[davebach]

Hi - I've had a quick search of the threads but couldn't spot a similar one.

I have upgraded my Playbook to the latest OS, and have sideloaded a few apps (Amazon, file manager, and Economist), then installed a few apps (BookReader, GeeReaderPro, and Poynt). I've then disabled developer mode. Bluetooth is turned off, as well as wifi sharing, and bridge (I don't have a Blackberry phone).

If I charge it to full capacity and disconnect it and reboot it at 11pm, then leave it for the night, when I enter the password at 9am the next day, battery life has dropped to 23%.

Is this normal behaviour? If I use it for my daily commute (charging until 6am, then BookReader for an hour each way on the train, with brightness set to absolute minimum), the battery alert comes on just as I get home - pretty annoying as I'd hoped for longer.

Does anyone have any suggestions for extending the life?

Thanks in advance!

[blue-b]

Do you put it in standby before you go to sleep?

[davebach]

I press the power button so the screen goes off - is that different to pressing standby in the drop down power indicator?

[Altarocks]

That is definitely not normal. I lose about 10% overnight. I also never turn off BT. You shouldn't need to actively place in standby - I don't think I've ever done it. Try installing Battery Guru. It is great for showing you what's happening with your battery.

[rotorwrench]

Definitely not right. 6:30am disconnected, had wifi on, used PB about 45 minutes, put it on standby, got home from the airport at 3:00am this morning and showing 90%. Did you do a reset after you updated to the beta?

[emtunc]

Did you leave wifi on by any chance?

[anindoc]

Make sure that you have all your apps to be 'stopped' when minimized in background.
Keep the backlight to the minimum.
Quit all apps before going into stand-by mode (yes quit the apps).
Get the battery guru app from the app world, gives a good sense of the charging process with a host of other useful parameters.

If the pattern, as you have described, continues then I suggest you call RIM and get your unit replaced.

The battery should not go down overnight, without any use and on standby, more than a few percent. I have my wifi and bridge on all the time, and never experienced your battery charge loss.

[peter9477]

OP, are you aware there's a bug with the beta where on some units it can't restart or shut down properly? That results in the screen actually staying on, which you can notice by covering most of the screen with your hands and looking at it at an angle, or looking at it in a dim room.

[A1C-James]

First Id like to mention that there is nothing wrong with your battery. Common misconception many eventually getting around to thinking about. Secondly I believe its lekely do to that sideloaded apps. I have done some personal testing to reproduce these results and I have actually found that the playbooks power consumption increases after entering a pause state with some apps and features or even as a result of app failure prior to the paused state. The paused state is when an app is no longer in focus or the PB is in standby. Physically restarting the playbook rectifies the increased power consumption but only until the problem reoccurs.

Try testing this by loading a single app and doing nothing with it and lets it burn its power then recharge it and go to settings>general>application behavior> change to showcase. Now dimm the backlight all the way down and run the same test.

If it stays powered the full night then this should confirm the my hypothesis. unfortunatly the showcase mode removes all pausing forcing it to stay awake so this is no means to and end but rather proof you have invisible errors running in the background some collisions.

You can actually solve this right out by doing a security wipe which erases everything and all the crap causing the errors. I can verify that the beta in its native state no apps loaded aside from what it comes with has no power issues.

[peter9477]

... unfortunatly the showcase mode removes all pausing forcing it to stay awake so this is no means to and end but rather proof you have invisible errors running in the background some collisions.

Are you saying that using Showcase mode will have any effect on the tablet when it's in standby?

Since the OP wasn't saying he left it actually awake all night (presumably he thought it was in standby), I don't see how Showcase mode would explain his problem, even if it did do what you seem to be claiming.

[A1C-James]

Are you saying that using Showcase mode will have any effect on the tablet when it's in standby?

Since the OP wasn't saying he left it actually awake all night (presumably he thought it was in standby), I don't see how Showcase mode would explain his problem, even if it did do what you seem to be claiming.

Under the circumstances of what I laid out yes it will not go into standby mode which was part of the point. A Playbook should be able to stay on and running one idle app at least a 24 hour period which will provide an excellent cross reference benchmark as to what app is causing the problem. Trial by error as one would say.

[davebach]

thanks for the the tip and ideas - I've just bought battery guru so will get that running and check the results.

In answer to a few questions:

peter9477 - Yes - the screen is totally off when it's asleep. I leave it in my study with the lights off and theres no glow at all.

rotorwrench - I did a security wipe, then let it upgrade itself to the latest beta, then installed the apps. Hopefully that qualifies as a reset?

emtunc - Wifi is left on, but to test the idea, I turned it off last night and left it as normal with the same low battery results the next day

A1C-James - I'll try those steps you proposed. If I get no luck, I'll wipe it like you suggest and just install non-android apps for the moment. The only one I'm really interested in is the Economist. BookReader and GeeReaderPro do very nicely as native apps.

Then, if all else fails, I'll give RIM a call.

[blue-b]

I tested mine last night in standby with wifi on I lost about 7%.

[davebach]

In the end, I decided to start afresh - security wipe (followed by panic with only the browser and set up icons appearing), then an update to the current version of OS1. Installed my apps, and copied some drm-stripped books and films over, then fully charged it and disconnected it at 10pm.

Checked it at 6am this morning and ............ 97% Woohoo! So it's just some dodgey software (aka my home converted Kindle, FileManager, or Economist apps) - I'll wait for the OS2 official update in feb. In the meantime, Calibre is downloading the Economist for me and I can read that in BookReader. An extra step, but means the Playbook is no longer burning through its power.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. If I get impatient and upgrade again, I'll try some of these tips if the issue raises its head again.

[peter9477]

Under the circumstances of what I laid out yes it will not go into standby mode which was part of the point. A Playbook should be able to stay on and running one idle app at least a 24 hour period which will provide an excellent cross reference benchmark as to what app is causing the problem. Trial by error as one would say.

Actually nothing you described will have any effect on whether it enters standby or not.

It still appears to me you are claiming that Showcase mode prevents the tablet from entering standby. It does not. You wrote "unfortunatly the showcase mode removes all pausing forcing it to stay awake" but this is simply not true with respect to standby.

Unless you run one of the handful of apps which explicitly force "keep awake", and this overrides not only the standby timeout but even the backlight timeout, the tablet will enter standby within 5 minutes of user inactivity.

At that point, most apps will be inactive, regardless of the Showcase setting.

In fact, the Application Behaviour setting has neither an effect on whether the tablet enters standby, nor an effect once it does enter standby.

[davebach]

aha - now it gets interesting.

After it ran nicely, I upgraded it to the latest OS2 build and tested again. It dropped only 3% overnight, so I recharged it, put it in developer mode and side-loaded 1 android app (The Economist, downloaded from these forums).

I used it on the way to work. At 0630 it was 100%. At 0846 after my 40minutes of Economist and BookReader, it was at 75%. I put it in stand by and left it on my desk. At 1100 with no use whatsoever, it had dropped to 55% and was ever so slightly warm to the touch.

Looks like Android apps are the cause then

(It could be the video chat sign up thing - but that would have drained the battery when the PB had only OS2 on it and no Android apps).

(I had used an Economist app I had converted and signed myself on my old OS2 before the wipe, so used a version from Crackberry to ensure it wasn't an issue with my conversion and signing).