Re: N900 battery life
 

Jeez no wonder it's draining the battery dead. For all we know it could be refreshing every minute.

Re: N900 battery life
 

^ i seriously don't doubt it, but it seriously isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. It's not far from any other smartphone that has 3g, big screen, widgets, and etc.

Re: N900 battery life
 

im pretty sure it because im using pidgin but my battery drains super quick.

Battery test by some lucky N900 owner
 

Hi there

I have been crazy about the N900 for about 3 month and I guess I have seen almost every video about it.

One thing most people are concerned is battery life. By change I saw this viedo on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MiCazSsEWg. It's another phone but I like the testing setup.

I was wondering if any lucky owner of a N900 would feel like making something similar.

Testing
a) fully loaded
b) screen allways on (birghtest level)
c) music playing continuously

And see what kind of battery life they get.

d) the navigation part would be nice but I rather have only a-c to have a good idea.

Regards Markus

Re: N900 battery life
 

Yes indeed, and it's also the identical setting that I'm using on my N810 on the same wireless router.

Trying it without WiFi today. So far the battery seems to be holding up.

Regards,
Roger

Re: N900 battery life
 

That would be extremely disappointing and make the N900 pretty useless to me. It would however be very strange if Nokia just abandonded all the work they most definitely did on the previous tablets for reducing the wi-fi power consumption as much as possible.

I own a 3G/HSDPA USB dongle. I've completely stopped using it because, around my city at least, it's completely unusable. Occasionally everything will be fine, but most of the time the packet loss over the 3G/3.5G network is way too high and results in TCP/IP stalling. Working with interactive traffic like e.g. Ajax in google mail is more or less impossible. It was sometimes so frustrating that I went back to good old dial-up over v90 and got better performance.
So, it's wi-fi for me (and there's wi-fi everywhere), or nothing. As for power consumption: Maybe the N900 is better, but the dongle sucks 500mA+.

Re: N900 battery life
 

That's one of the things I was mainly hoping for - stellar battery life on WiFi, just like the N8xx...

Is it possible that they had to use a different chipset for the WiFi? I'm surprised that Nokia would go with a solution like this...

Re: N900 battery life
 

Just a note. I put my N900 on WiFi all day, and my battery doesn't drain badly.

If you are suffering from bad battery life, I would suggest the following:
1. Back up everything
2. Reflash completely
3. Don't install any extra apps. Just get the built-in ones working.
4. Run the phone on WiFi for a day

If your phone still has battery drain problems, maybe it is a SIM card problem like mentioned above.

5. Pop out the SIM card
6. Use the phone on WiFi for another day

Still have battery drain problems? Maybe you got a bad unit.

Re: N900 battery life
 

My N900 has been running for nearly 9 hours since I unplugged it this morning and I see more than half of the charge remaining. Turning off the Facebook app alone has eliminated the need for me to keep watching the battery power icon.

Prior to this, my phone wouldn't last more than 5 hours before the charge would run out.

Re: N900 battery life
 

i thought power saving mode was only for the screen?


i think the facebook widget only eats alot of battery when it's connected to 3g/wifi. i kept my facdebook widget on my desktop but just disconnect my internet and it updates whenever i go online. other then that it just eat my ram.

hopfully mugen power comes out with a 3600mah battery then i can blast my brightness and stay connected and etc without worries =) plus i hope they somehow make a better bigger kick stand with the new back cover.

Re: N900 battery life
 

Could someone tell me how long the N900 will continuously play music?

Re: N900 battery life
 

I just rcvd my N900 yesterday, and today spent all day out and about from 7:30am until about 4pm. I'm in software sales, and I used the N900 alot today, basically it replaced my laptop. I spent ~2 hours on Wi-Fi in the morning, T-Mo 3G the rest of the day, downloaded and listened to a few podcasts for about an hour, made several phone calls, used email throughout the day (frequently), and also the browser to check stocks and update salesforce.com.

