Battery Life

[DTH]

This is a pretty standard way of using a li-ion battery. If you wanted 2 fully charged just charge 2 in the pandora before you leave on your trip.

We are not wasting thousands of $ in making a stand alone charger when a) such things already exist via 3rd parties B) only a tiny fraction of the market would buy such an accessory.

Sorry but we have to draw the line somewhere, why can't you charge the extra battery overnight for example? Remember the battery life on the Pandora should be more than DOUBLE maybe even triple the GP2X battery life.

-Craig

That allone would make it a GP2X killer, its good 2 hear

 

[BoneSmash]

I've heard different things from different places, so I need to get a final answer here. Is the battery that is going to be used something that can be bought at a local electronics store like Radio Shack? It will be a real pain to have to buy directly from craigix and I don't want to have to ship something like a battery all the way from the UK to the US.

 

[Shiny]

Is the battery that is going to be used something that can be bought at a local electronics store like Radio Shack?

Very doubtful. They're using a proprietary battery so that they can use every last corner of free space for it.

 

[Chip]

I've heard different things from different places, so I need to get a final answer here. Is the battery that is going to be used something that can be bought at a local electronics store like Radio Shack? It will be a real pain to have to buy directly from craigix and I don't want to have to ship something like a battery all the way from the UK to the US.

The answer is no. It is a custom battery and will not be available at Radio Shack or anything like that. They probably will be available from whoever is signed on as the official US Pandora distributer though, so you won't necessarily have to get it shipped from the UK.

 

[izzie]

Squidge would know better than almost anybody - he's one of the lead devs. There is no plan at the moment for an external charger. That doesn't mean you can't use a universal LiPo charger.

As to being "crippled" or "flawed", I think that's a bit harsh considering 99.9% of users DO have regular access to AC power and won't need to replace the battery until it actually dies. If I'm a deep sea diver, is it fair for me to claim that the Pandora is crippled and useless because it is not waterproof down to 300 feet? Obviously you can't please everybody.

happy to hear that squidge knows what he's talking about. as a small suggestion, it would be useful to have an easy to find list of people who are actually involved in making the hardware, this would help sort the relevance of information sources.

it may sound harsh but it is indeed a design flaw. a pretty standard one that is as it pretty much permeates the whole industry of battery powered devices and has been for quite some time now.
it even seems that this flaw is voluntary to force the user to buy the required non-standard accessories that will drive more money toward the manufacturer. (which will use FUD to drive people from 3rd party universal devices, usually voiding the warranty and saying it might damage the device or something).

I'd be curious to know where you got your figure of 99,9%, cause this reasoning is fallacious assuming users are people who buy the console, and they did so because they actually have access to power.
this kind of reasoning a usual way in the industry of not adressing a problem pretending it doesn't exist. you know: PR crap.

btw, if you're a deep sea diver and you take any kind of music playing device or entertainment piece of electronics with you, you're just dumb, might be putting lifes into jeopardy and clearly missing the point of diving. you'd better stick to real life examples, practical ones and hypothetical ones.

I think it is safe to say that the Pandora will be as crippled to you as mobile phones or PDAs currently are,... *snip*

well, that's what I was afraid of.

BUT their batteries *can* be charged outside the device by use of a generic charger. But that charger is like as not, not one produced by the phone/PDA manufacturer, but rather by some third party, and it'll probably work for most LI batteries too.

now I'm confused. is it possible to charge the batteries outside the console or is it not as squidge said ?

Well, you could remove the battery and insert a charged one and have another 10 hours or so, but you would have to eventually reinsert the dead battery(s) into the console to charge them. (Or find some other way to charge them, but then if you damage the battery, note that it will be doubtful if its covered under warranty, as you didn't use the official charger)

I expected to be able to replace an empty battery with a charged one, btw any screws to remove to replace the battery ? in the affirmative, it would be nice to use standard screws or to provide replacements with the console.

but I don't intend to be forced to use the console as the only way to charge batteries.
tell me more about these other way to charge them you're mentioning, that's exactly what I'm interested in.
(there's no official charger, only the console ;p)

Its the exact same technique used by Apple, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Nokia and others. Do you refuse to buy handheld portable devices (including mobile phones) from those people also?

indeed.
never got a single piece of equipment from apple, last thing I bought from nintendo was a SNES, I had a sony walkman back in the 80's, a microsoft mouse came with my 486 dx2 66, and lastly I admit it: I still have a nokia 8210 somewhere in a box (it comes handy when in a country where there's no working wired telephone network, and where you can just pop in a free sim card and can be called for free without limitation or overcharge).

