Tablet battery question

I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but it
takes a long time)

I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more storage,
but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be pretty cheap.

On 3/12/2014 5:04 PM, Metspitzer wrote:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

Why not just leave it on charge when sleeping? And I generally use
Windows tablets or Palm computers to read ebooks. But I have a feeling
you are talking about something else.

--
Bill
Dell Latitude Slate Tablet 128GB SSD ('12 era) - Thunderbird v24.3.0
Intel Atom Z670 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM - Windows 8 Pro

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 17:14:10 -0500, BillW50 wrote:

On 3/12/2014 5:04 PM, Metspitzer wrote:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

Why not just leave it on charge when sleeping? And I generally use
Windows tablets or Palm computers to read ebooks. But I have a feeling
you are talking about something else.

I don't leave it on charge because

1) I use the tablet to help put me to sleep and having to plug the
tablet into the charger would wake me up, as the power strip I have
the charger plugged into barely reaches the night table.

2) I am told that to make the battery last longer you should drain the
battery (or get it low) before recharging it. If I turn the tablet
off it lasts much much longer between charging.

I use it for ebooks. It is an android tablet.

On 3/12/2014, Metspitzer posted:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it
in sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I
am on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but it
takes a long time)

I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more
storage, but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be pretty
cheap.

You'll have to talk to the developers who make the programs you wish
changed. We can't do anything here other than express opinions.

Who knows, you might eventually see a few relevant (or not) opinions in
this thread :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On 3/12/2014, Metspitzer posted:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but it
takes a long time)

I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more storage,
but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be pretty cheap.

You'll have to talk to the developers who make the programs you wish
changed. We can't do anything here other than express opinions.

Who knows, you might eventually see a few relevant (or not) opinions in
this thread :-)


Wouldn't it depend on what kind of tablet it is ?

Like, something that support hibernate instead of sleep ?

Paul

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:04:39 -0400, Metspitzer wrote:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.


I've noticed something similar with my Kindle Fire HDX. Putting it
into airplane mode cured the problem.

I hypothesize that in "sleep" mode it's still actually running. And
if it has a wireless connection, it keeps trying to update stuff.

I now routinely keep it in airplane mode, except when updating on-
device content once a day, or of course when streaming a video.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

On 3/12/2014, Paul posted:
Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On 3/12/2014, Metspitzer posted:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put
it in sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the
page I am on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does
remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but
it
takes a long time)

I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost
more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that
are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more
storage, but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be
pretty cheap.

You'll have to talk to the developers who make the programs you
wish changed. We can't do anything here other than express
opinions.

Who knows, you might eventually see a few relevant (or not)
opinions in this thread :-)


Wouldn't it depend on what kind of tablet it is ?

Like, something that support hibernate instead of sleep ?

Paul

Actually, I completely misread the question. I had unconsciously read
it as referring to a laptop, since this is a Windows newsgroup. Still,
my answer might be correct.

I don't think Android tablets have a hibernation mode. As for Windows
and iOS tablets, I know nothing. It seems reasonable to me that an x86
Windows tablet (not Windows R, or whatever the Atom version is called)
might have a hibernate mode, but just as reasonable that it wouldn't.

And MetSpitzer didn't give us a clue.

I only turn off my tablet when I am trying to solve a problem by
rebooting. As for the reader remembering its position, it would still
be up to the software to save its position when a power down shuts the
app down.

Android provides ways to save "stuff"[1] for later restoration when a
program changes state. All we need is a signal saying "gonna power down
the device: do what you need". I don't know that there is such a
signal. I *do* know that Android tells the program when you rotate the
device. If you don't save most variables then, they are lost after that
rotation, since it stops the program, and then restarts it in the new
orientation.

The other thing (there's a clue above, where I describe why I power
down the tablet) is that it's general practice for shutdown to be used
to refresh the OS and apps, so it might even be against company policy
to save anything during a shutdown. That's why it's often called a
reset...

Anyone who happens to be really sure about this stuff is welcome to
pipe up here.

[1] In quotes to indicate that there's a rather broad range of items
under that rubric.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 17:52:28 -0700, Gene E. Bloch
wrote:

On 3/12/2014, Metspitzer posted:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it
in sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I
am on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but it
takes a long time)

I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more
storage, but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be pretty
cheap.

You'll have to talk to the developers who make the programs you wish
changed. We can't do anything here other than express opinions.

Who knows, you might eventually see a few relevant (or not) opinions in
this thread :-)

I know I am not going to get anything changed here, but other than
here, I have no one to talk to about technology. I worked 20 years as
an electrician and even with electricians as co workers, I still had
very few people to talk to about computers. I am sure that has
changed now, but when I retired in 2000 very few electricians were
into computers.

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 21:45:33 -0400, Paul wrote:

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On 3/12/2014, Metspitzer posted:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but it
takes a long time)

I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more storage,
but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be pretty cheap.

You'll have to talk to the developers who make the programs you wish
changed. We can't do anything here other than express opinions.

Who knows, you might eventually see a few relevant (or not) opinions in
this thread :-)


Wouldn't it depend on what kind of tablet it is ?

Like, something that support hibernate instead of sleep ?

Paul

Actually it may be hibernate. I am not really sure what the
difference between sleep and hibernate is.

My tablet is an Acer 810. There is not a lot of documentation. As
far as I know, I can do two things. Just walk away from it and it
will go off in a few min or I can press and hold on/off switch for 5
seconds and it goes off.

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 21:57:04 -0400, Stan Brown
wrote:

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:04:39 -0400, Metspitzer wrote:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.


I've noticed something similar with my Kindle Fire HDX. Putting it
into airplane mode cured the problem.

