View Full Version : N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
I read through all kinds information about N900 today , even the pre-order website but unable to find out any specs talking about N900 talking hours , hours for video and web surfing . This is very normal information and Nokia did not ever mention in any place . Has anybody got information on this ?
I read through all kinds information about N900 today , even the pre-order website but unable to find out any specs talking about N900 talking hours , hours for video and web surfing . This is very normal information and Nokia did not ever mention in any place . Has anybody got information on this ?
Only published usage hours -
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=316178&postcount=5
It ought to be on this page but it isn't there yet. It's possible they haven't got the final firmware yet so there wouldn't be any firm idea about battery life yet:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/N900
Wait, does anybody really believe battery times as claimed by the manufacturer?
Wait, does anybody really believe battery times as claimed by the manufacturer?
Well it's virtually impossible to give an exact battery life anyway (battery life varies over the course of many charges, different apps use different amounts of battery, phone signals use a lot more battery when very far from a mast etc etc).
GeneralAntilles
2009-08-27, 20:35
Well it's virtually impossible to give an exact battery life anyway (battery life varies over the course of many charges, different apps use different amounts of battery, phone signals use a lot more battery when very far from a mast etc etc).
And even more in mobile devices where consumption can vary from practically nothing to a couple of watts and back again over the course of milliseconds.
this is from the data sheet
Operating Times
Always online: Up to 2-4 days (TCP/IP connected)
Talk time: Up to 5hrs WCDMA, 9hrs GSM
Active online usage: Up to 1+ day
this is from the data sheet
Operating Times
Always online: Up to 2-4 days (TCP/IP connected)
Talk time: Up to 5hrs WCDMA, 9hrs GSM
Active online usage: Up to 1+ day
Already posted a couple of posts above.
Only published usage hours -
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=316178&postcount=5
I apologize if this has been discussed already - I searched and did not find anything about this yet.
I was noticing that the battery on the n900, the BL-5J 1320mAh, appears to be a step down from the BP-4L battery in the n810, which has 1500mAh. My n810's battery was always dying, so I'm concerned about all day usage of the n900. I'm hoping that the n900 will use power more efficiently or something. I read that the new TI OMAP 3430 processor speed steps, so that could be an example of how a smaller batter can last longer...
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I apologize if this has been discussed already - I searched and did not find anything about this yet.
I was noticing that the battery on the n900, the BL-5J 1320mAh, appears to be a step down from the BP-4L battery in the n810, which has 1500mAh. My n810's battery was always dying, so I'm concerned about all day usage of the n900. I'm hoping that the n900 will use power more efficiently or something. I read that the new TI OMAP 3430 processor speed steps, so that could be an example of how a smaller batter can last longer...
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
My thoughts is to compare it against Iphone 3gs(i know) battery.
Since the 3gs is almost identically hardware wise it should give a good comparison. (http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/9eyag/nokia_n900_vs_iphone_3gs_specs_side_by_side/)
The Iphone 3Gs has a battery with 1219 mAh, a little less than the n900.
I have read in mac forums about this and it seems alot of people manage at least 1 day with normal usage, and some even with high usage. So i hope the n900 with its higher resolution will have about the same battery life.
Just my thoughts.
The reason the battery is so small is almost certainly not by choice from Nokia's side, it's just a problem of room in a device crammed full of other stuff. There's not much to go on there, so let's hope it'll not end in the fiasco known as htc tytn I (totally unusable in practice due to having to charge it every 3 hours).
I heard in one of the interviews (thinks its this one: http://www.maemo-guru.com/2009/09/video-interview-with-dr-ari-jaaksi/) it should last you through out a day, and they are working hard and doing progress on the power management now that they have a lot more testers and can customize the power management to actual use.
The n8x0 also steped it's processor, and the n900's processor goes up to 600 as opposed to the 400 of the n8x0.
Unless this new cpu is much more power efficient (so much more power efficient as to account for the 3g radio consumption) I find it hard to belive it will last through the day with moderate use.
Let's face it, it's not a device to say you will use it lightly. You'll carry the expensive brick the n900 is because you use it's many functions.
Actually it's the only turnoff I see for now. Everything else is a hacker's dream. Fast, lot's of hardware features, decent camera, enough storage and more open than android.
P.S. the comparation with the iphone is wrong imho because the Iphone doesn't have to push 800x480 pixels around and because it's not multitasking. n900 will most probably used with many apps open through the day.
Class, repeat after me, pushing notifications over the air is not multitasking :D
claesbas
2009-09-08, 12:11
I think it will be fine for the avarge consumer user. Im also sure there must be power effeciency stuff made to both hardware and OS from n810. for the IT specialist there might be an expension battery pack from Nokia or Mugen.
I have the Mugen 3600mha battery for my n810 and use it for 3 days while never turning it to flight mode (online all day and night, home and at work).
I seriously doubt that the average consumer will buy this...
As a power user I always prefer the extra 20 grams and few mm's of width for a powerful battery and this is offered to the power users... well, I guess we'll have to wait and see
nikolajhendel
2009-09-08, 13:12
The n8x0 also steped it's processor, and the n900's processor goes up to 600 as opposed to the 400 of the n8x0.
Unless this new cpu is much more power efficient (so much more power efficient as to account for the 3g radio consumption) I find it hard to belive it will last through the day with moderate use.
The thing is that the new processor will be better at "race to idle" - basically finish it's tasks faster and go to idle state, thereby saving power.
badasschris
2009-09-08, 13:24
comparing the specs to my touch hd I'm also worried about this.
my phone has the same resolution but a slightly slower processor and does multitask. with heavy use I do get a full day out of it 2 days with little use but thats with a 1500 battery. saying that the n900 does have a slightly smaller screen so will just have to wait and see.
Do you think maemo 5 will have better power saving features than WM? I know that WM loves to try and save power I spent weeks batteling with the power saving features to get an app I'm creating to work.
My thoughts is to compare it against Iphone 3gs(i know) battery.
Since the 3gs is almost identically hardware wise it should give a good comparison. (http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/9eyag/nokia_n900_vs_iphone_3gs_specs_side_by_side/)
The Iphone 3Gs has a battery with 1219 mAh, a little less than the n900.
I have read in mac forums about this and it seems alot of people manage at least 1 day with normal usage, and some even with high usage. So i hope the n900 with its higher resolution will have about the same battery life.
Just my thoughts.
I checked out the link, and reddit says it haven't got compass
however, the Swedish guy in the N900 walkthrough mantions that it has a digital compass ..
sachin007
2009-09-08, 14:50
I think the battery life is not going to be good and the phone will be bashed in the main stream media for the abysmal battery life. I think that is one additional reason that this phone is just step 4 out of 5.
Anyway check this video. It starts at 8:45 am with 3 bars of battery and ends at 10:50 with just 1 bar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HblSL0hG6Wg
Now we dont know how much the user used it in the 2.5 hours in between but definitely doesnt look good for the average consumer. Of course i will attach a battery holder to my keychain and carry the additional battery everywhere.
@sachin007 - did you notice in the thread for irreco for N900 one of the listed known issues was
'- BIG issue. Lirc daemon running background affects batterylife dramatically.'
So maybe not so bad afterall
GeneralAntilles
2009-09-08, 15:17
Unless this new cpu is much more power efficient (so much more power efficient as to account for the 3g radio consumption) I find it hard to belive it will last through the day with moderate use.
In fact, it is!
As a baseline, the OMAP3430 consumes about the same amount of power while active as the OMAP2420, but it has a number of powersaving advantages.
First, it's quite a bit faster (2-3x faster depending on the task) which means for the same task it's going to be spending much less time active and processing and a lot more time idle than the OMAP2420 (this is called Race to Idle). As idle usage consumes orders of magnitude less power than even 0.1% usage, this translates to noticeable and immediate power savings even if all other factors are equal (which they're not).
Second, idle power consumption has been improved significantly. The OMAP2420 uses nearly no power while idle (fanoush managed to get about 30 days of battery life at idle) but the OMAP3430 is even better, as it uses basically no power at idle. Although the difference seems small on a larger scale, the relative difference is large and with as much time as the device will spend in idle this means big power savings.
Finally, the software, too, has seen large improvements in powersaving. Both at the library and application level and at the kernel level. Fremantle on the OMAP3 is more intelligent about hardware power management and more careful in how in consumers power in the userspace than Diablo on OMAP2.
Unfortunately, most of these advantages are offset by the inclusion of additional hardware (accelerometers, cameras, LED flashes, GPU—although the smaller screen represents a major reduction in power consumption) and, in particular, the cellular radio. So in the end, the N900, I suspect, is going to have a much lower power consumption at the extreme low end of usage and a slightly higher one running full blast. The end result for the average user is probably going to be marginally worse battery life, on average, than OMAP2 devices with a potential for slightly better battery life depending on usage.
I think the battery life is not going to be good and the phone will be bashed in the main stream media for the abysmal battery life. I think that is one additional reason that this phone is just step 4 out of 5.
Anyway check this video. It starts at 8:45 am with 3 bars of battery and ends at 20:50 with just 1 bar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HblSL0hG6Wg
Now we dont know how much the user used it in the 2.5 hours in between but definitely doesnt look good for the average consumer. Of course i will attach a battery holder to my keychain and carry the additional battery everywhere.
Took a while to understand why 2 bars in 12 hours would be abysmal. :) I guess you meant to write 10:50, not 20:50(8:50 pm)
Early to say much about the real world battery life of N900, but I sure am spoiled by my E71. I hope it can last at least a day of heavy use.
sachin007
2009-09-08, 15:22
Took a while to understand why 2 bars in 12 hours would be abysmal. :) I guess you meant to write 10:50, not 20:50(8:50 pm)
Early to say much about the real world battery life of N900, but I sure am spoiled by my E71. I hope it can last at least a day of heavy use.
Yeah that was a typo. Thanks for letting me know! Sounded so dumb when i read it before i made the correction!
@sachin: it's actually par for the course for cortex a8 level devices. both palm pre and iphone 3gs comes with 1200-1300mah battery (default) and they can drain their whole battery in about 4-5 hours if used intensively (multiple radio, high cpu\gpu usage apps). so I don't see the media bashing n800 on this aspect.
texaslabrat
2009-09-08, 15:58
I think the battery life is not going to be good and the phone will be bashed in the main stream media for the abysmal battery life. I think that is one additional reason that this phone is just step 4 out of 5.
Anyway check this video. It starts at 8:45 am with 3 bars of battery and ends at 10:50 with just 1 bar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HblSL0hG6Wg
Now we dont know how much the user used it in the 2.5 hours in between but definitely doesnt look good for the average consumer. Of course i will attach a battery holder to my keychain and carry the additional battery everywhere.
Yes and notice it is model "N00". Either is pre-prod prototype, or a clone of some sort. Either way it can be argued that it's not necessarily representative of what will be shipping. I, for one, don't plan on getting my panties in a wad regarding battery life until a real, actual, retail N900 device is put to the test...preferably by me ;)
Jack6428
2009-09-08, 16:15
Yes and notice it is model "N00". Either is pre-prod prototype, or a clone of some sort. Either way it can be argued that it's not necessarily representative of what will be shipping. I, for one, don't plan on getting my panties in a wad regarding battery life until a real, actual, retail N900 device is put to the test...preferably by me ;)
agreed texas! it had to be some old prototype hence N00...Nokia puts N00 always on prototypes or phones which they are undecided what code number they will have (like for eg. N900), or don't want the public to know yet...so all in all, this unit had to be at least a month old or more...i think that in the end the battery life will be adequate and fine...
It is too early to draw any kind of conclusions from pre-production software and hardware. Basically.
sachin007
2009-09-08, 16:26
@sachin: it's actually par for the course for cortex a8 level devices. both palm pre and iphone 3gs comes with 1200-1300mah battery (default) and they can drain their whole battery in about 4-5 hours if used intensively (multiple radio, high cpu\gpu usage apps). so I don't see the media bashing n800 on this aspect.
I am sure it will be bashed in the mainstream media not only because the battery life is less compared to other nokia phones but also because it is so perfect that it has very few things to bash about. I see the mainstream media(read apple loving US media) bashing its battery life and the lack of portrait mode, just because it has to be bashed in some way.
matthewcc
2009-09-08, 16:33
I know a bunch of people who have an iPhone an none manage to make it last a full 24h, most cant get it to last till the afternoon. In fact, even when the thing is charging, it uses more energy then it takes in so it dies in the middle of a call.
Personally I can barely make my 5800 last 18h with email syncing and an a few hours of phone calls and some web browsing/twitter etc.. If the n900 works for 16-18h with my level of use, ill be content.
I am sure it will be bashed in the mainstream media not only because the battery life is less compared to other nokia phones but also because it is so perfect that it has very few things to bash about. I see the mainstream media(read apple loving US media) bashing its battery life and the lack of portrait mode, just because it has to be bashed in some way.
Alright. I see how you try to manage your expectations, you miserable miserable person :P
For my use I'll need it to run a jabber client connection though it can be connect/disconnect every 15 minutes or so since I can get the server to send me the messages. That will really be my main use case. Jabber anywhere I go. I might give an email check to it as well but that shouldn't mess a lot.
If I can get it to run for 2 days with that I'll be happy. The data sheet claims: Always online 2-4 days with active tcp/ip connections though
http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Press/Materials/White_Papers/pdf_files/data_sheets_2009/Nokia_N900_data_sheet.pdf
So just maybe it can happen. But I'm certainly looking for a more powerfull battery for it as well. It makes a difference once the need is to use it for longer.
The data sheet claims: Always online 2-4 days with active tcp/ip connections though
http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Press/Materials/White_Papers/pdf_files/data_sheets_2009/Nokia_N900_data_sheet.pdf
.
I had not seen this data sheet! Thanks!
My thought about the small battery after Ari-Jaaksi interview was that they used small one to ensure that devs dont get lazy and optimize their apps.
When the time comes to extend them into S60, they will have to cope with very small batterys in some devices, also when everything is settled on Qt and with improvements on battery tech, all day power usage will be a reality on future devices.
bugelrex
2009-09-16, 19:19
Any other 'real' updates on battery? Even the pre-production firmware shouldn't be 'too far off' from real battery usages weeks before release.
