Hi Paul, it's Debbie, I can tell you that if you turn off speech, you will
se a lot less drain on your battery. I am not sure why but the speech drains
the battery a lot faster than just using the braille display.
I hope this helps. If you still have problems feel free to email me off
list. but what you are saying sounds quite normal.
I find that if I am reading with speech, my bn experiences the same amount
of battery drain.
I hope that I have helpped.
>From Debbie. P S Good luck.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Henrichsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Braillenote List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:15 AM
Subject: battery drain. Was [Braillenote] A suggestion regarding alarms
> Hi, Terry. I guess this alarm suggestion stems from the fact that I still
> really dislike the amount of battery drain on my bn.
> I know that everyone on this list has tried to assure me that the
> percentage of drain is normal, but it just really bothers me that I can
> read for an hour and drop almost ten percent.
> I just had my bn fully charged on Sunday morning and I am already at 47
> percent on Tuesday. I have probably used the unit for maybe three
hours or
> so, four hours if I were over exaggerating.
> I like everything about this unit except for the battery drain. If it
goes
> down this fast with a new unit not yet a month old, Imagine what it will
be
> like in two years. Will it drop 50 percent each day if I read for an hour
> or so at that time?
> What can I expect in a year and a half or two years with regard to
battery
> drain?
> How will I know it is time to get a new battery?
> Is it because I have speech and braille turned on that I drop so fast? Is
> it because I am editing, dleting and adding characters instead of just
reading?
> I assume not because I drop at least four percent a day when my unit is
> switched off.
> I have a book port, a portable reading device from A P H. Although it
> doesn't have an alarm, it does have a clock; so that it keeps track
of the
> time even when the unit is off. It uses flash memory to store books and
> that card is always in the unit. It doesn't drain nearly as fast as
the bn
> does. I don't keep a flash card in my unit; nor do I use the modem,
serial
> port or infra-red port.
> Of course, we are talking apples and oranges here, but I do remember that
> in the early rom updates of the book port, it ate batteries like candy.
> They somehow fixed the drain problem and updated the rom so now, it
doesn't
> drain hardly at all.
>
> If I over exaggerate, I probably get ten hours out of a full charge. I
> thought we were supposed to get between 16 and 20 hours; or is that
if the
> unit just sits there doing nothing?
> I had thought that if we could turn off functions that we weren't
> interested in using that, perhaps, we could increase the battery life.
> I think this is really going to be a sticking point if the new packmate
> gets a much higher battery life. We already have the problem with a newer
> internet explorer that pocket pc provides for the pacmate and the fact
that
> they can use a wireless connection.
> I think their 50 hour battery life was an exaggeration, but what if they
> can get 20 or 30 hours to our ten?
> There is no way to even tell how long you have used the bn between
charges
> The L key doesn't work on the support page. With my braille lite 18, I
> could bring up the status menu and find out how much of a charge I had
left
> and also how many hours I had been using the unit.
> We can't do this with the bn.
> If I used the stopwatch each time I switched on the unit to get a running
> total, would that drain the battery even faster?
> I tried it last night after a suggestion from a user that this wold tell
me
> how much time I had used the unit. I read for an hour and five
> minutes,according to the stopwatch. I dropped from 58 to near 48 percent.
> This is the only thing that really frustrates me.
> Can you tell<grin>?
> Paul Henrichsen
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> <home.pacbell.net/paulh52>
>
>
>
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