I pretty much boycott such companies due to their abusives practices, they're pretty much the same.
Even if I didn't, AFAIK they don't have anything to offer that I have any use for.

This is a pretty standard way of using a li-ion battery. If you wanted 2 fully charged just charge 2 in the pandora before you leave on your trip.

We are not wasting thousands of $ in making a stand alone charger when a) such things already exist via 3rd parties B) only a tiny fraction of the market would buy such an accessory.

Sorry but we have to draw the line somewhere, why can't you charge the extra battery overnight for example? Remember the battery life on the Pandora should be more than DOUBLE maybe even triple the GP2X battery life.

-Craig

I'm confused again, I'm not an expert in battery kinds, but I thought the pandora was supposed to use a li-po battery and you're talking about li-on which AFAIK is not the same kind battery.

a) ahah! then there is a way to charge the battery outside the pandora (contradicting what squidge said earlier). I started thinking 3rd party chargers would not be able to charge the custom-made pandora battery.
please, remember to provide a list of compatible battery chargers we can use to charge the pandora when it's finished.

B) agreed, and especially if it's only doing that. it might spark more interest if it's included in another device, such as AC adapter or cradle. this is a quite common solution for digital cam, camcorder, laptops, ...

don't be sorry, the pandora is an impressive project and you're doing great. I do understand that you can't pack every feature asked by dumbasses (that would be me) on forums.

if I charge the extra battery overnight, when do I charge the non-extra battery ?
besides, information about the charge duration is pretty scarce at the moment, what if the charge time exceeds the "overnight" duration ?
I should say that I often get home past 1 or 2 am and get up and going around 7-8 am.

also, this is in an ideal situation, you can consider me to be a brainless idiot who forget to plug the battery before going to bed. a situation that happens a lot to me, believe when you get up @7am and get home @2am fiddling with electonics devices and power is the last thing you want to do, I usually only think of taking a shower, having a snack and going to sleep, when I don't go to sleep right away.

So, I *should* be able to charge the battery overnight most of the time (but will often fail to do so) and will not be able to do so some of the time.
and usually this "some of the time" coincides with times when packing lighter is a must, and having a fragile piece of electronics turning useless on me because it is impossible to put the spare battery on charge while I'm using the device is making me go nuts.

it's the usual "design for the mass = 90% of people, and tell the other 10% to go fsck themselves" as can be seen in web design and many (not to say almost every) other domains.
those other 10% are usually the ones that leave to never come back and prefer to do things (right) on their own. kinda what happened with the gp2x and the pandora, which is why I'm surprised to see the pandora introducing a new flaw that the gp2x didn't have. and if there's one, there may be others ...

about the battery life comparison between gp2x and pandora I fail to see how that's relevant to anything. the pandora comes without any provided batteries, so the battery life depends on the kind of batteries you put in. my first test run with the gp2x gave me 30-45minutes of battery life (with low amp batteries), and now I have 4-8h (with highest amp I could find batteries).
taht said, I trust you to get the best battery life you can out of the pandora, cause obviously you know better that gph what you are doing.

 

[Karel Jansens]

Does anyone know what the DC-in voltage of the Pandora is?

(reason I ask: I have a 4xAA external battery charger that delivers 5V DC regulated. It would be nice to be able to use it with the Pandora)

 

[Tobriand]

BUT their batteries *can* be charged outside the device by use of a generic charger. But that charger is like as not, not one produced by the phone/PDA manufacturer, but rather by some third party, and it'll probably work for most LI batteries too.

now I'm confused. is it possible to charge the batteries outside the console or is it not as squidge said ?


I'm thinking along the lines of using one of these.

It wouldn't be a good solution, but in principle, as long as the Pandora team release details about battery charging inside the Pandora (voltages for how long, how to check current charge level to know when to stop charging, that sort of thing), I don't see why it wouldn't work.

As has been mentioned, I believe, it would probably void any warranty the battery has, though, but still, nonstandard situations require non-standard tools.

NB also that this is probably not the generic charger my dad got in Egypt a couple of weeks back; I suspect that would work too, though, despite costing slightly less than £10. But suspicion is not evidence, of course...