I just went to the NYC flagship and played with the n900 for 5 mins (had to get back to work).
Can report the following facts based on whatever firmware they had:
- with only the following open: photobrowser (no pic loaded), calculator, xterminal, web browser with cnn.com open there is 5MB free physical free out of the 256MB
- with no apps open, there is 30MB physical free out of the 256MB
- device feels solid, nice heft. very good build quality. Barely pocket-able but can be done
- screen response good, no complaints
- keyboard ok, maybe not as nice as the E71 but could get used to it
- screen quality good, crisp and vibrant
- UI design a little quirky as there's alot going on but shouldn't be a problem after you get used to it
- camera response ok, comparable to N95 reponse when taking a pic
- feels like a real gadget, more stuff to play/interact with than iphone.
- GUI response is very good, no lag when the apps are open. OVI maps took over 20 seconds to open though. Felt a slight lag when opening apps for the first time (same as you'd expect from your desktop)
initial response is good would pre-order if I can get a clear idea of battery life, if it can't last a day with average usage then its a no-go for me.
To put in perspective (to assure you I'm no fan-boy), my initial response of the n97 at the NYC flagship was horrible. screen quality horrible, keypad horrible, touch screen response horrible and UI design disgusting. Form factor excellent.
Nokia definitively have an iphone contender here if the battery holds up.
Efficiency of operation like Gen. Antilles described is one of the most important aspects of future smartphone design......affordable battery technology isn't keeping up at all.
I've got extra batteries for both NITs and my N82 phone. I wish there were more and better options for the spare battery charging units......mostly it's just cheap crap out there.
shadowjk
2009-09-17, 00:48
When you say free physical, is cache and buffers counted in that as free or not? Measuring memory use is probably one of the most difficult tasks in a modern OS :)
bugelrex
2009-09-17, 02:11
When you say free physical, is cache and buffers counted in that as free or not? Measuring memory use is probably one of the most difficult tasks in a modern OS :)
I ran 'top' in the x-terminal and just noted the free memory reported from there. I guess it depends on Maemo definition of free
mfortner
2009-09-17, 02:19
How much would the battery life be extended without a SIM card? I'm planning on tethering / connecting through my company provided EVDO phone via bluetooth when WIFI is not available.
Laughing Man
2009-09-17, 02:25
Hmm
Operating Times
Always online: Up to 2-4 days (TCP/IP connected)
Talk time: Up to 5hrs WCDMA, 9hrs GSM
Active online usage: Up to 1+ day
I wonder how they define active online usage. And what does 1+ day mean? Meaning battery will last for one day or up to one day at most?
I also wonder how much average life you'll get by say leaving music on all day..
GeneralAntilles
2009-09-17, 02:29
And what does 1+ day mean? Meaning battery will last for one day or up to one day at most?
Let's take this apart. We have three pieces of information here: 1, +, and day. Clearly "day" tells us the unit the "1", then, tells us that we how many of said unit we have, and, finally, the "+" seems to tells us we also have an indeterminate fraction of additional units.
So, roughly translated, it appears to me "a day or more". ;)
Laughing Man
2009-09-17, 02:38
Haha that's what I was thinking, but it's more what is active usage? Is it several browser windows open? A youtube video + Facebook + chats with friends on AIM/MSN/GTalk? Is it Skype?
It's interesting.. I wonder how they defined it.
Oh and I'll only take sarcastic replies from you GeneralAntilles :P
NZtechfreak
2009-09-17, 02:41
Running that display and with that battery capacity I can tell this will struggle to last me a day, but I've charged my mobiles every night for several years now.
TenSpeed
2009-09-17, 02:44
Let's take this apart. We have three pieces of information here: 1, +, and day. Clearly "day" tells us the unit the "1", then, tells us that we how many of said unit we have, and, finally, the "+" seems to tells us we also have an indeterminate fraction of additional units.
So, roughly translated, it appears to me "a day or more". ;)
True, that's what "1+ day" means, but Nokia have hedged that with the "Up to" detail. Up to means less than or equal to 1 day, but the plus means more than 1 day. So we know that the battery will last less than, equal to, or more than one day...;)
Guess we'll have to wait and see.
Laughing Man
2009-09-17, 02:56
Running that display and with that battery capacity I can tell this will struggle to last me a day, but I've charged my mobiles every night for several years now.
Oh I'm use to that too, I even keep a car charger and travel charger around. It's more...
Traditionally I've believed in seperate items, with seperate batteries, that do each job well. So if my n800's battery runs out of juice then I can still make calls with my cheapo phone. And likewise for other things.
The N900 will be my first smartphone (I've only used free cheapo phones for now). And knowing how I tend to run the battery down on the n800 (though the battery is also on its way out..also why I'm looking at the n900) I'm worried I'll get into a situation where I'll drain it and be left phoneless lol. Which... I rarely make social calls with it (calling just to talk). I usually have a purpose behind it (where are you so we can meet up, or I am coming home on the Metro can you pick me up,etc..)
If only Metro would somehow create a train that lets us tap into those 750 volts they got running through the 3rd rail.. =P
http://www.duracellpower.com/documents/tech-specs/my-pocket-charger.pdf
Nominal output voltage 5 Vdc
Maximum charging current 0.5 A
Would that be enough to power the N900? (2.5W max?)
initial response is good would pre-order if I can get a clear idea of battery life, if it can't last a day with average usage then its a no-go for me.
Whats wrong with carrying a spare?
I have a spare BP-4L for the E71 in my condom pocket, not really an issue.
bugelrex
2009-09-17, 03:37
Whats wrong with carrying a spare?
I have a spare BP-4L for the E71 in my condom pocket, not really an issue.
Carrying a spare for an E71 is not a big deal as its so small and slim. But carrying a spare for a small-brick phone is a little over the top. One of the reasons I thought it was so thick was because they stuffed a large battery in there.. but alas no.
I mean, couldn't they have got rid of the space for the stylus to try and squeeze a larger battery
Your right about the stylus, its huge.
Surely though its not the device size that matters but the battery size, being small has its benefits as ive explained.
If you want a small powerful device, your just gonna to have to except that its not going to last long on current battery technology. No company today can offer you all day power use, its sad but thats life. Suck it up, carry a spare.
We would need for someone to make a new back cover, keeping all the functional stuff but with 1-2mm battery covering almost all it's surface adding 2-3 times the capacity! (and a back able to solar charge it? :P)
bugelrex
2009-09-17, 04:25
Your right about the stylus, its huge.
Surely though its not the device size that matters but the battery size, being small has its benefits as ive explained.
If you want a small powerful device, your just gonna to have to except that its not going to last long on current battery technology. No company today can offer you all day power use, its sad but thats life. Suck it up, carry a spare.
The best compromise so far is the E71 or even the E72. That phone can last easily 24 hours with heavy usage plus more!
Since the N900 hardware is somewhat similar to Iphone 3GS, I should hope it can at least match the iphones battery times.
We would need for someone to make a new back cover, keeping all the functional stuff but with 1-2mm battery covering almost all it's surface adding 2-3 times the capacity! (and a back able to solar charge it? :P)
Ask and you shall receive.
Mugen will make its usual range of extended batterys like before, if you really want longevity and dont the mind the extra bulk and weight, the Mugens are among the best.
http://www.mugenpowerbatterijen.nl/
.
The best compromise so far is the E71 or even the E72. That phone can last easily 24 hours with heavy usage plus more!
Since the N900 hardware is somewhat similar to Iphone 3GS, I should hope it can at least match the iphones battery times.
The E71 is the best in that regard. Although ive never quite got 24hours of power use out of it yet, maybe 8 on a good day. I used to kill my N82 90mins! :eek:
Laughing Man
2009-09-17, 04:39
Keep in mind the iPhone doesn't support true multi-tasking, rather serial tasking. So that'll change battery life comparasions despite similar hardware.
A personal comment not tied to the N900 only but to all this category of devices that are closer to "little computers that make phone calls" rather than "mobile phones that can also do other things".
Power management is always a top priority on any device not plugged to the wall constantly, but it's really critical in this category of mobile computers. Because of its form factor and legacy phone use cases your expectations are similar to the ones you have for average phones concentrating in a few bunch of use cases. But because the hardware and software features available in the device, you actually end up using them as much or more than your laptop at home.
Look at this, it's one of my days of intensive use of my lovely N900:
- Wake up in the morning. Checking email (personal and work) and a couple of sites.
- Commute to work streaming music through 3G-3.5G and bluetooth headset while checking more email and browsing more sites.
- Ah, forgot to tell that I might have turned on already my presence with Gtalk, Jabber and Skype. I have activated notifications of my location, so GPS/A-GPS ping occasionally as well.
- In the office the email daemons keep checking my mailboxes (even if I have them open in my laptop...) because I was too lazy to change the preferences and actually like the fact of keeping my recent email at sight when I'm in not so interesting meetings (I guess it happens in the best companies).
- But the primary use of the device while sitting at work is a Twitter/Qaiku notifier. I expect to get a display wake up every time the app finds out something new (quite often actually, and this is why I don't want to see this in my laptop screen).
- If I'm not listening music all the time from my device is mostly because I'm sharing office with others and doing it with headsets takes too much concentration away of my work and makes me feel like an autist inside a team. Otherwise...
- Back home, more music streaming, email and browsing.
- In the afternoon I'm with the kids. I try not to be a pathetic father hooked to his mobile device while the kids want to play with you or require your attention in the playground. Still, some pictures and videos occasionaly are taken, and uploaded right there.
After the kids go to sleep, more email and browsing, including some trivial videos here and there. I don't watch TV and I'm becoming more and more lazy opening my personal laptop in the evenings, since it reminds me the fact of having used the laptop at work for so many hours. Interestingly enough, it seems my brain doesn't bother by the fact that I have been carrying the mobile device even more hours... Perhaps it's because I don't need to open the lid and press the power button on (something that reminds me to "work", while tapping the N900 display brings me the idea of "fun" even if then I end up checking my @nokia.com email and maemo.org again. ;) :/ :(
- And then at some point I go to sleep. But my device stays active (this time plugged) since then it's the time to become an independent culture peer, sharing files no "free market" is able to distribute efficiently to global citizens nowadays. In the morning it will wake me up, full of energy and with a green light.
Comparing all this to a regular mobile phone is interesting but actually... try to compare this to our full fledged laptop running on its battery alone. Good luck.
3 additional thoughts, common to all the devices in this busy category:
- Note that a single MyFunnyWidget downloaded from somewhere doing something stupid in your home screen can bring down the hard work of a big and skilled team. This is why having acknowledgeable distribution channels with QA processes in place is not only useful but necessary. The user will think "this battery sucks!" and will complain in forums, microblogs and care support lines before thinking that the innocent app downloaded last week is causing that. Or 2-3 buggy apps in conjunction, even worst.
- If I would have the money or the power to convince someone with money, I would go for the production and promotion of beautiful and useful stands to have your device in your workplace, with the right inclination, music speakers, and a dock of all kinds of extensions (full keyboard, switcher to my dedicated computer screen, etc). These would be the selling points but the killer feature would be actually an integrated power plug recharging my battery while being at work. This would mean automatically: zero concerns about battery life between Monday and Friday while using the device more and for more things.
- Another good investment will be the design of better "Outdoor" profiles. Currently they are mostly about making your phone louder so you can hear it in the main street or while having it inside a bag at the beach. But what about "Outdoor" meaning also "I won't get a plug to charge in hours, probably the whole weekend" and applying automatically the most drastic power management policies: scarce pings to email, presence, wlan, GPS or actually no pings at all unless manually required by the user and plenty more compromises you can make with daemons, Mhz, fps, wakeups, etc (bare with my technical references, I'm not expert in the matter).
But you are reading all this also waiting that I say something specific about the N900. Alright. :) Well, compared to the competitions usually Nokia performs quite well with power management and the Maemo team has actually a good track (imo at least) with previous products. Anything you are lucky to see before sales start is a useful reference but that's it. Power management is about fine tuning 1001 things and is something every competent team keeps improving until sales start and beyond.
Are you saying that you can do all this in a day and never plug it until you go to bed?
Or is it all hypothetical? :)
Sounds like a great day, qgil ;D
Btw, you don't charge the N900 at all during the day with all those online activities? Especially in the office, where you are oh-so-close to many USB ports and power sources..
I got me two of those: USB charger, powered with 3 AA batteries (http://www.pollin.de/shop/detail.php?pg=OA==&a=NDcyOTQ2OTk=&w=Nzk2OTc5&ts=0) (one for use, one for hacking).
They are incredibly useful. If i know my cellphone or tablet won't last through a long day, all i have to do is to bring that little box with me, and perhaps some replacement AA's if i need more than a day of battery life.
- Another good investment will be the design of better "Outdoor" profiles. Currently they are mostly about making your phone louder so you can hear it in the main street or while having it inside a bag at the beach. But what about "Outdoor" meaning also "I won't get a plug to charge in hours, probably the whole weekend" and applying automatically the most drastic power management policies: scarce pings to email, presence, wlan, GPS or actually no pings at all unless manually required by the user and plenty more compromises you can make with daemons, Mhz, fps, wakeups, etc (bare with my technical references, I'm not expert in the matter).
This could be a GREAT feature!
I use a MintyBoost for most things and that's just 2 battery one. Slow to charge but highly efficient.
I checked out the link, and reddit says it haven't got compass
however, the Swedish guy in the N900 walkthrough mantions that it has a digital compass ..
Jussi confirmed the other day that the N900 does not have a Magnetometer (Digital Compass).
…Comparing all this to a regular mobile phone is interesting but actually... try to compare this to our full fledged laptop running on its battery alone. Good luck…
Power management is about fine tuning 1001 things and is something every competent team keeps improving until sales start and beyond.