I had wi-fi interval set to 60 mins, but I forgot to change my MfE setting, so it was pushing mail continuously. Ran the battery down to the red bar at around 4pm. Hope to get some additional battery life by changing MfE to 30mins and wi-fi to Never.

To get a good working days use out of it, I am pretty pleased. I only get a couple hours from my laptop, and its a pain to lug around. I could see the N900 replacing my laptop use substantially.

If Docs to Go ever supports doc editing instead of just viewing, there would be few occasions where I would need a laptop.

And the Nokia DC-11 I have en route from Newegg should provide good insurance for a backup charge when on the road.

Re: N900 battery life
 

I've got my N900 10 days ago.

The battery lasts between 12-24 hours. 12 hours is with heavy usage:

- 2-3 hours surfing
- email check every 5 mins
- wifi scan every 10 mins
- foreca widget (1h interval checks), load applet
- 1h internet radio
- 10 min phone calls (several calls)
- 4-8 photos with flash
- 2-3 mins video recording
- 10h wifi connection
- 2h 3G connection

Usually I am doing about 16-20 hours with a fully charged battery and I am pretty happy with it. After reading this thread I've done some tweaks which will improve battery usage. I think this will help a little more.

With some tweaks and light usage one should be able to do 30+ hours on a full charge.

For me 18 hours with moderate usage is very acceptable. Anything more is a bonus :)

Re: N900 battery life
 

Ya, well screw you lol My N900 wouldn't last more than 6 hours WITHOUT using it. Even turned off the internet connection completely.
Regardless I sent it back to Nokia and they are sending me a new one (at a snails pace I should add).

But I came across someone else with the same issue as me on the Nokia Forums (http://discussions.nokiausa.com/disc...cending&page=2)
Now he also got a replacement unit and the problem persisted! What he eventually did was end up getting a new SIM card and that solved the issue. Weird, right?
So I will have to try that when my replacement N900 gets here but my SIM isn't that old to begin with so who knows.

Just wanted to share for anyone else having horrible battery life and are extremely jealous of people like him above^ lol
Can I ask, are you in the US, using T-Mobile USA?

Re: N900 battery life
 

I don't know why but i feel that charging through the pc's usb make the n900 battery life seem to last longer. Is it because of slow charging?:confused:

Re: N900 battery life
 

I was having issues with the battery but for me it's improving day by day. I moved around my desktop widgets a bit. Removed stuff I didn't really need like the AP News updates.

Since then the battery has been pretty good. I use it quite a lot. Lasts me the day at least. Although I will be getting a spare battery just in case.

I'm not sure what others are on about completely draining the battery will stop the phone from working. It isn't true. My battery has drained several times to the point where pressing the power button doesn't do anything. A couple or so hours later when I do plug it in to the charger, it starts right back up without any issues.

I'm not really that bothered about going round the world in doing xyz to ensure the battery life remains good for more recharge cycles. A new battery is about £26. Hardly much when compared to the cost of the phone for £500. I prefer to use and charge the device how I like it tbh.

Re: N900 battery life
 

well i discover today that running ssh to my remote server and executing htop or forward stuff from the server will drain the battery REALLY fast :)

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

Threads merged.

Re: N900 battery life
 

Up to 22 hours, but under normal usage, probably less. See Tuomas' tests here:
http://tuomas.kulve.fi/blog/2009/11/...ion-ogg-vs-mp3 It sounds like you could actually get better battery life using ffvorbis to play ogg vorbis files than mpgs with the default player... some seriously good optimization work.

It really depends how the battery charger (internal circuitry) detects "full" but it is possible there could be a small difference.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

I use n900 in "always online" mode: SIP+Gtalk+ICQ+OVI XMPP, email check every 5 minutes.

It lasts about 18-24 hours of moderate use on WiFi and just 12 or so on EDGE.

Can this be improved? My old e90 lasts almost similar 40 hours on either WiFi or EDGE, no difference. What's wrong with EDGE on n900? And what is the problem with IMAP IDLE?

