Maximizing battery life on your device

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

A few people with Oasis 2 have been having to recharge after only a few days for multiple cycles.

I hope if your brand new Oasis 2 is running down like that you aren't turning off WiFi and screen light to save the battery. Replace that baby! You paid enough for it.

[binaryhermit]

Poor battery life could be related to book indexing, especially with larger collections?

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

Poor battery life could be related to book indexing, especially with larger collections?

Not really, unless your usage pattern is pretty unusual. For most people the vast majority of your device time (probably over 99%) is spent reading books, not searching your collection. Indexing or the lack thereof only affects the latter.

[Philippe D.]

The only time I ever ran out of battery with my Kobo was at a pretty bad time - early on in a full day boat trip. I suppose had somehow remained on with the light on for a full night... luckily I had a battery charger that I normally keep with me for my phone; charging the Kobo back up took only a fraction of the charge.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by sjfan

Not really, unless your usage pattern is pretty unusual. For most people the vast majority of your device time (probably over 99%) is spent reading books, not searching your collection. Indexing or the lack thereof only affects the latter.

For the pure ebook readers that I've used, indexing only occurs when you add a book, not when you are searching.

[JSWolf]

8. Font size
Set the smallest font size you can read with to minimize the number of page turns.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

Poor battery life could be related to book indexing, especially with larger collections?

It's more likely a book stuck indexing.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

8. Font size
Set the smallest font size you can read with to minimize the number of page turns.

Are you sure of that? Doing that probably means the device spends more time rendering each page. That's more CPU per page, and it probably means more "ink" on the page. Which might mean it's more expansive to draw that page.

And I have no idea. It's one of those things I wondered about when the larger screens came out. If the same apparent font size is used on a 6" ereader and a 7.8" ereader, assuming all else is the same, which uses more power?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Are you sure of that? Doing that probably means the device spends more time rendering each page. That's more CPU per page, and it probably means more "ink" on the page. Which might mean it's more expansive to draw that page.

And I have no idea. It's one of those things I wondered about when the larger screens came out. If the same apparent font size is used on a 6" ereader and a 7.8" ereader, assuming all else is the same, which uses more power?

I thought e-ink screens only consumed power when they refreshed? Isn't that why devices have sleep screens instead of blank screens?

(Not that I agree with shrinking the fonts to save power. That seems silly.)

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by sjfan

Not really, unless your usage pattern is pretty unusual. For most people the vast majority of your device time (probably over 99%) is spent reading books, not searching your collection. Indexing or the lack thereof only affects the latter.

I do believe the other poster was referring to when you put many books on the ereader at once. I don't feel like looking it up but I know HarryT had to charge his Oasis more than once when he added his entire collection to the new Oasis. It took him 3 days to get it all indexed.

[JSWolf]

How much power does each screen take to draw vs how much power to figure out what to draw?

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

For the pure ebook readers that I've used, indexing only occurs when you add a book, not when you are searching.

Books are indexed when you add a book, but the index is also used for searches and an inefficient indexing scheme would require more effort at search time. Searching is the whole reason for indexing, really.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by davidfor

And I have no idea. It's one of those things I wondered about when the larger screens came out. If the same apparent font size is used on a 6" ereader and a 7.8" ereader, assuming all else is the same, which uses more power?

Without considering light, they should use the same even if a full page refresh with flash occurs every same amount of pages. With light, the bigger one probably uses more as thereis so much more extra space constantly lit.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Are you sure of that? Doing that probably means the device spends more time rendering each page. That's more CPU per page, and it probably means more "ink" on the page. Which might mean it's more expansive to draw that page.

And I have no idea. It's one of those things I wondered about when the larger screens came out. If the same apparent font size is used on a 6" ereader and a 7.8" ereader, assuming all else is the same, which uses more power?

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Without considering light, they should use the same even if a full page refresh with flash occurs every same amount of pages. With light, the bigger one probably uses more as thereis so much more extra space constantly lit.

To be a bit more specific, with the light off, the 7.8" reader uses 69% more power per page turn because it has 69% more pixels, but it needs 1/1.69 as many page turns, because it has 69% characters per page. Justification, paragraph length, and chapter length will cause these ratios to vary. That is, the cost per page turn ratio is pretty much fixed, but the total number of page turns per book for each reader will vary.

So, as DuckieTigger writes, on average, it is a wash, but YMMV.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

1. Buy a new reader
   Turning of wifi is all well and good. But once you start disabling SD cards, touch screen and dictionaries, perhaps it's time to put that horse out to pasture.

Yes, but knowing that these options all use power means that you can make some decisions, based on YOUR personal usage, what to disable and what not to.

My Mom has a tablet and never uses the SD card that we bought her, so if that is using up battery power, I'm just going to disable it unless she needs it. I have an SD card in my Nook that I rarely use, so may choose to disable it. My late sister used the dictionary maybe twice in the year she had my ereader, so for her, that would have made sense to disable it. Touch screen - that's probably the least likely to be disabled.

On tablets, the more apps you have that require a location, the more power you use. Disable or remove apps you don't use.