So What Is The Pandora Battery Life?

[borgqueenx]

QUOTE
Notice who he got "told off" by. borgqueenx. No offense, but he's been told off some himself, and I think that's the reason he's come to believe that if something has been mentioned before that it's automatically taboo, especially with Chip's previous tendency to close any and all threads that had been discussed or went OT.

-God Ginrai

i dont know exactly what you mean, but i dont like new threads becouse they make the forums not sorted out.
I like a sorted out forum. with no duplicates of topics, spam, and the other nonsense.

But on the other hand, i like new topics about desame question. but thats becouse the dev's of the pandora are posting news there.
So i'l just overlook those duplicates...

 

[God Ginrai]

QUOTE
Notice who he got "told off" by. borgqueenx. No offense, but he's been told off some himself, and I think that's the reason he's come to believe that if something has been mentioned before that it's automatically taboo, especially with Chip's previous tendency to close any and all threads that had been discussed or went OT.

-God Ginrai

i dont know exactly what you mean, but i dont like new threads becouse they make the forums not sorted out.
I like a sorted out forum. with no duplicates of topics, spam, and the other nonsense.

But on the other hand, i like new topics about desame question. but thats becouse the dev's of the pandora are posting news there.
So i'l just overlook those duplicates...

I agree that there should be no duplicates, however you can not fault someone who put effort into searching. You can only point them in the right direction. Also, the point of a forum is for discussion, and that's what new topics are about. You should never complain about new threads unless they are infact duplicates. You also should never lobby for a topic to be closed unless it becomes a flame fest or a circle of bad feelings. There is nothing wrong with going off topic, because if there is more to be discussed on the topic, the flow of the topic will eventually find it's way back to the topic.

You can however fault someone for not doing a search or for gravedigging.

-God Ginrai

 

[Eversmile]

QUOTE
Notice who he got "told off" by. borgqueenx. No offense, but he's been told off some himself, and I think that's the reason he's come to believe that if something has been mentioned before that it's automatically taboo, especially with Chip's previous tendency to close any and all threads that had been discussed or went OT.

-God Ginrai

i dont know exactly what you mean, but i dont like new threads becouse they make the forums not sorted out.
I like a sorted out forum. with no duplicates of topics, spam, and the other nonsense.

But on the other hand, i like new topics about desame question. but thats becouse the dev's of the pandora are posting news there.
So i'l just overlook those duplicates...

I agree that there should be no duplicates, however you can not fault someone who put effort into searching. You can only point them in the right direction. Also, the point of a forum is for discussion, and that's what new topics are about. You should never complain about new threads unless they are infact duplicates. You also should never lobby for a topic to be closed unless it becomes a flame fest or a circle of bad feelings. There is nothing wrong with going off topic, because if there is more to be discussed on the topic, the flow of the topic will eventually find it's way back to the topic.

You can however fault someone for not doing a search or for gravedigging.

-God Ginrai

You're soo... Authoritative... And also very right. However, the fact this thread has gone so silly and off topic/elitist is the main crime here, due to someone (BOOOOORRGGGGQUUUEENNNX!!!) getting all uppity. To be frank, I believe all these silly posts, including mine, should be removed. The OP has a valid question that requires a valid answer, that should lead to some nice, valid discussions.

But yeah, any more battery info from the devs? And how hard will the power management programs be to implement?

 

[God Ginrai]

getting all uppity. To be frank, I believe all these silly posts, including mine, should be removed. The OP has a valid question that requires a valid answer, that should lead to some nice, valid discussions.

But yeah, any more battery info from the devs? And how hard will the power management programs be to implement?

I don't think we need to go so far as removing posts, however +1 to the part about valid discussions. As for being on topic: I'd like to know around how many hours you'd get running the PSX emulator in conjunction with, say, Firefox.

