N800 Turn off or let it idle?

[Nanocore]

OK, so this may sound like a dumb question, but what is the recommended way to leave the N800 when not in use? Turn it off or let it sit idle and the screen goes dark? I had an IPAQ for the past 7 years and there is a button to "shut it off" up on the face of the unit. When it needed to be reset, it was a stick in the bottom of the unit. And the button on the front would bring it right back up where you left off when it was "turned off". A press to the screen wouldn't turn it on, you had to press the button. Now with the N800, if I turn it off from the top, it takes to long to come back up, but if I just let it sit idle any press of the screen turns it on. I am thinking I am not doing something correct, maybe there was something I missed. And since the quick start guide didn't have any information about this, I thought I would post here.

[Tabster]

Most of the time I usually lock the screen and keys so that pressing the screen by mistake won't turn it back on.

To do this, do a quick press of the power button (do not hold it in to power it off)
Then you get a list of 4 options.
I usually just press the square button on the D-pad to select "Lock touch screen and keys"
You can also select from Offline Mode, Lock device and Switch off.

To get out of Lock mode do the same thing - quick press on Power and then the square button

As to whether this is a good/recommended practice, it seems like the only thing to do to short of powering the thing off.

[schmots]

I think mine has only been off for a total of 15 minutes since I got it. And then only for me rebooting. I used to do the lock screen and buttons thing, but then I edited my config files to allow for softpowerdown on long power press.. you can search the forums for how to do this, because it escapes me currently.

[tabletfan]

What is the difference between softpowerdown and lockscreen? Does the N800 have a hiberation mode that disables the screen and writes memory contents to nvram?

[schmots]

softpowerdown is one step past lockscreen.. lockscreen relies on some aspect of the os that isn't released right away after watching a video for example.

[TA-t3]

OK, so this may sound like a dumb question, but what is the recommended way to leave the N800 when not in use? Turn it off or let it sit idle and the screen goes dark? I had an IPAQ for the past 7 years and there is a button to "shut it off" up on the face of the unit. When it needed to be reset, it was a stick in the bottom of the unit. And the button on the front would bring it right back up where you left off when it was "turned off". A press to the screen wouldn't turn it on, you had to press the button. Now with the N800, if I turn it off from the top, it takes to long to come back up, but if I just let it sit idle any press of the screen turns it on. I am thinking I am not doing something correct, maybe there was something I missed. And since the quick start guide didn't have any information about this, I thought I would post here.
When the N800 screen is off it's very similar to when you turned "off" your IPAQ: The IPAQ isn't really off, that doesn't happen until it's out of battery. In fact, if you go to the control panel on the N800 and the screen settings and set the two timeouts to be equal (whatever value), then pressing the little recessed button on the N800 followed by the center button in the five-way will immediately switch off the display and lock the screen. This is for almost all purposes the same as the power off button on a PDA (btw. I also use PDAs, owning several). The main difference is that the wi-fi on the N800 can in fact continue to be active (if so configured), while a PDA always turns off wi-fi. But the N800 can take it, it still lasts about 10 days, more or less the same as a T3 in "off" position. Pressing the two buttons again will activate the screen again, as quickly as a PD.

The equivalent of PDA "reset" is to reboot the N800, there are several ways but one is to turn it all the way "off" the way you have been doing, and powering it up again. Or go through "soft powerdown" as has been mentioned. Or installing osso-xterm and becomeroot and enter "sync;reboot" from a root command line.. ;)

[mwiktowy]

Most of the time I usually lock the screen and keys so that pressing the screen by mistake won't turn it back on.

To do this, do a quick press of the power button (do not hold it in to power it off)
Then you get a list of 4 options.
I usually just press the square button on the D-pad to select "Lock touch screen and keys"
You can also select from Offline Mode, Lock device and Switch off.

To get out of Lock mode do the same thing - quick press on Power and then the square button

As to whether this is a good/recommended practice, it seems like the only thing to do to short of powering the thing off.

I do that exact same thing. I never turn it off and just stick the charger in when I go to bed. It is rare that I have to stick it on the charger before that time.
I got confirmation on the maemo mailing list from the Nokia developers at one point in the past that this is the intended usage pattern. The NIT is made to stay on all the time. It will kick in some power saving features when it detects that it is idle. The major one being turning the screen off but I believe it also scales back the power to the CPU and wifi radio. I think that the N800 is smarter than the 770 with its radio power in that it will save power so long at it is not receiving/transmitting ... the 770 just powered off the radio completely and went offline while the cover was on.

[mydogsowner]

Ok, I am a complete newbie here.

Can someone explain the advantages of the soft powerdown; rather than just shutting it off and rebooting each time? Does it save battery life?

[Michiel]

I also just lock the device when I'm not using it. However, I have some doubts about the 'idle-mode' on the N800; when I go to bed, I lock the screen, asuming it's in some sort of power saving hibernation mode, but -sometimes- when I wake up the device is off and the battery is drained so it won't reboot as well. This happens when the battery indicator says it's more than halfway charged...

This doesn't happen when I leave the device on the charger at night.

I asume there is either someting buggy in the (hibernation?)-mode, or the device doesn't really have all that great power saving options :(

[sdrman]

Can someone explain the advantages of the soft powerdown; rather than just shutting it off and rebooting each time? Does it save battery life?
It might save battery life if you turn the device on and off a lot. It definitely saves time waiting for the device to start up.

It takes about a minute for the n800 to start up and during that time it's working very hard and consuming a lot of power. The n800 last a long time when it's not being used. I only lock my n800 if I'm putting it in my pocket.

Also, beware that some websites and applications can drain the battery much faster than usual, so don't leave stuff that moves on the screen when you're done watching it. (Points finger at flash player)

[GeneralAntilles]

Of note: soft poweroff is no longer functional in the latest OS2008 beta for N800.

[linuxrebel]

I'm another who likes the soft shutdown. Quick recall. and as long as I close all programs/wifi before going softshutdown for a long time ... helps preserve batteries.

One thing I like most about soft-powerdown/(shutdown?) is that it will enable me to stop the screen from accepting input while it's in my pocket. That way I can stop what I'm doing, move and begin again.

[RioT]

Yeah I also leave it in off line mode. And, unless I use something bluetooth, bluetooth is ALWAYS off.

[mydogsowner]

All good points, and thanks for responding.

Now I'm wondering what power saving options will be in OS2008.

I better do a search on it, before it becomes redundant here....

[TA-t3]

- Rebooting sucks power. E.g. rebooting every day will probably leave you with shorter battery life than if you just let it idle those days.

- Out of battery in the morning: This is because _something_ on the device started up, using CPU. I've seen a couple of culprits on my N800: 1) Starting a program inside xterm and then exit it all by just terminating the xterm (clicking the 'x'). Not good. Must first terminate the program (e.g. the 'vi' editor I was using), then xterm. 2) The (OS2007-) metalayer-crawler. I'm 99% sure it's guilty. I disabled it (search for 'rename metalayer-crawler' or 'disable' ditto or some such, here on the forum) and my out-of-battery problems disappeared.

- I recommend installing a CPU-monitoring status bar applet, e.g. load-applet-run or similar. A quick look on it before you leave the device to idle will tell you if something unusual (CPU-consuming unusual) is going on.