Battery Life... really?

[FJames]

Battery calibration may get better, depending on the algorithm used, but I doubt the actual battery life will improve beyond the 2nd charge.

I saw again the effect that I noticed on the first charge: the battery meter shown on the Sleep screen while charging indicates a higher charge level than the one on the Home screen when I turn it on. After 1.5 hours charging the Sleep screen battery icon was at about 70%, the Home screen battery icon showed about 50%. That seems like a firmware problem, unless the battery power actually drops that much when the unit is turned on even while plugged in.

It took about 3 1/2 hours to charge fully (on a 1 amp charger) according to the Sleep screen battery icon, a little more than the 3 hours maximum mentioned in the manual. After turning it on, the battery on the Home screen showed 90%, then dropped to 80% within seconds, just like before. Doesn't look like this behavior has been improved by 1.9.5. Could be a defective battery, but I don't think anyone has reported seeing any more battery life than I have.

When the unit shuts down due to low battery power, there doesn't seem to be any advance warning (bad), but it does shows a message telling me to charge it (good). When I plug it in, the screen flashes a few time and then goes solid black and stays that way - there's no display showing that it's charging (bad). I have to turn it on and put it into Sleep mode in order to see the battery level while charging. It will stay in Sleep mode and not power off fully while charging (good). It would be better though if it automatically went into Sleep mode and showed the charge level when plugged in, then powered off with a message showing full charge after it finishes charging.

Is there any way to make the indicator light next to the power slider do something more useful that just staying on when the unit is plugged in, like maybe blink on and off while it is charging?

I know that battery meters are never accurate anyway, but I hope this level of detail is helpful to the Kobo firmware dev team if there's any possibility to make improvements.