That’s^ the key thing here. Compared to a battery powered device with similar, available functions… not any other POP (plain old phone :) )
I have used a Motorola iDEN handset exclusively for over 8 years now. With its always on TCP/IP connection battery life for even the best models is about a day and a half… You adapt very easily to making sure you plug into a nightstand charger every night. It's that "half day" that will get you. More often than not it also happens to be a most criticle day. :eek:
Because of this increased charging frequency more chargers will be sold. Adding to what Quim mentioned earlier, it would be nice if someone offered a drop in, nightstand charging station that had onboard Bose “Wave” (http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/wave_systems/index.jsp) speakers and looked more or less like a traditional clock radio.
***
…I have a spare BP-4L for the E71 in my condom pocket, not really an issue.
The bad news sir is that I got your daughter pregnant…
The good news is that we were able to live stream a video of the event using my fully charged N900. :)
:p
This could be a GREAT feature!
don't the new n series come with a battery saver profile, ive got on on the n79
I've done some reading and as the good General explained the cpu is much more power efficient than the one in our n8x0's.
BUT
Even if we always talk about the average consumer I still seriously doubt that the average consumer will go for this... Much more we will see it in the hands of people that, like us, appreciate the beauty of a full blown linux distro in our pocket.
With users like us the race to idle will be very hard to win for any cpu :) Seriously, even if the cpu is efficient we still have a giant backlighted screen and a handfull of (always on connected) apps.
I'd like to see how much time it gets on streaming video. If the optimizations are well implemented it should last at least as much as the (less efficient, bigger battery) ancestors.
To be serious if I use it seriously I don't get more than a day out of my n800 either especially tethered via bluetooth.
We'll just have to wait and see if they managed to optimize enough to account for 200 mA less and 3g consumption.
Mugen will make its usual range of extended batterys like before, if you really want longevity and dont the mind the extra bulk and weight, the Mugens are among the best.
.
Wow, a Mugen extended capacity battery combined with a higher cover plate (ala the N810 option) and the N900 will be approaching cubelar dimensions!! :eek:
The bad news sir is that I got your daughter pregnant…
The good news is that we were able to live stream a video of the event using my fully charged N900. :)
:p
The condom is in the wallet, next to the credit card to remind how much its going to cost me if i dont use it. lol ;)
I used to kill my N82 90mins! :eek:
I'm guessing here:
3G connected, Joiku Spot transmitting, streaming video with full brightness & max volume, GPS tracking on, accelerometer Step Counter on (you're moving), push notifications & Skype & IM client & pings all on at max occurrence rate, .....am I missing anything?
.
Older battery?
.
Sounds like a bench test.
Laughing Man
2009-09-17, 13:58
Jussi confirmed the other day that the N900 does not have a Magnetometer (Digital Compass).
Aww that kills augmented reality apps.
.....am I missing anything?
Nah, with Joiku Spot on, i got 60mins. :p
Walk to station with IM and Twitter pings while streaming or downloading podcasts with bluetooth on, send a few texts, read rss feeds, emails and load a few web pages. Battery was nearly done with by the time i got to work.
Took me about 3 days to decide i need an E71. :D
Laughing Man
2009-09-17, 14:28
Downloading podcasts is probablly what killed the battery. :p
- In the afternoon I'm with the kids. I try not to be a pathetic father hooked to his mobile device while the kids want to play with you or require your attention in the playground. Still, some pictures and videos occasionaly are taken, and uploaded right there.
Oh, I hear you there. I shake my head when I see other dads doing it, but then I do it myself and don't even notice.
I'm becoming more and more lazy opening my personal laptop in the evenings, since it reminds me the fact of having used the laptop at work for so many hours.
It is strange to me that you use a laptop at work. It seems strange that you think of the office when you look at your laptop. But I get the feeling that is "normal" these days.
- And then at some point I go to sleep. But my device stays active (this time plugged) since then it's the time to become an independent culture peer, sharing files no "free market" is able to distribute efficiently to global citizens nowadays.
Make sure to share the IKEA catalogue, apparently qwerty12 is trying desperately to get it.
zkyevolved
2009-09-17, 19:05
I'm twitching to pre-order this phone, but I need to know if I will be able to get through a whole day with just emails and instant messages. I don't even mind getting on GPRS or EDGE Only. Here is my history of phones:
Xperia X1 - with Push Activesync email and NO instant messaging I got about 8 -9 hours (under GPRS).
HTC Magic - I got about 10 hours or so
Apple iPhone - Don't ask. HORRIBLE
Apple iPhone 3G - Even worse under GPRS mode.
Samsung Omnia - about 12 hours, but I didn't try to send lots of messages. It was horrible writing out messages on this one.
By far, the best battery life was given to me by my:
Blackberry 8300 and blackberry bold 9000. Both offering at least a full days worth of instant messaging and push email.
But all I NEED is 18 hours of email and instant messaging and maybe 2 hours worth of music. :( I'm not big on web browser guy, and I'm not big on youtube. All I need is a device that leaves me in contact with everyone :P My blackberry does that... but its OS is SOOOOOOOOO outdated! It makes me feel old just putting in my password :( ....
Are you saying that you can do all this in a day and never plug it until you go to bed?
No, I'm not saying it. Not many sales devices in this category would resist this intensive use in one go. About the N900 you will find yourselves after opening the sales box. In any case you know that Nokia has high standards in power management.
By the way, if you really want to go down to the technical stuff in power management for Maemo 5 you can have a look at the session Peter De Schrijver made at FOSDEM earlier this year
http://free-electrons.com/blog/fosdem-2009-videos/
Advanced power management for OMAP3 (http://www.fosdem.org/2009/schedule/events/emb_power_mgmt_omap3), by Peter De Schrijver (Nokia)
Video (http://free-electrons.com/pub/video/2009/fosdem/fosdem2009-schrijver-advanced-pm-omap3.ogv) (49 minutes, 169M)
A very interesting, in-depth, technical talk about the power management features of the OMAP3 CPU and how these features can be used by the Linux kernel.
In the Summit you can meet Igor Stoppa in person. He will be glad talking to you about power management and other core stuff.
bugelrex
2009-09-17, 19:36
No, I'm not saying it. Not many sales devices in this category would resist this intensive use in one go. About the N900 you will find yourselves after opening the sales box. In any case you know that Nokia has high standards in power management.
By the way, if you really want to go down to the technical stuff in power management for Maemo 5 you can have a look at the session Peter De Schrijver made at FOSDEM earlier this year
http://free-electrons.com/blog/fosdem-2009-videos/
In the Summit you can meet Igor Stoppa in person. He will be glad talking to you about power management and other core stuff.
These theoretical data is meaningless to the average end-user as we don't know how well the internal software is written/optimized. I wish one of the user's here with a proto-type at home would chime in and give an idea of current battery usage.
Even though its proto firmware, it should give a decent indication. For example, if a regular day of medium usage yields 8 hours on the latest firmware then perhaps production firmware (week away) might see a ~25% increase to 12 hours but 16 hours would be unrealistic given the release time-frame.
I mean, should people who pre-order really have to just "trust" Nokia on an acceptable battery life. 9am to 11pm with at least 1 bar left?
zkyevolved
2009-09-17, 20:35
I mean, should people who pre-order really have to just "trust" Nokia on an acceptable battery life. 9am to 11pm with at least 1 bar left?
That's what they'd like. This is the main feature why I'm reluctant to pre-order... :( sad.
Latest firmware user reported in a finnish mobile phone forum that his n900 now lasts 12-13h of "normal" use with the wlan on all the time. He says that it has improved from the former firmwares.
I think this is quite reasonable time with data moving all the time. Let's hope that the production model will do even better.
That seems perfectly fine for wlan all time use. My g1 hemorrhages power when wlan on
Laughing Man
2009-09-17, 20:56
Yeah that's fine for WLAN usage. Not to mention if you were going to use WLAN for that long you could just plug your phone in somewhere (PC or outlet) to charge it.
bugelrex
2009-09-17, 21:02
Latest firmware user reported in a finnish mobile phone forum that his n900 now lasts 12-13h of "normal" use with the wlan on all the time. He says that it has improved from the former firmwares.
I think this is quite reasonable time with data moving all the time. Let's hope that the production model will do even better.
This is great, hope we can keep more real info flowing in for people concerned about battery to to pre-order (especially since Amazon.com's amazing price could end soon!)
TedMilker
2009-09-17, 21:07
Aww that kills augmented reality apps.That kills some augmented reality apps but definitely not all. You could still use the camera alone and do AR with symbol recognition or use it in combination with the GPS for tasks while moving(virtual billboards for example or even cooler, GPS directions integrated into video).
sachin007
2009-09-17, 22:33
I'm twitching to pre-order this phone, but I need to know if I will be able to get through a whole day with just emails and instant messages. I don't even mind getting on GPRS or EDGE Only. Here is my history of phones:
Xperia X1 - with Push Activesync email and NO instant messaging I got about 8 -9 hours (under GPRS).
HTC Magic - I got about 10 hours or so
Apple iPhone - Don't ask. HORRIBLE
Apple iPhone 3G - Even worse under GPRS mode.
Samsung Omnia - about 12 hours, but I didn't try to send lots of messages. It was horrible writing out messages on this one.
By far, the best battery life was given to me by my:
Blackberry 8300 and blackberry bold 9000. Both offering at least a full days worth of instant messaging and push email.
But all I NEED is 18 hours of email and instant messaging and maybe 2 hours worth of music. :( I'm not big on web browser guy, and I'm not big on youtube. All I need is a device that leaves me in contact with everyone :P My blackberry does that... but its OS is SOOOOOOOOO outdated! It makes me feel old just putting in my password :( ....
If you are looking for a good battery life with emails and less web browsing the best phone would be the nokia e71 or soon to be released e72. The n900's battery will not be better than the iphone 3g considering that it can do much more than the iphone 3g at any point of time.
http://hellotxt.com/l/mGoUo9
#n900 #maemo RT @mickyfin: On the battery thing, Maemo is highly intelligent - for instance, note the dynamic frequency scaling and smart use of virtual RAM. Despite its muscle, the N900’s battery life is comparable to other high-end devices, both in terms of talk time, and when the user operates the device in ‘always online’ mode...I'm using it for day pretty happily
twitter/alextootchie
No, I'm not saying it. Not many sales devices in this category would resist this intensive use in one go. About the N900 you will find yourselves after opening the sales box. In any case you know that Nokia has high standards in power management.
By the way, if you really want to go down to the technical stuff in power management for Maemo 5 you can have a look at the session Peter De Schrijver made at FOSDEM earlier this year
http://free-electrons.com/blog/fosdem-2009-videos/
In the Summit you can meet Igor Stoppa in person. He will be glad talking to you about power management and other core stuff.
Sweet, that sounds great!
Nathan.
Of course OMAP3 power management appreciations of a core platform developer are not relevamnt to end users. Several people in this thread asked about this and I just pointed them to Peter and Igor, two of the guys knowing better about this specific topic.
Pre-ordering an unreleased product online requires a lot of trust from one of more brands: Nokia, Internet, Visa, Amazon, etc. Some users trust and go ahead, others will wait, see reviews of the final product, get to a shop to give it a try, ask a couple of extras questions to the clerks... All of them are right as long as they do what they feel like.
In this case let me remind you again that Nokia has a big investment in its brand and power management is actually one of their best assets.
As a Nokia customer myself I expect them to keep the standards. I'm a happy Maemo 5 / N900 user already today. If you are reading this forum I suspect you would be happy as well. Now you can trust me or not. :)
ossipena
2009-09-18, 04:28
12-13 hours reported at finnish forum.
http://www.matkapuhelinfoorumi.fi/keskustelu/showpost.php?p=1058153066&postcount=985
my rough translation:
battery lasts 12-13 hours normal usage that is: wlan on constantly, surfing, videos and somewhat gps. no need to load during day
"Akku kestää nyt 12-13 tuntia normikäytössä eli wlan päällä koko ajan ja selailua sekä videoita ja jonkinverran gps:ää. Eli nyt ei tarvitse enää päivällä ladata."
12-13 hours reported at finnish forum.
http://www.matkapuhelinfoorumi.fi/keskustelu/showpost.php?p=1058153066&postcount=985
my rough translation:
battery lasts 12-13 hours normal usage that is: wlan on constantly, surfing, videos and somewhat gps. no need to load during day
"Akku kestää nyt 12-13 tuntia normikäytössä eli wlan päällä koko ajan ja selailua sekä videoita ja jonkinverran gps:ää. Eli nyt ei tarvitse enää päivällä ladata."
sweet! sounds like we've got a winner on our hands
somedude
2009-09-18, 05:46
12-13 hours reported at finnish forum.
http://www.matkapuhelinfoorumi.fi/keskustelu/showpost.php?p=1058153066&postcount=985
my rough translation:
battery lasts 12-13 hours normal usage that is: wlan on constantly, surfing, videos and somewhat gps. no need to load during day
"Akku kestää nyt 12-13 tuntia normikäytössä eli wlan päällä koko ajan ja selailua sekä videoita ja jonkinverran gps:ää. Eli nyt ei tarvitse enää päivällä ladata."
here is the google translate (http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.matkapuhelinfoorumi.fi%2Fkeskus telu%2Fshowpost.php%3Fp%3D1058153066%26postcount%3 D985&sl=fi&tl=en&history_state0=)
That seems perfectly fine for wlan all time use. My g1 hemorrhages power when wlan on
You need to check if your WiFi router properly supports power management. I hardly notice any difference on battery impact on my G1 with WiFi on.
You need to check if your WiFi router properly supports power management. I hardly notice any difference on battery impact on my G1 with WiFi on.
It does and When I have wifi on I am actually using the data connection to transfer a reasonable amount of data. I could probably leave it in standby all day, but really what kind of a test is that.
zkyevolved
2009-09-18, 14:09
If you are looking for a good battery life with emails and less web browsing the best phone would be the nokia e71 or soon to be released e72. The n900's battery will not be better than the iphone 3g considering that it can do much more than the iphone 3g at any point of time.
Yeah but I want some bling bling. I don't mind carrying around an extra battery as long as it's a thin battery. Check out the Blackberry Bolds MS-1 battery, it's sooo thin I can keep it in my wallet (but I don't, i'm scared about exploding batteries haha).