 

[Chip]

Gimmie gimmie gimmie! Me me me!

Problem solved.

 

[Squidge]

now I'm confused. is it possible to charge the batteries outside the console or is it not as squidge said ?

Of course you can charge the batteries outside the console, but like has already been said, the Pandora is the official charger, so if you use some other charger which has not been stated compatible, your on your own, and if it damages the battery, then your warranty will most likely be void.

I expected to be able to replace an empty battery with a charged one, btw any screws to remove to replace the battery ?

Its been stated that there will be at least one screw to hold the battery cover shut. Since most people will not be removing the battery for several years, you don't want a flimsy catch which can break.

I'm confused again, I'm not an expert in battery kinds, but I thought the pandora was supposed to use a li-po battery and you're talking about li-on which AFAIK is not the same kind battery.

The Pandora currently uses a Li-ion battery, not a Li-po.

if I charge the extra battery overnight, when do I charge the non-extra battery ?

Whenever you have time. If you find a charger that works, you could buy two of them and charge them at the same time?

Ignoring battery chargers for a moment, don't forget that the Pandora can power and charge through USB, so it's quite easy to charge/power the device from your car, from a solar power, and from other battery powered chargers. http://www.proporta.com/ seem to sell such equipment: Car Power Supply with USB Socket, USB Mobile Device Charger, and others. Using the later, you can charge that and keep it in your bag or whatever in case you forget to charge your Pandora battery (or need extra runtime before shutting down to change batteries, or even use it completely recharge the Pandora battery whilst it's in the device).

The solutions are there already, there's no need to change the existing Pandora design.

 

[fusion_power]

Why so many people want to charge their Pandora Akku external? I mean, who wants to charge his Mobilephone- , PDA- , Laptop- or "Insert_fav_Apple_crap_here" - Battery outside of the Device? I never heard from this practise but maybe I'm not so "IN" to know about every new Trend. :lol:

I'm GLAD, that all the Battery switching of the GP2X is all over!!! It's one of the main reasons why I want a Pandora! Battery charging WITHOUT remove it from the Device AND Battery Charging while Device is ON! Great!

 

[MWeston]

The Pandora currently uses a Li-ion battery, not a Li-po.

Actually the datasheet says it is a "Polymer Lithium Ion" just to sound more convoluted!

It is designed to charge at a rate of 0.2C which means charge time is 5 hours with safety in mind (less heat).

 

[Tobriand]

Why so many people want to charge their Pandora Akku external?

Because there is something very reassuring about being able to, as and when the juice inevitably runs out, being able to grab a spare set from your bag and just keep going.

There are bonuses both ways; imo AAs are ideal, but the simply don't pack in the necessary power per unit thickness that Lithium batteries do. This is however, mitigated by the Pandora's expected battery lifespan - if it really is 10 hours, then that's enough to last me almost whatever. Even on long haul flights (and I mean 20 hour evil ones, usually admittedly as a result of a 5-9 hour layover in JFK) to the West Coast, I rarely go through more than two sets of batteries for the 2x (i.e. about 8 hours of actual gaming time). And let's face it - airports do have power sockets; on the rare occasions when I may have depleted the battery on the first leg, I can always charge it a bit in the airport.

Or there's always the other option: sleeping!

 

[izzie]

Thanks for all these details squidge.
For some reasons (english not being my mother tongue maybe), I understood that you said it would be impossible to charge the battery outside the pandora. Seems I got that wrong, which is great news (at least for me).

about that screw, I don't mind, but it would be nice to use a standard screw (as in philips head and not a torx head) or to provide a replacement one (maybe included inside the battery space, taped as not to make noise while moving.) Actually, thinking of it, it would make sense to have more than one screw, so as to be able to still close the battery lid when one screw is lost.

@fusion_power: the ability to charge accus external is not a new thing (did it back in the early 90's with laptops, camcorders and RC cars). The point being to avoid to render a device unusable because it has to be used as the only charger, which is the point of chargers in the first place.
It means you can both use your device on the go *and* have a battery being charged.

Batteries and chargers have become a business based in not being compatible among each other ending in overpriced items and increased pollution.

When a device acts as the only way to charge its own battery, it defeats the point to have spare batteries for increased use as you'd still have to immobilize the device to charge both batteries.