background Sync (I believe this notifies you of new emails, etc, may use up some resources, including wifi), and
(5) BRIGHTNESS toggle

Originally Posted by borisb

Henry - to reliably turn off the LCD, press the "X" application list icon on the LCD home screen, then the "Lock" icon (at the bottom). To reactivate the LCD, press the Menu key.

This won't help the heat or battery usage since the CPU remain active even with the LCD off (you may be reading an eBook, for example, or having the music playing). To cut the power draw/CPU, you must power off the eDGe.

So, I suggest that eDGe should manage the CPU usage when the device is idle, and the background Apps should be able to exit when they are not in using.

Also, I have a question, how many minutes/hours of power usage is equivalent to each booting? Because I think booting is power intensive in mobile devices.

Hi.

I have the problem too : it seems not to charge.
Should the battery icon, when charging, being animated like on my phone ?
And what should the power button led do ? actually it's off for about 6 seconds, then flash 2 or 3 times for halt a seconds then of for 6 seconds again ...
I received my edge 5 hours ago.
I will let it on charge for the night (I'm in Paris, so it's time to go to sleep for me ) and see if it's better tomorrow.

I have been using my eDGe since the end of February. The only problem with battery consumption that I have noticed is the menu and < (back arrow) buttons being triggered from pressure on the bezel and backside of the case. It is very common to open the edge after I pull it out of my backpack to see the "Power Off/Silent Mode" dialog open, thus keeping the LCD screen turned on.

I operate the LCD on the 30 second timeout and about 50% brightness. As others have reported, when I prevent the above problem from occurring I easily get 6 hours battery life out of the edge using everything (Taking notes in class while keeping PDF to Go open with a datasheet or the calculator apps).

Originally Posted by mba

Hi.Should the battery icon, when charging, being animated like on my phone ?

Yes, it should be animated.

Originally Posted by mba

And what should the power button led do ? actually it's off for about 6 seconds, then flash 2 or 3 times for halt a seconds then of for 6 seconds again ...

The button should be solid green when the device is on but not charging and should blink green (on for a second every 3-5 seconds maybe?) while it's charging. The flashing should occur whether or not the device is on or off.

You can also (after letting it charge initially) turn the device on and click the settings icon, then choose "About the eDGe" and from there you can navigate to the battery status. That will also tell you whether or not it's charging or discharging.

Thanks for your answer.
I already updated yesterday.
And after on full night of charge, it was at only 46% this morning.
I'll try to completly empty the battery (if possible) and make another fullcharge.