Not to mention I'm tired of the "standard os" S60 is SOO aging. That's the main factor for not getting the N97 which had some decent specs (except for the RAM available).
I really like the way the n900 looks and if it can really be connected "always" as they say, with few "disconnects" from messengers and email, then I'm in.
BTW- Does anyone know does Maemo 5 support Idle IMAP for Gmail?
bugelrex
2009-09-18, 18:23
Found another post from a prototype user on battery:
http://my-symbian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40267&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60
"
My device have a little bit newer firmware than Michal's. The battery life was in the beginning about 8 hours and now it's 12-13 hours.
I have wlan on continuously and browse quite a lot and play videos and use gps. It's quite good result of test device in this stage. Much better than for E75 in the same development stage. I'm sure that the specifications tell the truth of battery usage times.
"...
"
as i wrote, battery life isn't great at the moment, but it's really hard to judge based on such an early proto i have. next week i'll send it for an update and then i'll see if it gets better. the biggest power eater at the moment seems to be the gsm radio, so it needs some optimizations.
"...
Laughing Man
2009-09-18, 18:29
12-13 hours is pretty good for browsing the web alot and playing video with GPS usage. Battery life should last around a day for what I would use it for.
zkyevolved
2009-09-18, 18:41
Actually, with a lot of web and video and GPS? That's REALLY good :P
Having used a Cortex A8 device (3gs) for some time and reading a lot about Palm Pre's battery issues (also a cortex a8 device), it seems to me that the N900's battery life will be INSANELY GOOD compared to those two :D
This is very encouraging indeed..
somedude
2009-09-18, 20:44
Off topic:
this is for the MOD guys, how come I have to search for the post that I have posted to get back to it? isn't there a way you can put reply to my post or something similar under the new post? easy to navigate the site around in my IMHO.
Sorry I just did not wanted to create a whole new thread for this little thing.
If Mods want to they can move my post.
bugelrex
2009-09-21, 21:38
According to this Russian review. Sept 10.
http://mobile.mail.ru/reviews/nokia/Nokia_N900_Maemo5-rev.html
Translated from Russian. Seems to imply half day usage with medium use, but could also be a translation error. Just gives us an idea with whatever firmware they were using and if it was mainly on wifi or 3G.
"
In the Nokia N900 uses BL-5J battery capacity of 1320 mA * h, that is exactly the same as in 5800. It would seem that the size of a smartphone allows you to put bigger battery, but it's probably just an impression. Whatever it was, N900 is relatively little affected by a robust hardware platform. One day in active use, and a half at medium loads, do not count on more. Nevertheless, in some modes, power consumption is optimized, it concerns video playback, MP3 and some others, the exact figures will be in the final material as long as their result meaningless, many parameters will be optimized.
"....
somedude
2009-09-21, 21:46
I find this Google Translate very useful. CLICK HERE (http://www.translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmobile.mail.ru%2Freviews%2Fnokia%2F Nokia_N900_Maemo5-rev.html&sl=ru&tl=en&history_state0=) to see the translated English version.
zkyevolved
2009-09-21, 22:14
OK that doesn't make sense (it's translation). So... I'm going to be optimistic and say "full day extremely heavy use as it's using a 1320 mah li-ion nuclear fusion powered cell" LOL.
Xisdibik
2009-09-22, 00:21
Most of the posts here seem to be related to usage on a standard day of web/video access etc. How about it if was mainly being used for an audio player. I plan to take some trips to other countries and currently bring an ipod 80GB on the plane to listen to some tunes if the movies are bad or for while im sleeping.
Does anyone have some insight into how long they would expect the battery to last with just audio playing (Wifi/GPS/Phone OFF). One could expect vastly more than the 10-12 hours with wlan etc right?
Any info for that would be helpful thanks.
Laughing Man
2009-09-22, 00:41
I would assume so. As is, the nx00 already lasted quite a while in the mode you described. But then again the n900 is using a smaller battery (Though one would assume that they have optimized the battery usage even more).
allnameswereout
2009-09-22, 00:48
The E71 is the best in that regard. Although ive never quite got 24hours of power use out of it yet, maybe 8 on a good day. I used to kill my N82 90mins! :eek:Also satisfied about that. My E71 with e-mail and RSS (both auto syncing) can run for about 1,5 days if I don't use the LCD too much (don't also surf too much). But I charge it every night... :) and that is the acceptable performance for me: needing to charge it every day with average usage.
[QUOTE=Laughing Man;331080]I would assume so. As is, the nx00 already lasted quite a while in the mode you described. But then again the n900 is using a smaller battery (Though one would assume that they have optimized the battery usage even more).The difference is less than 200 mA.
Does anyone have some insight into how long they would expect the battery to last with just audio playing (Wifi/GPS/Phone OFF). One could expect vastly more than the 10-12 hours with wlan etc right?
Any info for that would be helpful thanks.Imagine this: video is rendering and showing on LCD screen the video and playing the audio.
Playing a MP3 doesn't cost much resources. A P1/200 MHz can easily play MP3s of good quality since a 80486 can play 128 kbit MP3.
From my experience with MP3 players it depends on how often you're going to use the LCD screen and how bright it is. A remote which is informative and usable but doesn't use LCD screen can improve the operational lifetime of your device, even if that remote uses e.g. BlueTooth.
OTOH because the device doesn't rest it won't get into deep sleep mode. So this will count as 'medium usage' at worst. Take into account most people have something running on background on N900. Such as e-mail synchronisation.
kryptoniankid17
2009-09-22, 01:00
preordered and already bought the n97's battery for more juice.
Laughing Man
2009-09-22, 01:16
Hmm I wonder if there will be power modes. E.g. music mode where if you switch to that power mode it stops background network tasks like email checking (maybe even killing those apps). Would be nice if we could setup something like that (well we could with the use of scripts but meh).
Dead1nside
2009-09-22, 01:59
I'm guessing here:
3G connected, Joiku Spot transmitting, streaming video with full brightness & max volume, GPS tracking on, accelerometer Step Counter on (you're moving), push notifications & Skype & IM client & pings all on at max occurrence rate, .....am I missing anything?
.
Older battery?
.
Sounds like a bench test.
The N82 only lasting 90 mins doesn't surprise me, it's a rather nasty firmware bug where the wireless keeps trying to connect behind the scenes without alerting you in the UI. I suffered from it, did a hard reset on it and now it can easily make over 2 day of usage on GSM, 3G varies obviously but I only switch it on when I need fast data, it's simply overkill for SMS and voice calls.
If the charger on the N900 is as tiny as the N82's then it won't be a problem to carry it about with you just in case.
DannStarr
2009-09-22, 02:06
preordered and already bought the n97's battery for more juice.
Humphhh, I dont think that will work bud
texaslabrat
2009-09-22, 03:20
Humphhh, I dont think that will work bud
LOL yeah, I was thinking the same...assuming the 2 batteries are the same dimensions length/width wise (I have no idea if that's the case, just throwing out a hypothetical)...the N97 battery is almost assuredly thicker and thus the cover isn't gonna go back on. Hope he ordered a roll of duct tape to go along with that battery :p
zkyevolved
2009-09-22, 11:57
LOL yeah, I was thinking the same...assuming the 2 batteries are the same dimensions length/width wise (I have no idea if that's the case, just throwing out a hypothetical)...the N97 battery is almost assuredly thicker and thus the cover isn't gonna go back on. Hope he ordered a roll of duct tape to go along with that battery :p
LOL. I go through batteries like a teenager and tissues :P hehe. I have multiple batteries for my blackberry and a spare charger so I don't need my battery in my phone to charge that battery.
Since there are already extended batteries for that battery, I'm sure we can just plug them in, but we'll just need a new cover (which could take time). So we'll need to wait and see. I really don't like turning off a device to change batteries. I have a Motorola Mini Usb battery charger (emergency) and I have a mini usb to microusb converter. I'm set :) I'm gunna test this device and play hard ball :D hehe.
It will probably not last a day whith normal use. The n95 didnt last a day the n95 8gb didnt and the n96 didnt either. The n900 has a 1320 mah battery 400 bigger then the n96. but i guess it uses atleast twice as much power when used then the n96.
Power optimisation is perfect... when not using the phone... you cant cut back speed to save power? atleast not when using the phone. same as for backlight and stuff. all the options possible are allready used in all the phones. like keyboerd backlight turns off when there is enough light. and background light is dimmed when its dark. Nice features but even with these features you save half an hour max! and probably even less!
What i dont get is why they always begin about "if we put in a bigger battery the phone will become too big" i couldnt really care less if the n900 would be 5 mm thicker and having a 2500 or 3000 mah battery.
Im still waiting for a phone that can last for atleast 8 hours browsing the web... my n96 right now is emty in half an hour (when fully charged) and im afraid the n900 will get the same problem
There is a program called energy profiler its free and lets you see the amount of Watts used by the phone.
janzeeschuimers
2009-09-30, 13:17
I opened a new topic but I think it is better to post it here:
My Nokia N810 has a BP-4L battery with 1500 mAh.The new Nokia N900 will get the BL-5J with only 1320 mAh.
That is 180 mAh less in a successor.
Strange because the N900 has now things like:
-Integrated FM transmitter
-5 megapixel camera with dual led flash
-Call and data features like 3G and HSDPA.
And much more that the N810 did not have , so the N900 will need more power but gets less.
The N900's 1320 mAh battery has 12% (180mAh) less then the N810's 1500 mAh battery.
But there is one thing more to tell about the battery of the n900 , it is only a Li-Ion battery against the much better Li-Polymer of the N810.
When compared to a lithium-ion battery, a Li-poly has a greater life cycle , and lower weight and greatly increased run times.
Nokia gives the N900 not only less battery-power , from 1500mAh to "only" 1320 mAh but also a worse battery-technologie from Li-Polymer to Li-Ion.
It's all good comparing pure numbers on the batteries, but are you taking the different hardware in to account? I.e. how much better some of the hardware is at conserving power? Any numbers on this?
Until we get the final hw and sw it's pure speculation, and at least try to think about more than the mAh on the battery when doing this ;-)
Aren't there companies making high end and high quality batteries for nokia's? Maybe we can just buy it from another company?
zkyevolved
2009-09-30, 13:42
Aren't there companies making high end and high quality batteries for nokia's? Maybe we can just buy it from another company?
Theoretically yes. I've seen companies (Sony Ericsson with the Xperia X1) that lock out their bios and won't recognize more than the OEM MAH. Lame. So we'll see.
Does anyone with a prototype and an extended battery for the 5800 see if the phone recognizes it? :)
Laughing Man
2009-10-08, 01:24
My Nokia N810 has a BP-4L battery with 1500 mAh.The new Nokia N900 will get the BL-5J with only 1320 mAh.
That is 180 mAh less in a successor.
Strange because the N900 has now things like:
-Integrated FM transmitter
-5 megapixel camera with dual led flash
-Call and data features like 3G and HSDPA.
And much more that the N810 did not have , so the N900 will need more power but gets less.
The N900's 1320 mAh battery has 12% (180mAh) less then the N810's 1500 mAh battery.
I think the n900 turns off things like the FM transmitter after it's not in use for a minute. Same for the camera (well that and it wouldn't even be running unless you slide open the camera lens). But I do find it odd that they gave it a smaller battery, and an inferior one at that too.
I think the n900 turns off things like the FM transmitter after it's not in use for a minute. Same for the camera (well that and it wouldn't even be running unless you slide open the camera lens). But I do find it odd that they gave it a smaller battery, and an inferior one at that too.
Well, you have to take into account the energy efficiency of the newer processor (OMAP3)...and who knows, perhaps maemo5 is better at power saving
javispedro
2009-10-08, 08:18
Just on the previous page there was this "power saving will be perfect... when you're not using the phone" comment.
MaemoGuy
2009-10-08, 08:20
LOL yeah, I was thinking the same...assuming the 2 batteries are the same dimensions length/width wise (I have no idea if that's the case, just throwing out a hypothetical)...the N97 battery is almost assuredly thicker and thus the cover isn't gonna go back on. Hope he ordered a roll of duct tape to go along with that battery :p
No, they are not the same. The N900 battery is the same as the one in 5800 Xpress Music, smaller and narrower, whilst the N97 battery is wider and taller.
zkyevolved
2009-10-08, 09:41
That's exactly the problem. I don't know about you guys, but I'm a very active user. I don't care if my phone uses nearly no power while the screen is off, data is in scarce usage... Or whatever. I'm a hardcore user. I use my device for everything. For music, calls, internet, video playback, recording and taking pictures, as a calendar, sync between my pc and the device. I'd want my device to last longer while using it... Not while NOT using it.
Just on the previous page there was this "power saving will be perfect... when you're not using the phone" comment.
Rushmore
2009-10-08, 12:20
Wow. The N900 will be pretty chuncky with an extended battery- assuming we see one, of course.
Laughing Man
2009-10-08, 12:30
That's exactly the problem. I don't know about you guys, but I'm a very active user. I don't care if my phone uses nearly no power while the screen is off, data is in scarce usage... Or whatever. I'm a hardcore user. I use my device for everything. For music, calls, internet, video playback, recording and taking pictures, as a calendar, sync between my pc and the device. I'd want my device to last longer while using it... Not while NOT using it.
I agree, I'm mostly the same way. But my point was that your not going be using the camera 24/7. Now if the battery died within a day say after 50 pics then we have a problem. But most of the time your not taking out a cellphone camera for long continuous shooting. Unless your at a concert maybe.
You guys should really read the threads in which you're posting in first :)
to quote from this very thread:
As a baseline, the OMAP3430 consumes about the same amount of power while active as the OMAP2420, but it has a number of powersaving advantages.
First, it's quite a bit faster (2-3x faster depending on the task) which means for the same task it's going to be spending much less time active and processing and a lot more time idle than the OMAP2420 (this is called Race to Idle). As idle usage consumes orders of magnitude less power than even 0.1% usage, this translates to noticeable and immediate power savings even if all other factors are equal (which they're not).
