PDA battery life when running engine analysis all the time?

[JonP01]

Well I've stuck with the Z22 since I agree that it would be hard to do better as far as batteries go. I've decided to get HIARCS. One thing I did note though was that if you have the program in watch mode, then toggle to analysis mode (via single tap) and then back again (via single tap), you don't go back to watch mode - you go into play mode. I didn't want it to do that - I'd thought it was logical for the program to simply go back into the mode it was in before, but it does not do it that way. Hopefully though it might do it that way in the next version. For the moment then, it is single tap to get into analysis mode, then a graffiti "w" followed by a tap on watch to get back to watch mode.

[Albert Silver]

With regard to battery-life I don’t think you’ll better the Z22 but the Zire 21 (mono screen) is also good and I’ve read that the Tungsten E2 is good as well.


I fully charged the PDA, and the 4 batteries - plugged it into the Dell Axim, set the device so that there was no dimming of the screen at all and so that it would not power down until the batteries were dead. I started up Pocket Chess Genius, set up a position, and turned analysis mode on. The unit was set to use full consumption of power until the PDA batteries and the extended batteries ran out. I then left it running, periodically checking the unit to ensure it as still running. I also might add that I set the unit at 590 Mhz - almost 150 faster (and also 150 % more power consuming) than the specified 400 Mhz the unit was designed for.

The results:

After 10 hours, it was still running, still computing with full brightness. I checked the battery in the PDA and it was nearly at zero. At this point I was fully satisfied with the performance and ended the little experiment. The battery extender displays an impressive amount of utility for relatively low cost.

This is a good idea. I'll run a similar test tonight and see what it gives. Screen on, max speed (624MHz), and leave an engine analyzing some position without interruption. Despite noting that it can run video forever, the unit has a special graphics chip (16Mb integrated memory) that greatly reduces the burden on playback, so it is not the severest test.

Albert