-God Ginrai

 

[Monk]

I'm a little taken aback at the APPEARANCE that a USB mouse can so significantly reduce the battery power. I thought we were getting "ghostbuster proton pack" power soruces (but more modern and powerful) and I have wireless mice that run on a single AA or double AAA batteries for quite a while. It makes it FEEL like all the runtime is in the low power consumption of the cicuitry rather than that combined with an uber-good battery

 

[God Ginrai]

and I have wireless mice that run on a single AA or double AAA batteries for quite a while. It makes it FEEL like all the runtime is in the low power consumption of the cicuitry rather than that combined with an uber-good battery

Maybe MWeston is using a really power-hungry Mouse and Keyboard. You know, like CRYSIS, but for USB. ;P

-God Ginrai

 

[pelrun]

Wireless mice are designed to be power misers, since the designers want to maximise battery lifetime. But that doesn't mean normal mice/keyboards are - it's easy for the designer to be lazy or cheap and suck up whatever power is convenient, instead of spending extra time optimising the design or paying for more expensive low-power components.

After all, even on laptops a hungry usb mouse isn't going to be much compared to the massive power draw of the system. But the pandora is so incredibly low power that such devices can suddenly have a noticeable impact.

 

[gp2.eXe]

It's like this:

QUOTE
-"Pandora's battery will last for around 10 hours."

-THATS KEWL!! PANDORA ROXORS!!!!!!!11!!1!ONE ELVENTY ONE!!

-"But if you plug a mouse it might last 15 minutes less."

-DAMN!! ITS ALL CRAIGS FAULT!!!!111!!ONE!

 

[God Ginrai]

It's like this:

QUOTE
-"Pandora's battery will last for around 10 hours."

-THATS KEWL!! PANDORA ROXORS!!!!!!!11!!1!ONE ELVENTY ONE!!

-"But if you plug a mouse it might last 15 minutes less."

-DAMN!! ITS ALL CRAIGS FAULT!!!!111!!ONE!

Except that the percentages that MWeston was quoting made it seem like plugging in a USB mouse might make it last a couple of hours less.

-God Ginrai

 

[calc84maniac]

More like two hours less. But I see what you're saying.

 

[gp2.eXe]

True, but you're missing the point. If we reduce two hours we still get around 8 hours of battery, a lot more than what other devices can do. So complaining about it is just saying "nah, then I don't like the Pandora."

 

[pshunter]

Hello,

About power consumption by the screen, I read somewhere (don’t remember where, maybe OLPC project) that an LCD needs to be driven slowly to consume less. AFAIR the example given was cellphones. I think they meant that when a pixel’s color has to be changed, that change must happen slowly. That means the screen would react like old laptops from the nineties. That would be unworkable for games, videos and maybe annoying if the user is typing or using an app. However, for stuff like GPS driving or ebook reading it might be ok. Dunno however if the hardware allows to drive the screen at variable speeds.

 

[God Ginrai]

True, but you're missing the point. If we reduce two hours we still get around 8 hours of battery, a lot more than what other devices can do. So complaining about it is just saying "nah, then I don't like the Pandora."

Or, we could be realizing the fact that if we plug in devices with more drain than a mouse or keyboard that suddenly we're at, say, 4 hours instead of 10. What if you have WiFi and Bluetooth on? Now you've got even less.

-God Ginrai

 

[Phawx]

Isn't the spec for maximum drain from USB 500 mAh at 5v? The battery is 4000mAh at 3.7 volts right? So I am sure if you crunched the math, it would be around 15-20% less battery time if you have devices that are sucking power out of the USB port like a Dyson vacuum.

Pro-tip: Use bluetooth mouse and keyboard if you need it.

Also this:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/squeezing-more...iew-583-26.html

It's worth noting that people that anticipated using a 3G USB stick to hop on Cellular networks will probably consume quite a bit as well and very well may see 25% less battery life. Also the size of the battery and the amount of power that's in them is the highest available right now. They are the same type of batteries used in the new Macbooks, if I am not mistaken.