Second, idle power consumption has been improved significantly. The OMAP2420 uses nearly no power while idle (fanoush managed to get about 30 days of battery life at idle) but the OMAP3430 is even better, as it uses basically no power at idle. Although the difference seems small on a larger scale, the relative difference is large and with as much time as the device will spend in idle this means big power savings.
Finally, the software, too, has seen large improvements in powersaving. Both at the library and application level and at the kernel level. Fremantle on the OMAP3 is more intelligent about hardware power management and more careful in how in consumers power in the userspace than Diablo on OMAP2.
Unfortunately, most of these advantages are offset by the inclusion of additional hardware (accelerometers, cameras, LED flashes, GPU—although the smaller screen represents a major reduction in power consumption) and, in particular, the cellular radio. So in the end, the N900, I suspect, is going to have a much lower power consumption at the extreme low end of usage and a slightly higher one running full blast. The end result for the average user is probably going to be marginally worse battery life, on average, than OMAP2 devices with a potential for slightly better battery life depending on usage.
i just want to add to that, that power saving is usually the very last thing that gets optimized before final shipping, so any speculation on our part is just that - pure speculation. we will have to have the device in our hands before we can make final judgment on battery life.
javispedro
2009-10-08, 16:07
The above may be true for the "average Joe" (whoever he is, he's getting quite a bit of press lately ;) ) but a faster processor here means I will be using the processor more time and not less.
Of course, power saving is absolutely noticed when calling, browsing, etc. since you don't need the processor to be awake 100% of the time. If that's your average usage then you'll get enormous increases in longevity.
But people like me are interested in torture tests also, and I believe it's not as good as the N810 on that point. (Take care: as I said, this means nothing for average usage).
Some people want continuous on-line usage with im and skype etc.
I think for me it would be enough if the device could connect once in hour to check my e-mail. So what I mean, I don't even want to be connected 24/7. People will be pitying me if I would be all the time available at msn. ;)
kamakazikev24
2009-10-08, 18:28
:D Am hearing you on that one! :D
Jack6428
2009-10-08, 18:36
I think i will be fine, i mean...i use my device only during the day. When i go to sleep (usually midnight-9am), it's on, but idle, no tasks running, nothing, so it can "sleep" (btw, does the N900 support some kind of sleep mode?) and save energy. When I wake up, i charge it for 1 hour and then i go off somewhere, using the device from that point (10am - 10pm) - 12 active hours, doing random things - on daily basis: browsing, im, music, videos, games, calls, sms + when i need to: gps, pictures, fm, documents... That being said, i think i will be very happy.
zkyevolved
2009-10-08, 19:13
Some people want continuous on-line usage with im and skype etc.
I think for me it would be enough if the device could connect once in hour to check my e-mail. So what I mean, I don't even want to be connected 24/7. People will be pitying me if I would be all the time available at msn. ;)
I'm an active user :P I'm going to be using IM all day (with emails, but I"m debating if I want push email on the phone or just sync every 20 minutes or every 30. I don't know.). Music & IM :D
javispedro
2009-10-08, 21:28
For the record, "being online all day" is hardly what I'd consider active use, and you can seriously expect a few days of battery life doing only that.
The kind of "active use" I mean is "calculating decimals of Pi", or playing fullscreen 3D games without sleep.
zkyevolved
2009-10-08, 21:31
For the record, "being online all day" is hardly what I'd consider active use, and you can seriously expect a few days of battery life doing only that.
The kind of "active use" I mean is "calculating decimals of Pi", or playing fullscreen 3D games without sleep.
Are you serious? Lol. I've had SOOO many phones in the past 18 months, more than 12. And NONE of them have gotten close to a Blackberry, and with my blackberry bold with a 624 mhz processor can't get me more than 5-6 hours of ACTIVE use (without turning off teh screen) and it's a 2.6 inch screen, 1500 mah battery and a VERY efficient compression and radio transmission. with ALL my other phones I never got more than 8 hours on GPRS.
From what people say about the N900, they're getting 3-4 hours of the screen being on. I doubt with what you call "days" of online chatting will surpass more than 4-5 hours :P of continuous talking (on gprs)
javispedro
2009-10-08, 21:36
Are you serious?
Yes. Instead of previous experience on other platforms, search for previous experience on Maemo: days using Wi-Fi and X-Chat.
Of course, you're not going to keep the screen nor the processor 24h on while "chatting". You do pauses, and that's were all those "power saving schmigangs" work.
zkyevolved
2009-10-11, 12:17
Yes. Instead of previous experience on other platforms, search for previous experience on Maemo: days using Wi-Fi and X-Chat.
Of course, you're not going to keep the screen nor the processor 24h on while "chatting". You do pauses, and that's were all those "power saving schmigangs" work.
24 hours no, but for at least an hour at a time. I commute to work and school, and I have an hour each way, and not to mention dead time. I catch up on emails, instant messaging all while listening to music :P
Now that we have 300 more N900s out in the wild, how's the battery life :) from the summit people said that if you aren't using it, it doesn't drain very much. How about those that are going clickity click all day at the summit on the n900 :P? How's the battery life now with a near shipment n900.
Capt'n Corrupt
2009-10-11, 16:21
No complaints probably is a good thing. :)
}:^)~
Laughingstok
2009-10-12, 02:33
If the N900 ships with a car charger (one that plugs into a cigarette jack basically) then I'm all set as I'll just keep it in my Jeep and charge it like I currently do my n800
NZtechfreak
2009-10-12, 02:44
I have some concerns about the battery life here too. My current phone is the i8910, which spec wise is very similar, but it has a 3.7 AMOLED screen (lower energy consumption) and a 1500mA battery. Even with a less power-consuming screen and better battery I have to curtail my use a little to get through a day.
A typical day is GPS tracking via sportstracker for around an hour as I cycle to and from work, about a 1-1.5hours streaming from lastfm, half hour browsing, an hour miscellaneous screen-on use (gaming/document viewing/GPS use/Fring etc/taking pictures or video/ watching video), continuous push email, and the usual telephony stuff.
As things stand I doubt the N900 will be up to my current usage, let alone improving things so that I don't need to cut back on browsing/gaming in order to get through a day...
somedude
2009-10-12, 05:10
Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nzkccfl4Y0&feature=fvw) this guy says when unboxing his N900 its a 1500MAH but it clearly shows BL-5J. :confused:
Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nzkccfl4Y0&feature=fvw) this guy says when unboxing his N900 its a 1500MAH but it clearly shows BL-5J. :confused:
The guy just said it by mistake. Its been talked about in the video comments.
If you look closely, you can see 1350mAh on the battery when he shows it to the camera.
GeneralAntilles
2009-10-12, 06:05
Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nzkccfl4Y0&feature=fvw) this guy says when unboxing his N900 its a 1500MAH but it clearly shows BL-5J. :confused:
Chippy was a little confused. ;)
NSchuyler
2009-10-12, 08:00
I think that all I could want is two extra batteries (or one) and a charging dock for the two and the phone. Then if I don't think it'll last me the day, I'll bring a battery a long.
That plus a car charger = power almost anywhere and a spare for the worst case scenario :D
zkyevolved
2009-10-12, 08:32
I think that all I could want is two extra batteries (or one) and a charging dock for the two and the phone. Then if I don't think it'll last me the day, I'll bring a battery a long.
That plus a car charger = power almost anywhere and a spare for the worst case scenario :D
I have a spare battery already ordered and an outlet charger for the battery. I will give the N900 a try. if I can't get through a FULL DAY of HARDCORE use with 2 batteries, then it's going back to Nokia. I can manage a day with normal usage, but I can't handle a day with very hardcore usage and 2 batteries. That's too much.
Saturday was the perfect example. I had lunch at my brothers house, leaving my phone off the plug at 8:30 AM (in GPRS mode, mind you), and after lunch I went to a friends house. After that I went to the movies with some other friends, and then I went out dancing... Arriving at home at 4:30 AM and 5% battery life on my blackberry. I'm a very hardcore user :) I don't expect to do that on the N900, because I know it won't. But I should be able to get at least 6-7 hours of hardcore use at a time.
its got a USB charger on it, I can't say I go more than a few hours a day away from a ready and waiting USB port :p
koivjann
2009-10-12, 09:10
About battery life:
I've used N900 proto now over one month.
The best time I have achieved is 36 and half hours with light use (2G on and wlan on about 5 hours). In normal business use the battery holds about 12-15 hours. Sometimes the battery drains in 4 hours and in that case the device is very warm. The same happened with E90 and E75. I guess it has something to do with 3G handshaking loop?
zkyevolved
2009-10-12, 09:18
About battery life:
I've used N900 proto now over one month.
The best time I have achieved is 36 and half hours with light use (2G on and wlan on about 5 hours). In normal business use the battery holds about 12-15 hours. Sometimes the battery drains in 4 hours and in that case the device is very warm. The same happened with E90 and E75. I guess it has something to do with 3G handshaking loop?
it drains in 4 hours? Is that with 3G on or off? And during the 4 hours, what were you doing!? LOL!
In your honest & humble opinion, do you think the N900 has GOOD battery life :S? And what's in normal business use for you? :)
And congrats on the N900 prototype :) You're the envy of the majority of the people here.
If the N900 ships with a car charger (one that plugs into a cigarette jack basically) then I'm all set as I'll just keep it in my Jeep and charge it like I currently do my n800
It does not include a car charger out of the box, but:
- it includes an adapter to reuse existing nokia adapters.
- there are already various MicroUSB car adapters on the market
Yet another account of battery life:
http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi/2009/10/11#maesum
Worst thing: the battery goes flat after only eight hours of continuously running ssh to my home server, the media player, the (great> mauku identi.ca client, email checking, browsing and gaming -- and it can run only about six to seven apps at the same time before the music starts stuttering when when I connect it as a mass storage device to mhy laptop. Shame!
Note: author is disappointed but in fact those 8 hours are really good outcome from heavy usage!
Check source for photos from N900, in low light quality is really bad.
7-8 hours is great in modem and multimedia high usage profile. 3-4 hours, as it seemed in early days, is not...
Here is why:
http://utestme.com/2009/09/12/nokia-n900-battery-life/
zkyevolved
2009-10-12, 10:39
Well, if we can get 7-8 hours of HEAVY usage. (i'm not exactly how sure nor how damanding SSH program is). But one thing that surprised me was that his music was hopping frames with only 6 apps open :s. That's kind of frightening.
These cortex A8 devices have extremely wide range of power consumption rate. It's normal to drain all the battery in 4-5 hours while they can last 1-2 weeks in complete idle state.
Be glad that the N900 has an open platform\architecture\license\etc so that we'll have all the tools and transparency needed to optimize the system to eek out every last drop of its performance.
Well, if we can get 7-8 hours of HEAVY usage. (i'm not exactly how sure nor how damanding SSH program is). But one thing that surprised me was that his music was hopping frames with only 6 apps open :s. That's kind of frightening.
What he says is
it can run only about six to seven apps at the same time before the music starts stuttering when when I connect it as a mass storage device to mhy laptop.
If you go to mass storage the music will stop playing no matter how many apps are open, since both the eMMC and the MicroSD are now in the hands of your laptop.
bugelrex
2009-10-12, 12:36
These cortex A8 devices have extremely wide range of power consumption rate. It's normal to drain all the battery in 4-5 hours while they can last 1-2 weeks in complete idle state.
Be glad that the N900 has an open platform\architecture\license\etc so that we'll have all the tools and transparency needed to optimize the system to eek out every last drop of its performance.
I think its best to judge the battery on a relative basis. Eg how does it compare with the E71 with similar usage. I would be satisfied if it lasts just half as long as the e71.
If its much less than that then...... mmmmm
But there is one thing more to tell about the battery of the n900 , it is only a Li-Ion battery against the much better Li-Polymer of the N810.
When compared to a lithium-ion battery, a Li-poly has a greater life cycle , and lower weight and greatly increased run times.
Nokia gives the N900 not only less battery-power , from 1500mAh to "only" 1320 mAh but also a worse battery-technologie from Li-Polymer to Li-Ion.
I'm afraid you are a bit wrong. The main advantage of Li-Polymer is the posibility of the battery taking non-standard shapes.
Wikipedia says:
The advantages of Li-poly over the lithium-ion design include lower cost manufacturing and being more robust to physical damage. Lithium-ion polymer batteries started appearing in consumer electronics around 1996.
No, I'm not saying it. Not many sales devices in this category would resist this intensive use in one go. About the N900 you will find yourselves after opening the sales box. In any case you know that Nokia has high standards in power management.
Yes I know, my e71 is one of the few devices that stands up to the task and I know nokia know their way around with power. Still they managed to fit the bp-4l inside the e55 and e52 although both are thin, light, feature packed phones.
Seriously, by the number of hardware features, I hoped the n900 would have a bp-4l and another, smaller one like the BP-6M, both hot swappable :D But that's just me.
Looks like those that received the freebees at Maemo Summit are reporting on Twitter very good battery life for the N900.
It died after 8 hrs of heavy use. And I mean real heavy. All the time
connected to home WLAN, intensive net browsing, downloads, video streaming,
video playback, music playback, running multiple apps, etc;
Looks like those that received the freebees at Maemo Summit are reporting on Twitter very good battery life for the N900.
It died after 8 hrs of heavy use. And I mean real heavy. All the time
connected to home WLAN, intensive net browsing, downloads, video streaming,
video playback, music playback, running multiple apps, etc;
RevdKathy
2009-10-14, 07:13
Double post if you want but I'm only going to thankyou once!
Glad to hear this, though. There's some alarmist stuff out there.
Somebody's hours are other people's days...
I think that there should be a software written, to be run on your current device, leave it for a few days to record your usage pattern and then estimate how much the new X device would last...
Looks like those that received the freebees at Maemo Summit are reporting on Twitter very good battery life for the N900.
Well... Yes and No. WLan is the most economic way for connecting; the battery drains 4-5 times quicker if you use mobile internet instead of WLan. For example, HTC Hero lasts 40 hours in WLan environment and only 4-5 hours on a mobile internet connection (good coverage). E71 has far better battery life, but the difference between battery life using wlan only and mobile internet only is the same.
I think that there should be a software written, to be run on your current device, leave it for a few days to record your usage pattern and then estimate how much the new X device would last...