I hypothesize that in "sleep" mode it's still actually running. And
if it has a wireless connection, it keeps trying to update stuff.

I now routinely keep it in airplane mode, except when updating on-
device content once a day, or of course when streaming a video.

I have seen an option for airplane mode, since I wasn't flying at the
time I have always just ignored that option. Maybe I will give that
one a shot.

Thanks

"Metspitzer" wrote in message
...
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but it
takes a long time)

I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more storage,
but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be pretty cheap.


Along with what the others have already said, I don't find the loss of
bookmark to be true running Kindle on my Asus tablet with Android (Jelly
Bean 4.2). Whether I power it down or put it in sleep mode, the next time I
open Kindle, it starts on the page I was on when I turned it off, without
having to select a book first.
--
SC Tom

Metspitzer wrote:
On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 21:45:33 -0400, Paul wrote:

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On 3/12/2014, Metspitzer posted:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.
If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but it
takes a long time)
I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more storage,
but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be pretty cheap.
You'll have to talk to the developers who make the programs you wish
changed. We can't do anything here other than express opinions.

Who knows, you might eventually see a few relevant (or not) opinions in
this thread :-)

Wouldn't it depend on what kind of tablet it is ?

Like, something that support hibernate instead of sleep ?

Paul

Actually it may be hibernate. I am not really sure what the
difference between sleep and hibernate is.

My tablet is an Acer 810. There is not a lot of documentation. As
far as I know, I can do two things. Just walk away from it and it
will go off in a few min or I can press and hold on/off switch for 5
seconds and it goes off.



Acer Iconia A1-810

Your identifier gave me enough to find a previous posting.

Your product is Acer Iconia 7.9" table running Android JellyBean 4.2.

I can see references to "Deep Sleep" in Android forums, but I don't
know how I'm supposed to figure out the feature set of any
particular Android product.

What regular sleep would do, is store the session in DRAM. The CPU
core is powered off, but the DRAM sticks operate in self-refresh
mode. On a laptop, this might use a watt or two of power. I can
see that draining the batteries after a while.

In Windows, Hibernate stores the session on a disk file. If
the CPU and DRAM are unpowered, nothing is lost, because it
can be read off the disk later on. This should allow
much better battery life. With all radios, wonky circuits
unpowered, the computer can't really respond to anything, but
it also doesn't use a lot of power.

When a device advertises "Deep Sleep", that tells me that
the RAM contents have been moved out to disk (or flash, on a
tablet). And can be read, like a file off a hard drive later.

But the question remains, how do I find out the capability
set of this particular Android. I have no idea. Unless it
appears in the shutdown menu or something.

Why I'm asking about this, is I'm assuming Deep Sleep saves
all state information, including keeping the Ebook open
to the correct page. So would function as the best
approximation I can come up with, to a bookmark.

Paul

Wolf K wrote:
On 2014-03-12 11:39 PM, Wildman wrote:
On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 20:39:56 -0400, Metspitzer wrote:

2) I am told that to make the battery last longer you should drain the
battery (or get it low) before recharging it.

That was certainly true back in the ni-cad days but
I don't think it applies to the newer lithium-ion
batteries but the jury may still be out, since the
technology is fairly new. Personally I believe it
is better safe than sorry.

I've read somewhere or other that you should let the Li-ion battery
nearly drain the first time you use it, this apparently "conditions" it.


The battery is sensitive to the full charge voltage. The
longer it stays at the full charge voltage, the harder
it is on the battery.

The battery has practically no memory, not like NiCad, which
was horrible that way.

Draining a lithium battery, is sometimes used to help the
calibration of the "fuel gauge" on the battery. I don't
think it does the battery itself any favors.

Lithium batteries will not charge, if you discharge them
too low. Below a certain cell voltage, whiskers grow inside
the cell, potentially shorting them out. For safety, the
charger won't pump current into the battery, on the assumption
the whiskers have grown in the cell.

For best long term life, you could store a device at 40-60%
charge. Being careful to recharge it frequently enough, so that
it doesn't discharge below the lower limit. More info here.
(Using archived copy, as the page has probably been moved
on the site.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20130727..._ion_batteries

Even with all that primping, the battery will not last
forever. This is also the reason, the date stamp on the
battery should be checked when you buy one. If someone
on Ebay sells you a ten year old "brand new" battery,
you would not expect it to hold a charge all that well.
Even if it was held at 60% and charged yearly to
make up for losses. The battery will still degrade with age.

Paul

On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 20:39:56 -0400, Metspitzer wrote:

I am told that to make the battery last longer you should drain the
battery (or get it low) before recharging it.

Not true for Li-Ion batteries?

On 12/03/2014 22:04, Metspitzer wrote:
I only use my tablet about 15 min at night before bed. If I put it in
sleep mode, it will remember the book I am reading and the page I am
on, but it uses about 5% of the battery.

If I turn it off completely, it doesn't seem to use any battery at
all, but I have to reselect the book I am reading (It does remember
the page number). (I know that the battery will drain anyway but it
takes a long time)

I am pretty sure the answer to this question is because it cost more,
but couldn't laptops and tablets store "place marks" on the same
technology as thumb drives? I also understand the programs that are
much more complicated than a book reader would take much more storage,
but I think in the case of a bookmark, this would be pretty cheap.


Turn off everything you don't need overnight which might consume battery
energy - WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS (if it's got one). With those things
turned on, it will be frequently looking for updates to Apps, looking
for other Bluetooth devices to pair with, and trying to work out where
in the world it is.

Others have mentioned Airplane mode - which will turn off at least some
of those things. If it doesn't turn them *all* off, go into settings and
do it manually.

[A better newsgroup in which to ask would have been comp.mobile.android]
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.