How much battery life is enough? This question has been asked many times and
most people seem to agree that the WinCE devices don't have enough and the
Palm devices have enough. But how much is really enough?
If you are using removable AAA batteries, then I think that we can all agree
that battery life must be in weeks if not months, otherwise the cost of
running the device would be too expensive. If your AAA batteries only lasted
a day, then the device is not very useful.
When it comes down to embedded rechargeable batteries then the battery life
requirement changes. Let's initially look at some battery life extremes.
First, if you have an internal battery that lasts for minutes then the
device is completely useless so there is no point in considering a battery
that lasts for such a short time. Next, we could have a battery that could
last for years or even forever but that would be very expensive and if you
dropped your PDA then everyone within a few miles would have to go to their
nearest fallout shelter. This approach is too expensive and can be very
harmful.
The above two extremes have set the boundaries but realistically, how much
battery life is enough? I would love to not ever worry about recharging my
batteries but that is unrealistic. How can we demand that our portable
computing devices last for weeks if not months on one charge when we, as
humans, need to be "recharged" three times a day? Some people, like
computer programmers, need to be "recharged" continuously :).
I find it reasonable that a PDA need be charged every night, given that a
full day of use can be maintained. What one defines as a "full day" is a
function of the individual so that has to be taken into account. I know of
people who are heavy cell phone users who think nothing of putting their
phones in the charging cradles every night as they sleep (another form of
human recharging). There some exceptions to this, of course, but I maintain
that most people (99.9%) have access to a power outlet in the evenings.
We have already seen the battery life of the Palm get less over time. My
512 KB PalmPilot Personal lasted a lot longer than my PalmPilot Personal
with 2 MB upgrade card which had a longer battery life than my Palm IIIxe.
I don't have a problem with this because each device is doing more for me
and "doing" is work and work effects battery life.
As color becomes a necessity as well as better quality sound, higher
resolution screens, wireless communication, voice recognition, add-on
devices, etc. then power requirements will rise and battery life will fall.
But, as long as the device lasts for an entire day, then isn't that good
enough? These devices are designed to do work for us humans. The more work
they do the more power that is required and the higher the demand is on the
battery. However, we can't add features to our devices that suck down the
battery life to nothing in a matter of minutes. For example, it would not
make sense to add a hair dryer feature to a PDA (BTW, you can turn you Palm
into a razor by using "McRazor", which can be found at
http://members.xoom.com/mjmdlm/palm/).
Over time, users will demand more from their portable computing devices. The
days of the multiple-week battery life are numbered as useful features are
added to the devices. We need to be reasonable on the expectations of our
future devices. I think that Palm needs to keep this in mind and not
sacrifice a useful feature because it uses too much battery life.
I'm looking forward to some comments from the rest of you.
Mike McCollister
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