Yes that would be great.
Well... Yes and No. WLan is the most economic way for connecting; the battery drains 4-5 times quicker if you use mobile internet instead of WLan. For example, HTC Hero lasts 40 hours in WLan environment and only 4-5 hours on a mobile internet connection (good coverage). E71 has far better battery life, but the difference between battery life using wlan only and mobile internet only is the same.
That's why I would consider the MiFi with a 24h+ powerpack a great idea :)
MickyFin just posted on twitter this
"Been out in the real world with the N900 today, took some sample videos, inc macro, gps usage interesting, battery half depleated in 9 hours"
so battery is no concern to me as it seems to have improved a lot since early reports and its still not final software yet
http://twitter.com/MickyFin/status/4889763758
bugelrex
2009-10-15, 15:16
MickyFin just posted on twitter this
"Been out in the real world with the N900 today, took some sample videos, inc macro, gps usage interesting, battery half depleated in 9 hours"
so battery is no concern to me as it seems to have improved a lot since early reports and its still not final software yet
http://twitter.com/MickyFin/status/4889763758
Pity we don't know if his real world means connected to wifi or 3G-data. If its no wifi and not edge then yes its pretty acceptable. But also it assumes the battery indicator is a true percentage where the last few bars last as long as the first few bars.
Pity we don't know if his real world means connected to wifi or 3G-data. If its no wifi and not edge then yes its pretty acceptable. But also it assumes the battery indicator is a true percentage where the last few bars last as long as the first few bars.
well hes in finland where 3G is good and been away from home all day from what i gather from other tweets, so i presume, 3G usage
shadowjk
2009-10-15, 16:12
If it's like on N800, N810 and E75, in my experience the first top bar is 50 percent of battery, or when the meter thinks there's 50 percent left.
Talking about battery, what should be a good / cheap place to buy _real_ BL-5J batteries?
eBay seems to be full of Chinese garbage...
bugelrex
2009-10-16, 16:47
Theres a nice thread going on the community forum which gives real life usage of battery:
http://maemo.org/community/maemo-users/n900_battery_duration/
This might help when near a power socket:
http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/hardware-battery_improvements/
hey there i want to ask you i want to purchase and orginal nokia spare battery BL-5J from amazon are they original or just chinese garbage ? thnx
hey there i want to ask you i want to purchase and orginal nokia spare battery BL-5J from amazon are they original or just chinese garbage ? thnx
hard to say, CCMACCESSORIES doesn't even have them on their web site but do through amazon...
I never got why those battery were so hard to find or so expensive!
I've heard reports that battery life isn't exactly going to be spectacular (around a day's worth). Is that a day's worth of fulltime usage, or a day on standby? Because if it's a day of standby, I kind of hope that there's going to be a battery with more juice floating around sometime in the future..
dantonic
2009-10-17, 22:18
There are other threads about this where this is already being disussed extensively, You can just do a search to find these
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=31394&highlight=N900+battery
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32785&highlight=N900+battery
406NotAcceptable
2009-10-19, 10:37
[QUOTE=dansus;328493]Nah, with Joiku Spot on, i got 60mins. :p/QUOTE]
And a free hand warmer! I remember the N82 (despite being superior to the N95 in this regard) would run out of battery after a few hours whilst chargingand running Joiku Spot.
What would be useful is an app to only use 2G/2.5G connections when pinging/idle/updating emails; then turning on the 3G/3.5G connection when the web browser is loaded. Turing off 3G connections gave me about 50% more battery life on both my K800 and N82.
I'm fine with a day's life of *constant* use. What bothers me is whether or not that day's worth of battery life is for sleep/idle too, because I really don't want to be charging my phone daily. I have to do that now due to a bad battery, and I'd really like to move on to something better.
koivjann
2009-10-20, 16:20
I'm test user of prototype of N900 with firmware version 41-13.
I'm very satisfied of the battery life with moderate use. The best result for me have been 60 hours. I have used all the features and the working days have been normal.
In heavy use I haven't seen any difference with earlier firmware versions. If I see a long movie and wlan continuously on then the battery holds 4 to 5 hours. In normal quite heavy use it holds easily 15 hours which is usually enough for me, cos I charge the battery every night anyway.
bugelrex
2009-10-20, 16:26
I'm test user of prototype of N900 with firmware version 41-13.
I'm very satisfied of the battery life with moderate use. The best result for me have been 60 hours. I have used all the features and the working days have been normal.
In heavy use I haven't seen any difference with earlier firmware versions. If I see a long movie and wlan continuously on then the battery holds 4 to 5 hours. In normal quite heavy use it holds easily 15 hours which is usually enough for me, cos I charge the battery every night anyway.
Can it hold 15 hours with only 3G or edge and no wifi? Its been mentioned that wifi is much easier on the battery than 3G.
Thanks!
koivjann
2009-10-20, 16:51
I never tested to have only 3G on whole day, cos I've wlan at home and at work and I use every opportunity to use free wlans. I try to test that tomorrow. I suppose that should succeed.
The battery definitely drains significantly faster with (1) 3G and (2) heavy photography use.
koivjann
2009-10-21, 20:27
Can it hold 15 hours with only 3G or edge and no wifi? Its been mentioned that wifi is much easier on the battery than 3G.
Thanks!
That was piece of cake. No problem at all to achieve 15 hours with 3G use on whole time. Actually there is 3/4 of battery left. Of course I was in the region where there was good coverage of 3G.
If there is poor coverage then the battery drains very fast.
bugelrex
2009-10-21, 20:37
That was piece of cake. No problem at all to achieve 15 hours with 3G use on whole time. Actually there is 3/4 of battery left. Of course I was in the region where there was good coverage of 3G.
If there is poor coverage then the battery drains very fast.
great news! much appreciated!! Unfortunately for those in USA, many parts of t-mobile 3G is terrible!
I'm test user of prototype of N900 with firmware version 41-13.
I'm very satisfied of the battery life with moderate use. The best result for me have been 60 hours. I have used all the features and the working days have been normal.
In heavy use I haven't seen any difference with earlier firmware versions. If I see a long movie and wlan continuously on then the battery holds 4 to 5 hours. In normal quite heavy use it holds easily 15 hours which is usually enough for me, cos I charge the battery every night anyway.
I'm curious wheter you connected to the GSM cellular network? and did you make calls? or was it idle and used as a tablet?
That was piece of cake. No problem at all to achieve 15 hours with 3G use on whole time. Actually there is 3/4 of battery left. Of course I was in the region where there was good coverage of 3G.
If there is poor coverage then the battery drains very fast.
Was this usage with calls over 3g? or idle?
Hope to hear from you, gracias.
Hey guys,
i was wondering if any of you knows how long battery lifetime of n900 is...do you think it could handle playing like two hours of video or audio, some web browsing and still last entire day?
Thanks, Tomas Herman
Jack6428
2009-10-23, 11:13
there have been many threads about this...search is your friend..but to answer you, yes...
That’s one thing that I’m really curious too.
Can any of the 300 lucky ones speak?
I’ve searched but didn’t find no topic related.
thanks :] looks like ill be finally able to watch Scrubs on my way to collage ;]] btw i tried to search but it didnt work out too well ( http://talk.maemo.org/search.php?searchid=5629265 ) :]
Here's one of such thread:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=31394
and another one, with usage profiles included:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32785
i'm iphone3g's user unfortunately i'm not satisfied with the battery, mostly the battery can last about 9 or 10hrs, if the n900 can last about the same, its useless for me.
My thoughts is to compare it against Iphone 3gs(i know) battery.
Since the 3gs is almost identically hardware wise it should give a good comparison. (http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/9eyag/nokia_n900_vs_iphone_3gs_specs_side_by_side/)
The Iphone 3Gs has a battery with 1219 mAh, a little less than the n900.
I have read in mac forums about this and it seems alot of people manage at least 1 day with normal usage, and some even with high usage. So i hope the n900 with its higher resolution will have about the same battery life.
Just my thoughts.
i'm iphone3g's user unfortunately i'm not satisfied with the battery, mostly the battery can last about 9 or 10hrs, if the n900 can last about the same, its useless for me.
There is one difference between them,
you can chance the n900 battery
so 9h of useage is quite accaptable for me
allnameswereout
2009-10-24, 13:50
The battery definitely drains significantly faster with (1) 3G and (2) heavy photography use.What if one used a theme which requires more brightness such as a white theme?
What if one used a theme which requires more brightness such as a white theme?
Is that a joke?
I'll just change my laptop's wallpaper to solid black to improve my battery life!
What if one used a theme which requires more brightness such as a white theme?
That's not how LCDs work. The light comes from a backlight behind the LCD, then the LCD blocks bits of the light off to make the image. A dark image still has the backlight using the same amount of power as a light one.
koivjann
2009-10-24, 16:13
I'm curious wheter you connected to the GSM cellular network? and did you make calls? or was it idle and used as a tablet?
Was this usage with calls over 3g? or idle?
Hope to hear from you, gracias.
Of course I was connected to normal cellular network whole the time and made some calls.I had normal daily routines and there was about 10 calls (1min to 20 min). I meant with 3G that I had 3G connected.
It's true. A white background can safe you a few mWh's.
I tested this extensively on my old x24 thinkpad.
But it will in no way have any noticeable impact on overall battery life (could give you a few extra seconds, not more).
koivjann
2009-10-24, 16:17
i'm iphone3g's user unfortunately i'm not satisfied with the battery, mostly the battery can last about 9 or 10hrs, if the n900 can last about the same, its useless for me.
With normal use I can assure You that N900 battery holds much longer than Your phone, It holds easily 14-16 hours in heavy use. With moderate use it holds two days. And you can carry spare battery with You.
allnameswereout
2009-10-24, 16:29
That's not how LCDs work. The light comes from a backlight behind the LCD, then the LCD blocks bits of the light off to make the image. A dark image still has the backlight using the same amount of power as a light one.Thanks, interesting. So the light has no dimmer, makes sense, LED. Is the reverse true though? In a white theme you could set the brightness very low and still see everything well whereas the same is not possible with a dark theme. Or does brightness not affect battery life at all?
If so, I'd find that rather strange because my laptop's screen is considerably darker when disconnected from AC instead running on battery. This is default configuration set by gnome-power-manager settings.
Also, my Nokia E71 boots up with very dimmed logo. Almost not able to see. Only after it asks for PIN it will light up normally, and after 15 sec no interaction it will already set to a more dimmed screen (again, default power settings).
The backlight intensity can be varied. What I was trying to say was that the power consumption didn't vary depending on what image is display, whether a light image or a dark image.
Just for that reason the light sensor is on most phones. When in dark room, you don't need the backlight at full.
Plasma and AMOLED screens differ from LCD's as the pixels in them actually create the light. You actually get better battery life on AMOLED devices when using dark theme etc.
hi koivjann,
Thanks for the explanation, i'm not a normal user, i was checked my email/browsing every 5 to 10mins, 99% my life communications all depends on phone coz i'm always mobile.
With normal use I can assure You that N900 battery holds much longer than Your phone, It holds easily 14-16 hours in heavy use. With moderate use it holds two days. And you can carry spare battery with You.
jandmdickerson
2009-10-25, 03:50
hi koivjann,
Thanks for the explanation, i'm not a normal user, i was checked my email/browsing every 5 to 10mins, 99% my life communications all depends on phone coz i'm always mobile.
Wow sounds like you are very demanding on the battery. I am interested to know what your current mobile device is that can keep up with your demanding needs.
bugelrex
2009-10-25, 04:52
Wow sounds like you are very demanding on the battery. I am interested to know what your current mobile device is that can keep up with your demanding needs.
The Nokia E71 can handle that use case absolutely no problem. It will last the whole day and perhaps half of the second day too.
For example, on 3g using Nokia email with constant connection, 9am -> midnight will loose about 30%-40% battery. With Edge, loose about 20% battery. I still don't understand why Nokia couldn't squeeze in the same battery but made space to hold the sylus!
I would be really curious to know how the n900 compares with E71 with similar usage (e.g constant email, always on IM etc etc)
jandmdickerson
2009-10-25, 05:08
I am not sure-- he seemed to imply that 14 to 16 hours of heavy use was not enough for him. So I wanted to know what his device was since it seemed unusual.
With normal use I can assure You that N900 battery holds much longer than Your phone, It holds easily 14-16 hours in heavy use. With moderate use it holds two days. And you can carry spare battery with You.
Wow the E71 gives you 14-16 hours of "heavy use" I truly am amazed. To me heavy use means browsing over 3g and multi-media, and listening to internet music. Not just checking your email once every hours or two.
bugelrex
2009-10-25, 05:21
I am not sure-- he seemed to imply that 14 to 16 hours of heavy use was not enough for him. So I wanted to know what his device was since it seemed unusual.
Wow the E71 gives you 14-16 hours of "heavy use" I truly am amazed. To me heavy use means browsing over 3g and multi-media, and listening to internet music. Not just checking your email once every hours or two.
Yes, the E71 can give you 14-16 hours "heavy use" 3G browsing, internet music, email. The E72 is supposed to be 15% better and also longer battery for playing music. The screen is only 2.4 inch though so its tough to do a comparison unless it involves limited screen (checking emails, music, IM online but not much chat etc)
I truely believe it (E71 or E72) is the longest lasting smartphone(with keyboard) in terms of battery usage on the market. Period.
i'm nokia fan, i was using communicator for many generations, after a while i jump into win mobile 3, keep on hangs, threw it and tried HTC but very dissapointed with the battery, i was changed to iphone 3g, also a same problem, i threw it and replaced with e71, i'm happy with that and thinking to change N900, hope this phone can me happy ;)
Wow sounds like you are very demanding on the battery. I am interested to know what your current mobile device is that can keep up with your demanding needs.
That's not how LCDs work. The light comes from a backlight behind the LCD, then the LCD blocks bits of the light off to make the image. A dark image still has the backlight using the same amount of power as a light one.