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

from website from post above:

There’s probably a few hour error margin on those tests, so basically the battery lasted roughly a bit over 90 hours in both tests.

so Total idle is 90 hours of standby. that is 4 days almost.

and when you use apps, it instantly becomes 6-8 hours? say 9 hours that is 10%

so it uses 10 times as much power when apps are on.. ? :S

what the -alienspaceship-

i dont get it. that cant be.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

It can be. The OMAP3 goes into an extremely low power mode when it can, where it basically consumes no power. This is why optimization and testing is important--a phone spending most of its time doing nothing, and a few seconds crunching everything it needs to, is a phone with a long battery life.

Most people aren't really familiar with this kind of behaviour in a mobile device (at least not to this degree), so i see over and over here that something that wakes the phone a lot causes much shorter battery life. It's not really a surprise, but until people get used to the idea, they're going to be surprised by it.

Re: N900 battery life
 

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

ye. the battery is pritty bad. i have had the device for 3 weeks now and it still is not even close to my n82. i disable the internet connection all the time. i dont have 3g running all the time. i dont have the face book widget running at all.

like yesterday this is what i did.
surfed the net for 45minutes.
took 5 photos.
recorded 1 minute of video.
played with the phone on the train for 1 hour.
turned off 3g so it was on 2g most of the day.
and the internet was disconnected the whole time beside that 45min

after all this i only got 13 hours till it was dead from 100%.

my n82 could beat that.


why doesnt nokia use those advanced battery i have been hearing about for years. like the 15min charge batterys or the ones that last for a week before a charge.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

Ok, i'll bite.

The 15 minute (or 5, even) charge lithium batteries use a different chemistry that sacrifices capacity for power density, so that is not really what i want to see in my phone. It's great for making battery-powered motorcycles that burn up their motors and set speed records, though.

Lithium rechargeable batteries of one type or another are by far the most effective on an energy density basis, and not too bad on a power density basis either. Essentially the only way to get higher density than by using the extremely lightweight lithium atom (remember, it's element 3 on the periodic table, so you get lots of atoms (and electrons) per gram) is to use hydrogen (atomic number 1). Hydrogen isn't a nice compact solid like lithium, so until someone actually demonstrates a carbon nanotube adsorption approach that works at a commodity level, you have to use a form of it that is combined with carbon and maybe oxygen (an alcohol), and that means a fuel cell. Fuel cells aren't really appropriate for phone use, especially not the kind that can be made today.

In short, there are no rechargeable batteries that will last a week at the power draw of the N900. So what battery would you like Nokia to use?

Fortunately, we could make an effort as a community to isolate and eliminate the inefficiencies in the software to a degree never before done on a pocket computer. That's where we can make improvements. Figure out what really hurts your battery life and help work with devs to fix what can be fixed.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

nice response gotta hand it to ya. ye your right 100% :(

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

After the second week of usage I must confirm that my N900 (and from the posts I've read some other too) will occasionally have an issue with the wifi connection. It looks like the Wifi module/service hangs and will not find any Wifi spot until it gets reboot. And I would guess the wifi hangs in an "always on" condition as this will casue the battery to drain VERY quickly (4.5 hours with a full battery).

I haven't been able to reproduce the issue, it seems to happen randomly... When I see the battery drain too fast, I check wifi connection and see it does not pick up my wifi router (nor the others that are in the area), If I reboot everything returns normal, and fsat battery drain stops.

Is there a way to check wifi service/module status through xterm commands?

I will try posting this also on Nokia Support Discussions.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

To increase energy & power density - that is, energy & power in a fixed volume - the problem isn't weight.

The lightweight property of lithium atoms is irrelevant to that.

Your description works very well when you desire the best energy-to-weight ratio, but I think I wouldn't mind if the N900's battery were twice as heavy, if it lasted twice as long.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

Good lord I would - Its quite heavy as is. The problem that all tech devices have is that battery tech is lagging far behind device tech. The demands for power have increased exponentially while the ability for the battery to supply that demand has not kept pace. Lets not forget it wasnt that long ago that NiCad batteries were the best we could manage.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

try to disable GPS setting/location/gps---disable

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

Sorry, i was talking about mass density, so energy/mass (hence pointing out that lithium is light). Batteries are a lot more similar if you look at volume density.