 

[God Ginrai]

Isn't the spec for maximum drain from USB 500 mAh at 5v? The battery is 4000mAh at 3.7 volts right? So I am sure if you crunched the math, it would be around 15-20% less battery time if you have devices that are sucking power out of the USB port like a Dyson vacuum.

Pro-tip: Use bluetooth mouse and keyboard if you need it.

Also this:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/squeezing-more...iew-583-26.html

It's worth noting that people that anticipated using a 3G USB stick to hop on Cellular networks will probably consume quite a bit as well and very well may see 25% less battery life. Also the size of the battery and the amount of power that's in them is the highest available right now. They are the same type of batteries used in the new Macbooks, if I am not mistaken.

If a mouse or keyboard is consuming as much power as MWeston seems to be saying, then a 3G USB stick will consume a lot more than 25%.

-God Ginrai

 

[Kramy]

Craigix always said "about 10 hours", so I don't know why you'd expect 15-20h

15-20h at 200 MHz (underclocked!) ;"] [/quote]

. You turn your Pandora on, and it consumes one shotglass of beer per hour. You plug a USB keyboard in, and it consumes an additional thimble of beer per hour. It's a 25% increase in power consumption, but it's 25% of a very small number.

Sorry, my english is not that good to understand all the stuff here, but your analogy with the beer now really helped, thanx. :lol:

You ignored the important bit.

QUOTE
The CPU uses about 0.05w, and the LCD about 1.6w. Downclocking will knock that down to 0.04w, which doesn't save a whole heck of a lot of battery life.

Craigix always said "about 10 hours", so I don't know why you'd expect 15-20h, especially once you examine the power consumption of the individual parts.

1600mw, 50mw.

Even if you half the CPU's power consumption to 25mw, it does not make a huge difference.

 

[MWeston]

Isn't the spec for maximum drain from USB 500 mAh at 5v? The battery is 4000mAh at 3.7 volts right? So I am sure if you crunched the math, it would be around 15-20% less battery time if you have devices that are sucking power out of the USB port like a Dyson vacuum.

I don't think you are quite getting the math here. Sure 500mA on the USB port means 15-20% less battery life if the pandora was drawing like 3.5A or something.

In the real world, where the current was under 500mA for even Quake with OpenGL (but lets say it was 500mA for easy math), adding 500mA from the USB port to the mix means a 50% reduction in battery life. You don't get that much power for free! That's an extra 2.5W and even at 95% efficiency, it's a lot on the battery.

By the way, I was using my normal USB keyboard and mouse and not some portable version so they were pulling about 100mA each. I have no idea why a keyboard with no LEDs on would need that much current but it does!

 

[jlepley]

Alright, let's see, assuming the Pandora gets 10 hours of life from "normal" operation, then its "normal" power usage is (4000mAh/10h) == 400mA. So if we add another 500mA to that for a maximally power hungry USB device, then that ups it to 900mA. Now if we check how much life it would get from that... (4000mAh/900mA) == 4.44 hours. So that's nearly four and a half hours of life.

If my information is correct, a USB device could potentially reduce the Pandora's battery life by more than 50%.

Edit: darnit, MWeston beat me to it.

 

[MWeston]

Where on earth did you get such terribly inaccurate numbers!?

The LCD uses 0.5W for the backlight and maybe 0.1W for the LCD logic.

Just for reference, the system power goes up about 80-100mA when clocking from 500 to 900MHz so the clock does make a significant difference. Combine that with lowering the core voltage when underclocking and you can see how important using power/clock management can be.

 

[MWeston]

If my information is correct, a USB device could potentially reduce the Pandora's battery life by more than 50%.

Yes, why do you think most pocketable electronics don't put a full USB host port onto their devices? People will complain that the battery life sucks because they don't get how things work.

EDIT: Hey, why aren't my posts being combined together?