While this is partial true, there's also the fact that in a LCD only pixels with a color variation have electrical current running to them, anytime there is a true black color( 0 0 0) on a TFT LCD there would also be no electrical current entering the Liquid Crystal layer anywhere there is black to realign the pixels and the more True Black pixels per row the more energy savings you see. Though the power saving from that would be negligible.
sjgadsby
2009-10-26, 14:24
How much would the battery life be extended without a SIM card?
Interestingly, it appears that battery life of the N900 is reduced without a SIM card (http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-users/2009-October/014529.html). This may explain the disconnect between what I'm experiencing with my N900 and what others are seeing.
From that link, igor says:There is a bug in the cellmo SW related to absence of SIM: the current is higher when the SIM is not in
Hopefully this will be fixed, as I imagine some people will want to run this SIM-free.
Hi,
I've read in several places that the battery is drained more quickly on 3G than on Wi-Fi, and several people say they don't use the 3G so much because they use their home Wi-Fi, or free Wi-Fi hot spots. (If you can find them! There are hardly any where I live, everyone uses WPA).
But what I couldn't get from any of the many messages about it is this:
Is that battery drain from just being connected to a 3G mobile network, or is that active use, sending and receiving lots of data, e.g. for web browsing?
When people say they are "not using 3G when they're in Wi-Fi range, so the battery lasts longer", does that mean leaving the mobile network completely (so you can't receive incoming calls), switching to 2G, or staying online on 3G/HSPA but without using packet data?
And if the battery life is good when on the 3G voice/SMS network, but not actively using packet data, but significantly poorer when packet data connection is active, does that forbid applications like IMAP IDLE (push email), Skype and IM, or can they be made to work while letting the packet data connection go inactive, as long as you're not sending anything and nobody is sending you anything at the time? (Even if you had to use a proxy server to change protocols - any method would be fine. I write proxies for fun ;-)
I ask because the Three network in the UK (and maybe elsewhere?) does not provide even voice service over 2G. You must use the 3G voice/SMS connection to receive calls and messages.
Well, actually you can connect over 2G, but if you do it consistently, they'll block the handset because they handle 2G using a partner network. Their own network is 3G only.
I'm a bit worried that if I'm on a trip for a couple of days without power, and I disable all data applications, I might still drain the battery "quicker than using Wi-Fi" (implied by many articles) just from being connected to the 3G network enough to receive incoming calls and SMS notifications.
So if someone could clarify if the battery life is good when not using packet data, but registered on the 3G voice/SMS network, I'd be most grateful. Thanks :-)
(I distinguish "packet data connection" from "on the 3G network" because Symbian phones seem to).
If someone tells me that the battery life is good even when running mostly idle IMs/Skype, having mostly idle online presence, that'd be extra nice :-)
If online presence requires packet data connection, but there is some hack whereby that can be avoided if you're almost never sending and receiving packets - after all, you can receive SMS notifications without a packet data connection - that would be rather interesting.
I'm very interested in seeing reviews of N900 battery life on production units (with SIM in :) once they start getting out in the wild. Is there any other site or thread tracking this? If it is at LEAST no worse than my iPhone 3G I'll be ok with it, but I won't take a phone that is any worse.
Might have to wait a few days for the batteries to cycle full - low battery a few times to get closer to full capacity.
Today though it lasted from 7am - 6pm with a bit of photography/music/games while showing it off to ppl at work. 3G on entire day with msn/yahoo/nokia messaging connected at all times before it started giving low battery warnings. Had microusb cable anyway. Without the photo/video taking and games it would have easily lasted 14hrs of just messaging.
Might have to wait a few days for the batteries to cycle full - low battery a few times to get closer to full capacity.
Today though it lasted from 7am - 6pm with a bit of photography/music/games while showing it off to ppl at work. 3G on entire day with msn/yahoo/nokia messenging connected at all times before it started giving low battery warnings. Had microusb cable anyway.
Note that some people, in other threads, are advising against cycling the battery all the way down. I've no idea what to believe.
Note that some people, in other threads, are advising against cycling the battery all the way down. I've no idea what to believe.
Those posts are utter b/s. You can't be paranoid 24/7 in fear that your device might switch off because it has no battery! And if that was the case, wth? Aren't we in 2009? Isn't something like that a bit of a pre-mature sort of b/s. Something like that shouldn't affect the device at all. People just say too much before thinking.
TheUnlockr.com
2009-11-27, 01:12
Hey guys,
I have an N900 and my battery life is horrible, it doesnt even last more than 5 hours with very little use. Ive seen a few others with similar battery life but most people have much better battery life, so it could be some defective units. Im calling Nokia on Monday to have it replaced.
Before I do that, anyone have any ideas as to why my battery life is so horrible? Yes Im on the latest firmware and even reflashed a few times.
DannStarr
2009-11-27, 01:35
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-12.htm
what the link basicly outlines; firstly the n900 uses a l-ion type battery.
The battery doesn't like extreams of both high power, and low power. Let the power get too low and you could kill the little lions (cute name) for good, at very least you will permanently lose some of the capacity of your battery
conversely, when charging, don't go all the way to 100% full, unplug it at 80 - 90% doing this will give you less usage time during the following day, but you will extend the overall life of the battery. Once every 500 or so charges you should go to 100%.
People saying that for the "all important" first charge need to give it at least 12 hrs are wrong. Your first charge is / should be no different to any other charge, take it to just under 100%
charge cycles do not matter, intact they should be purposefully discarded, what your little lions want is to be kept moving, they don't want to go hungry, and they don't want to be over fed. Keeping your n900 plugged in and at 100% all the time doesn't let your lions move, not letting them move will kill them. Regular charges are good, the more often the better, 10% here 23% there is perfect, keep your lions moving!
Your battery will last many charge cycles. A cycle doesn't mean 100% all the way down to 0%
if you went from say, 70% to 60% 10 times, right there is a valid charge cycle, and it keeps your lions moving
mines was pretty bad also, but after i tune my brightness down one notch and turn off my 3g when i'm not using it, it actually get by almost a full day uses.
but compare to my e61i it's miles away, but then the e61i isn't a powerful as the n900
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-12.htm
what the link basicly outlines; firstly the n900 uses a l-ion type battery.
The battery doesn't like extreams of both high power, and low power. Let the power get too low and you could kill the little lions (cute name) for good, at very least you will permanently lose some of the capacity of your battery
conversely, when charging, don't go all the way to 100% full, unplug it at 80 - 90% doing this will give you less usage time during the following day, but you will extend the overall life of the battery. Once every 500 or so charges you should go to 100%.
People saying that for the "all important" first charge need to give it at least 12 hrs are wrong. Your first charge is / should be no different to any other charge, take it to just under 100%
charge cycles do not matter, intact they should be purposefully discarded, what your little lions want is to be kept moving, they don't want to go hungry, and they don't want to be over fed. Keeping your n900 plugged in and at 100% all the time doesn't let your lions move, not letting them move will kill them. Regular charges are good, the more often the better, 10% here 23% there is perfect, keep your lions moving!
Your battery will last many charge cycles. A cycle doesn't mean 100% all the way down to 0%
if you went from say, 70% to 60% 10 times, right there is a valid charge cycle, and it keeps your lions moving
lol sorry i rather just be more relaxed and max out my battery and if it ever get too bad i'll spend $30 for a new battery on newegg... :D
The battery doesn't like extreams of both high power, and low power. Let the power get too low and you could kill the little lions (cute name) for good, at very least you will permanently lose some of the capacity of your battery
conversely, when charging, don't go all the way to 100% full, unplug it at 80 - 90% doing this will give you less usage time during the following day, but you will extend the overall life of the battery. Once every 500 or so charges you should go to 100%.
I believe modern battery charge monitoring software already accounts for that to some extent, and will not allow you to charge the battery to "true" 100% or "true" 0% in normal circumstances.
So you should be fine charging the battery to the point where the phone says "Ok, I've finished charging now".
And if the electronics are at all sensible, it should stop charging the battery at that point automatically.
bugelrex
2009-11-27, 01:51
mines was pretty bad also, but after i tune my brightness down one notch and turn off my 3g when i'm not using it, it actually get by almost a full day uses.
but compare to my e61i it's miles away, but then the e61i isn't a powerful as the n900
How about if you used it in a similar way to the e61i? Would the battery be comparable since you would not be using the extra features?
Well, my battery life is pretty good. Ranges from 6:30-8 hours. My first usage was about 7-8 hours. I was using a minimum of 3 hours of wifi and the rest on 3G-3.5G(if that matters) while streaming music constantly before it went dead on me. When I wasn't using anything what so ever, I got over 9 hours of battery life and it was still going(had to charge at that point because it was dangerously low, lol). But I have to say, if you're using the device as a music player, don't bet on it because it's pretty bad. It went dead on me after 5 hours with about an hour of 3.5G data usage. It drains even faster than wifi....
DannStarr
2009-11-27, 01:56
I believe modern battery charge monitoring software already accounts for that to some extent, and will not allow you to charge the battery to "true" 100% or "true" 0% in normal circumstances.
So you should be fine charging the battery to the point where the phone says "Ok, I've finished charging now".
And if the electronics are at all sensible, it should stop charging the battery at that point automatically.
I would hope it doesn't let you get to these true 100 and 0%'s too, it just that there is a lot of confusion over how *best* to treat these batteries.
Personally I go up to the 100% and then after my day (on current 3gs) am usually down to about 20% I then go all the way back to 100% - however, my point is that if I can grab extra juice during the day, that is only a good thing, and you don't need to feel bad about not giving it a full charge
I would hope it doesn't let you get to these true 100 and 0%'s too, it just that there is a lot of confusion over how *best* to treat these batteries.
Personally I go up to the 100% and then after my day (on current 3gs) am usually down to about 20% I then go all the way back to 100% - however, my point is that if I can grab extra juice during the day, that is only a good thing, and you don't need to feel bad about not giving it a full charge
From what I've read, which is unfortunately not authoritative, modern phone batteries + charging systems are much better for that and it's fine to do that. With old (10 years old) phones it was sometimes recommended to fully discharge from time to time, but I think that is no longer recommended.
I.e. you are right, there's a lot of confusion :p
Well, my battery life is pretty good. Ranges from 6:30-8 hours. My first usage was about 7-8 hours. I was using a minimum of 3 hours of wifi and the rest on 3G-3.5G(if that matters) while streaming music constantly before it went dead on me. When I wasn't using anything what so ever, I got over 9 hours of battery life and it was still going(had to charge at that point because it was dangerously low, lol). But I have to say, if you're using the device as a music player, don't bet on it because it's pretty bad. It went dead on me after 5 hours with about an hour of 3.5G data usage. It drains even faster than wifi....
That's confusing. Are you saying that streaming music does not drain the battery much, but playing music drains the battery quickly?
It seems unlikely but it's possible. If it's happening like that, it's probably a software issue in the music player.
TheUnlockr.com
2009-11-27, 04:13
Your talking about discharging correctly etc but that should effect the battery over time, Ive had the phone for 5 days or so lol Im just trying to figure out if Im the only one with a horrible battery life since Ive heard of others having their battery last 12 hours or longer while staying on 3G and using the phone regularly the entire time. So anyone have a unit and able to use it normally without having to charge the phone 2-3 timesdaily?
TheUnlockr.com
2009-11-27, 04:17
mines was pretty bad also, but after i tune my brightness down one notch and turn off my 3g when i'm not using it, it actually get by almost a full day uses.
but compare to my e61i it's miles away, but then the e61i isn't a powerful as the n900
Think we might have defective units lol But lets see if anyone else has a unit and has a different experiance. You shouldnt have to turn off 3G to make it last the night...
FYI I did 3 posts on this site from the phone over the last 20 minutes and my battery has dropped a notch already...
I went out today with a full charge. Tried to get noksnes running a game for a few minutes but its pretty flaky. Then I played Urquan Masters for a bit. Listened to a bit of music. After maybe a 40 minute train ride, battery was almost at 50%. This was around 3:45pm EST. The half charge kept me going with shooting off an email with 1mb attachment, one brief call, checking the phone periodically, a few min of web surfing, a few pictures (with flash).
I think we'll see battery life improve as apps get more polished.
EDIT: oh yeah, I started getting battery warnings walking home from the train a few minutes ago (11-11:30pm EST)
bugelrex
2009-11-27, 04:47
I went out today with a full charge. Tried to get noksnes running a game for a few minutes but its pretty flaky. Then I played Urquan Masters for a bit. Listened to a bit of music. After maybe a 40 minute train ride, battery was almost at 50%. This was around 3:45pm EST. The half charge kept me going with shooting off an email with 1mb attachment, one brief call, checking the phone periodically, a few min of web surfing, a few pictures (with flash).
I think we'll see battery life improve as apps get more polished.
EDIT: oh yeah, I started getting battery warnings walking home from the train a few minutes ago (11-11:30pm EST)
What time in the morning did it come off charger?
Are you running AT&T or Tmobile (3g or edge)? Also any apps constantly connected to internet or polling every X mins?
GeneralAntilles
2009-11-27, 04:57
Note that some people, in other threads, are advising against cycling the battery all the way down. I've no idea what to believe.
The complete cycle method is generally used to calibrate the charging circuitry in multicell laptop batteries, as the batteries in mobile devices like ours generally only have a single cell it's actually pointless (and marginally harmfu) to do complete discharge cycles (as there's nothing to calibrate).
How about if you used it in a similar way to the e61i? Would the battery be comparable since you would not be using the extra features?
I could use my e61i for days heavily (wifi, music, and sometimes movies) and not charge it but with the n900 i doubt i'll past even one day.
But i can't say for sure cause i've never drain my n900 yet. Just the first two bars goes down really quick but not sure about the last two it could last longer.
Ok another test thats a little more controlled. I fully charged my N900 last night before I went to sleep (~4am, most likely a bit later). Got up a little while ago (we'll say 10:30am and make it an even, generous 6.5hrs).
Stuff running/settings (display was off)
- I left it with the alarms/clock app open.
- Facebook widget
- Weather widget
- WiFi
- Email checking every 15minutes
Battery was around %50 when I woke up, maybe a tad less.