Anyway, i did leave a lot out for simplicity. I didn't even mention volume, but was really talking about both mass and volume. A more complete statement would have been: lithium-based batteries are the best option, when considering energy/volume and energy/mass, for a small, "safe", rechargeable power source with sufficiently high power density and satisfactorily low self discharge characteristics for a pocket computer.

:)

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

I seem to have this same issue. One night my N900 was fully charged at 11 pm and battery was dead at 5 am (all radios presumably switched off). Last night the tablet was fully charged at 10 pm and at 8 am the battery indicator had dropped only one step (some browsing and phone call included). Then the Wifi hanged and within 2 hours I had only one step left.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

so what is the word about the batteries, some people have defect units or what?
my phone is dying way to fast and its making me not use the phone that much in fear that it will die on me.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

There's been a number of reasons posted so far. Some people have found that replacing the SIM card fixed the problem, others have replaced the phone and fixed it. Alternately, it could be a software problem - there's been a few people pointed to issues with WLAN and/or bluetooth (though others have had no issues with these).

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

I didn't see anyone report that replacing the phone fixed it. On the contrary, what I have read was that replacing the phone did NOT fix it, replacing the SIM card however does in some circumstances.

It sounds like the majority of the time it is software related, which is what you would expect. With the various random combinations of software and configuration, its obviously triggering something.

It could even be as simple as incompatibility with certain routers that you may happen to walk in range of during the day and the N900 happens to be probing at that moment. That would be a good explanation for random WiFi lockups.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

For all those that have been experiencing fast battery drain due to wifi being hung (not being able to find wifi spots after disconnection, until reboot of the device), there is an open bug report at:

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6416

Please leave your comment there, and vote for the issue. You have to register, but it's real fast. More people report this issue, better are the chances of getting it fixed.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

For those that have the wifi hang, I'm guessing you cannot just disable the wifi and enable it again as a fix? I wonder if the terminal command of it would be a bandaid fix for now

ifconfig - tells you what wireless and wired hardware you have on the device (for the n900 it'll only be wireless)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifconfig

That command will tell you the hardware, MAC address, what IP you are connected to, DNS, etc..

Then for whatever one is the wifi hardware you can do

ifconfig NAMEOFTHEHARDWARE (e.g. wlan0 for PCs usually) down

then

ifconfig NAMEOFTHEHARDWARE (e.g. wlan0 for PCs usually) up

(that is if I remember the commands correctly).

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

Disabling the wifi and enabling it again won't show existing wifi hotspots, that's part of the problem.

I knew about the ifconfig command, but didn't know about the up/down command. I'll try using those next time I get this issue. Thanks!

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

I had the same problem with battery drain, here's what I found out, and did.

when configuring my e-mail accounts I used N900 factory pre-determined settings for bellsouth.net thats the automatic recommended easy way, right?, everything went fine for awhile, then I stopped getting my mail, did everything again, received all my mail and after half a day it just stopped again, re-booted and received mail.

Meanwhile my battery was draining like grazy 4-6 hours max. Last night I re-configured my e-mail with the "other" setting and filled all the info i.e. pop and smtp etc. , update every hour etc. manually.... recharged the phone for about 3 hours and left it on the table overnight unplugged. This morning the battery was still full, I had skype and rest of the applets (om weather, foreca and stuff) on, no facebook widget.

Seems like the factory e-mail settings in N900 weren't quite right so my unit was trying to connect to server all the time (even when update was on manual) thus draining the battery.

Re: N900 battery life questions, issues, scenarios
 

I was so sure that the battery drain problem was wifi related. But now it happened again and wifi was definitely not the cause. Seems that I have (again) encountered pure crap made by Nokia. I think I'll just return the unit and claim my money back (since I have that option). Regarding my record with Nokia warranty services I am not going to wait for a month to get the unit "repaired".