That's kind of terrible, seems surprising even to me, having used the device the past week. I'm guessing it's either the facebook widget or weather widget that caused most of the drain. The apps released before the N900 was even out couldn't have been tested that well. For example, I had performance issues early on that seemed to be corrected by removing the AP News widget.
hypnotik
2009-11-27, 15:58
The complete cycle method is generally used to calibrate the charging circuitry in multicell laptop batteries, as the batteries in mobile devices like ours generally only have a single cell it's actually pointless (and marginally harmfu) to do complete discharge cycles (as there's nothing to calibrate).
so what is the rule for phones? keep plugged in for charging as often as possible? plug in before bed for charging even if 50% full?
personally i'm a heavy user of this N900. getting a spare battery. trying to find a desktop battery charger.
bugelrex
2009-11-27, 16:00
Ok another test thats a little more controlled. I fully charged my N900 last night before I went to sleep (~4am, most likely a bit later). Got up a little while ago (we'll say 10:30am and make it an even, generous 6.5hrs).
Stuff running/settings (display was off)
- I left it with the alarms/clock app open.
- Facebook widget
- Weather widget
- WiFi
- Email checking every 15minutes
Battery was around %50 when I woke up, maybe a tad less.
That's kind of terrible, seems surprising even to me, having used the device the past week. I'm guessing it's either the facebook widget or weather widget that caused most of the drain. The apps released before the N900 was even out couldn't have been tested that well. For example, I had performance issues early on that seemed to be corrected by removing the AP News widget.
Does the weather widget access the GPS at all? (I recall something similar with the n97). Also are you on Tmobile 3G or at&t GSM?
Ah sorry, I'm on AT&T at the moment. Using ForecaWeather, looking in the settings there doesn't seem to be anything about GPS or automatically reporting your location. I had to switch it manually from London to New York. Set to check weather every hour.
bugelrex
2009-11-27, 16:14
Ah sorry, I'm on AT&T at the moment. Using ForecaWeather, looking in the settings there doesn't seem to be anything about GPS or automatically reporting your location. I had to switch it manually from London to New York. Set to check weather every hour.
wow, such a heavy battery drain and you're not even on 3G! Had you installed any apps other than the one that come with the phone? Hopefully its a runaway app and not because the n900 cannot go for more than 12hrs with the most minimal use
wow, such a heavy battery drain and you're not even on 3G! Had you installed any apps other than the one that come with the phone? Hopefully its a runaway app and not because the n900 cannot go for more than 12hrs with the most minimal use
If it is a runaway app I'm not sure what it is. Top while idle:
Mem: 229340K used, 16208K free, 0K shrd, 16312K buff, 58468K
CPU: 47.3% usr 0.0% sys 0.0% nice 52.6% idle 0.0% io 0.0
Mem: 229572K used, 15976K free, 0K shrd, 16316K buff, 58516
CPU: 1.7% usr 1.3% sys 0.0% nice 88.8% idle 7.9% io 0.
Load average: 0.67 0.83 0.57
PID PPID USER STAT RSS %MEM %CPU COMMAND
771 648 root S < 16428 6.6 0.7 /usr/bin/Xorg -log
1018 908 user S 8980 3.6 0.4 /usr/bin/hildon-st
1025 908 user S 8968 3.6 0.4 /usr/bin/hildon-de
2982 2979 user R 736 0.3 0.4 top
2952 1161 user S 37316 15.1 0.2 /usr/sbin/browserd
2977 908 user S 9836 3.9 0.2 /usr/bin/osso-xter
767 2 root SW 0 0.0 0.2 [sgx_misr]
2807 908 user S 18804 7.6 0.0 /usr/bin/modest
1608 908 user S 12156 4.9 0.0 /usr/bin/browser
1021 908 user S 10376 4.2 0.0 /usr/bin/hildon-ho
~ $
I must agree... the battery life for the N900 is terrible. My N95 ( which has 2+ years old batter) still produces more energy than the battery of the N900. Don't get me wrong, I like the phone but the battery life is terrible... Hence, I ordered for two additional batteries on ebay.
RevdKathy
2009-11-27, 21:45
Ok another test thats a little more controlled. I fully charged my N900 last night before I went to sleep (~4am, most likely a bit later). Got up a little while ago (we'll say 10:30am and make it an even, generous 6.5hrs).
Stuff running/settings (display was off)
- I left it with the alarms/clock app open.
- Facebook widget
- Weather widget
- WiFi
- Email checking every 15minutes
Battery was around %50 when I woke up, maybe a tad less.
I find that astonishing. I unplugged mine this morning at about 9 am. It spent the next 8 hours connected to GPRS, running the data monitor. During that time I checked email about 6 times, mauku the same. I browsed a few webpages. In total I transfered about 3 mb of data. I checked the calendar a couple of times, sent an SMS, changed a number of settings, shot a few seconds of video and took about 6 photos. The GPRS signal is lousy - the phone has to keep connecting and disconnecting. In fact, even the basic cell phone connection drops repeatedly.
Then I returned home, so it switched to wifi. I didn't have time to do much before going out again (back to GPRS) and then came home about an hour ago. Since then I've adjusted a few more settings, checked things on the desktop and done a bit of playing around. In total it's been unplugged for nearly 13 hours, 9 of those on GPRS, 4 on wifi. The battery is showing about 2/3 full.
One question: do you have the sceen set to full brightness? People who have it set to 4/5 seem to be reporting better battery life. (Though I can't see that mattering while you're asleep!)
HangLoose
2009-11-27, 21:59
I am having terrible battery life as well Ill try this trick of setting it to 4/5...
Also it takes forever for the thing to charge with the usb cable right?
During that time I checked email about 6 times
As opposed to every 15 minutes through the night.
Could it be the email checking app is a power hog?
If the answer is maybe :) could it be dependent on the size of inboxes and/or IMAP vs. POP? There are reports that the email app is very slow on large inboxes - implying it's a CPU hog at processing them. That shouldn't affect fetching a few new mails but you never know, if it's doing something silly to compare remote and local inboxes. Just a thought.
We could with a tool that measures the cumulative system resources spent on different apps - CPU time, network activity etc. "time" does it for one process, but not cumulatively over many instances of the same process.
Screen brightness makes a huge difference on the battery life of both my laptop and my Zaurus, so definitely set it as low as is comfortable for you.
It only takes one overcharge to really damage a lithium battery, so if the charging circuitry is bad, it could lead to a battery with really poor capacity.
RevdKathy
2009-11-27, 22:07
As opposed to every 15 minutes through the night.
Could it be the email checking app is a power hog?
If the answer is maybe :) could it be dependent on the size of inboxes and/or IMAP vs. POP? There are reports that the email app is very slow on large inboxes - implying it's a CPU hog at processing them. That shouldn't affect fetching a few new mails but you never know, if it's doing something silly to compare remote and local inboxes. Just a thought.
We could with a tool that measures the cumulative system resources spent on different apps - CPU time, network activity etc. "time" does it for one process, but not cumulatively over many instances of the same process.
Try it again tonight with the email autocheck turned off. After all you don't need the email checking every 15 mins while you're asleep anyway. If that solves it, you have your answer.
You might also want to look at this app (http://maemo.nokia.com/maemo-select/applications/load-applet/)
maulikmorzaria
2009-11-27, 22:09
Non battery related question does the N900's keyboard is backlighted??
RevdKathy
2009-11-27, 22:10
Non battery related question does the N900's keyboard is backlighted??
Non-battery answer - yes. ;)
maulikmorzaria
2009-11-27, 22:11
thnx RevdKathy for ur non battery RELATED answer.
Cherrypie
2009-11-27, 22:14
thnx RevdKathy for ur non battery RELATED answer.
This Quote is non battery RELATED.
(sry, just had to. :))
Untouchab1e
2009-11-27, 23:17
I am rather puzzled about the great difference in battery life that users are reporting. I think the only thing we can do is just wait for more people to actually get the device. Nokia havent said anything about why shipments of the N900 has basically frozen or at least delayed. I am patiently waiting.
shapeshifter
2009-11-28, 01:28
btw, is it possible to disable the keyboard backlight? I won't need it during the day.
Flip side of such a complex and capable device, its so easy to kill the battery without being able to pinpoint the cause. The terrible battery life I got in the previous examples it mixed with days where I get pretty good battery life. I think we'll see battery life improve greatly once the N900 is readily available and developers etc. all have one and apps can be more thoroughly/widely tested.
Overall, given the capabilities of the N900 and the size of the battery I'd say battery life is pretty good. Although I see a good argument now for all the people who wanted the ability to create more than 2 profiles. BATTERY SAVER profiles, hehe.
Just a few notes from personal experience.
If you mess at all with the WiFi power settings, your battery life will really, really suck.
Also, beware desktop widgets that display info that gets updated regularly. I was warned at the Summit by people in the know that the Facebook widget isn't very power-optimised.
If you need better battery life, turn off e-mail checking, too. I've heard reports from hard-core users that it can really help your battery life.
Taking a lot of photos really seems to hammer the battery.
Best thing to have is that "load-applet" mentioned above and watch the left indicator. If it stays at four squares, with the top one flashing red, for any length of time, your battery is headed for a premature demise.
I notice that occasionally (seems it might be related to XChat? Not sure), some mysterious process called hildon-xinput-sounds hammers my CPU and I have to kill it or suffer a quick battery death.
GeneralAntilles
2009-11-28, 08:18
btw, is it possible to disable the keyboard backlight? I won't need it during the day.
It's controlled automatically by the ambient light sensor.
Yes, if you want to keep the backlight off during the day, don't be left-handed. :(
marauder
2009-11-29, 09:51
I think my N900 has some kind of serious battery issue I still haven't read about in the other posts... I have been using it for a week now, and occasionally (not always) the battery will drain fast.
This morning I think I beat a new record. Unplugged my N900 this morning at 6.00 a.m. after having left it charging for the whole night. Battery was completely drained by 10.30 a.m.
The use of the device included 5 minutes on a wifi connection to check mail before I left home, no more than 1 hour browsing (UMTS 3G connection) later in the morning. I've downloaded and installed AMSN, played a little with it (by the way very slow loading). That's it. No phone calls, no pictures, no radio/music listening, movies watching this morning.... and the battery is empty.
This is not happening always, the battery will usually last a whole day, but occasionally fast battery drain occurs. Once I tried rebooting the device and the battery draining seemed to stop: eg. it took 2 hours to drain half battery, but after the reboot I was able to run for 6 more hours, and I'm talking about the phone being idle most of the time.
I am not a Linux savvy, but I have the feeling that occasionally something hangs? Some process is draining the battery?
One thing that also happened (3 times) is that I disconnect from my wifi router, and the N900 will not see the router anymore (the other devices I have don't have any issues with the router). I have to reboot the N900 and everything works again. Some service fails?
Are there some Xterm comands I can run to check if something is wrong when these strange behaviours occur? I have tried the "top" comand, but I really don't now how to use the output I get...
Any help appreciated.
Active Desktop widgets: OMWeather, Converstions Inbox Desktop Widget, Calendar viewer.
maxximuscool
2009-11-29, 10:04
have u upgrade your firmware to the latest software? Sound like some app is Not Responding and is using your RAM and CPU. Something definitly out of ordinary. May be try reflashing it might help. I have not got my N900 yet but this is all I can help you with, SOrry.
There is not reset button for N900 either. You either have to download the flasher and reflash it. Usually it fixes problems you've had on the N900.
But have you recently installed any applications?
RevdKathy
2009-11-29, 10:06
Can you please tell us what apps you have downloaded too in case one of the them is causing a 'hang'.
I noticed this too. If I add up widgets needing WIFI connectivity my battery time reduces drastically. Normally if I m not using it a lot, I need to recharge it once a day otherwise twice.
Had to buy a car charger which really helped me keeping it alive through out the day.
marauder
2009-11-29, 10:13
Firmware should be the latest (1.2009.42.11) as I got it just one week ago.
Installed apps are:
aMSN
Bounce Evolution
Conversations Inbox Desktop Widget
Facebook Installer / Facebook Widget & Photo Uploader (disabled)
OMWeather (with 2 extra icon sets)
Password Safe
rootsh
vim
vncviewer
zoutube
fennec (which seems to install xulrunner)
that's all, everything else is standard.
I would try reflashing only if there's no other way... I really don't like the idea of reflashing after just one week.
maxximuscool
2009-11-29, 10:20
Firmware should be the latest (1.2009.42.11) as I got it just one week ago.
Installed apps are:
aMSN
Bounce Evolution
Conversations Inbox Desktop Widget
Facebook Installer / Facebook Widget & Photo Uploader (disabled)
OMWeather (with 2 extra icon sets)
Password Safe
rootsh
vim
vncviewer
zoutube
fennec (which seems to install xulrunner)
that's all, everything else is standard.
I would try reflashing only if there's no other way... I really don't like the idea of reflashing after just one week.
Do this buddy. Uninstall the app that you've recently installed one by one and monitoring the battery level. If the battery improving then the app that is uninstalled is the cause else keep going and note down on the list. Other wise I cant really tell you which one causing the hang. Since I dont have the N900 yet. But I experienced this sort of thing on my YDL6.2 linux on my PS3. lol. It does slow down very badly and seem to make my PS3 runs warmer.
I can't wait to get my N900 from the stupid Amazon.
maxximuscool
2009-11-29, 10:22
Facebook Installer / Facebook Widget & Photo Uploader (disabled)
OMWeather (with 2 extra icon sets)
Password Safe
try get rid of these 3 apps. I think the Facebook and Omweather may be the cause. But don't take my word for it. I've seen some forum somewhere about the Facebook App draining RAM out of the N97. So I am hoping it is the Facebook app.
marauder
2009-11-29, 10:25
The "top" command in xterm gives me the following info:
Mem: 224748K used, 20800K free, 0K shrd, 1972K buff, 76036K
CPU: 4.3% usr 1.5 sys 0.0% nice 94.2% idle 0.0% io 0.0
Load average: 0.88 0.86 1.37
every 60 seconds I see the CPU value get higher, around 11/12% (usr around 9.7%)
N900 is idle with 3G connection to network (no data connection active) and Xterm window open.
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