How bad is your A730 battery?

[PROPortable]

Anyone who posts as a guest.... or as their pocket pc should be banned with out a doubt.

[The Blur]

I second that.

[chileu]

I third that

[dwizard]

Wow 5 pages now and 1300+ views! I didn't expect this kind of response.
Anyway, I've been doing some research with the help of google...
It seems most battery tests say with the screen at full brightness they get about 3 hrs!
My experience is more like what the reviewer got in this test:

http://www.pdagold.com/articles/detail.asp?a=202

Here is a direct quote:

To put it bluntly, a 1150-mAh Lithium-Ion battery is just insufficient for a device with the parameters of the Asus A730. The device started asking for power unexpectedly soon when in normal operation. It was particularly noticeable when I tested the camera. The first battery test when the device played MP3 songs with the display turned off suggested that something is wrong - the battery lasted for 6 hours and 25 minutes. Some other devices are able to work that long with full backlight. The standard test when other devices last for 3-5 hours on average, was even worse. The 2 hours and 13 minutes is an embarrassing result which spoils the otherwise excellent performance. If you need more (I am sure you do), you can either buy a spare battery with the same capacity or a 1800-mAh one including a new rear part of the cover. As a bonus, the Asus offers an option to charge over the USB port, which may come handy.

I'm going to phone Asus to see what they say...
... as Arny says - "I'll be back."

[Registered_]

To start... Those battery readings are BS..... both on the low and hide side for the 730w atleast. I haven't heard one person tell me that the dell screen came anywhere near to the quality and brightness of the 730's...nor the wireless range as long. Hence the much lower readings at full brightness and with wifi on.

No offence Justin, but it is not physically probable for the brightness of the backlight or range of the WiFi to cut the battery life in half... Not to mention the X50v runs clocked at 104Mhz higher with double the battery life. I'm starting to think there might be something seriously wrong with the A730W if the battery life truly is under an hour...

[sponge]

I disagree from first-hand experience with my 3600, 3900, and A620. I could easily gain a few hours with lower backlight, and WiFi, forget about it.

Some numbers I remember from my 3955:

3955, my normal settings: 7 hours
3955, high brightness: 4 hours
3955, normal brightness, WiFi: 3 hours.

That's what the built in battery meter said, and it wasn't too far off in actual practice. That's not taking into account 4 times the more pixels than other devices. As for compared to other VGA devices I can't say, however the X50v's video card takes back quite a bit of power in 2D from what I understand.

[PROPortable]

From now on I'm seriously ignoring anyone who calls me by name but doesn't have the courtesy to even have a PM handle, let alone a first name.

I am talking about the test which posed both of the units very close together....

50% brightness / cpu on auto scale...... I don't have the link in front of me now, but I believe the 730w got 3 hours and 2 minutes and the X50v for 24 minutes more or about 13% better. My theory is because of the different backlights, if both set to off....... we'd have a dead heat if not seeing the Asus slightly ahead... even if by a minute or two. Since the screen on the 730 is the biggest power drainer, you have to isolate it from the rest of the system. I don't know too many people who run full brightness and wifi on straight for any long length of time, but the brighter the screen, the more life it will use and the more the wifi signal is amplified (to get longer range and more importantly, just a better signal) the more battery that will use.

All I'm saying is isolate where the problem is and it can be justified. If it's the screen, who's got the better screen. It certainly isn't the Dell..... but if the Dell did have a better screen, and it got better life, well damn.. the 730 is a waste.. You're not going to find that, but thats how this has to be looked at, period.

Justin

[Registered_]

Justin, I was actually more-or-less talking about the stress test battery lifes: The A730w with apparently 45 minutes and the X50v with approx 1 and a half hours. Everything set at max I'd assume (for the A730w as I know for the X50v, since I have one).

I think I'm going to stay out of the rest of this discussion, however but my opinion still stands that 45 minutes of battery life is incredibly low. Best of luck to Justin and opposition in their efforts of argument.

[Guest]

Anyone who posts as a guest.... or as their pocket pc should be banned with out a doubt.

Why is that neccessary?

[PROPortable]

Yes, it is..... because you can you post whatever you feel with no repercussions. You can post as a dozen different people. Get out of this forum.

Justin

[Guest]

Agreed!

Anyone who posts as a guest.... or as their pocket pc should be banned with out a doubt.

After all, this is the Proporta site, I mean board, I mean forum. Seems like anyway. I kept this toned down to hopefully keep the stepford wives club from deleting it. Good luck to that. That is what you want, isn't it? For everyone to praise the Asus? It's a battery for goodness sake!

[PROPortable]

Yeah thats it... guys, change the name of the forum!

It's funny that the only people who will bash Asus was guests and people who make up names like... 730sucks or something like that....... you're not really part of this community and as a long term contributor to this forum and as a PM Insider, anyone can go back and read all of my 560 some posts in the last year and half and make up their own mind about me and what I personally think and feel about our products and others. Anyone who posts as a guest or is registered with single digit posts mean nothing to this community unless you know what you're talking about and can contribute something.

[kedas]

I assume that the IP adresses are still logged even if you post as a guest so it's up to the administrators to keep een eye on it, they are the ones that allowed to post without registering so they should check if someone is taking advantage of this freedom.

all good forums ask you to register before you can post.
although I sometimes dislike it when I have only one question about something.

[MyAsusA730W]

I'm going to take apart my friend's dell cradle, to see if there is some way to make it charge the Asus battery.

Does anyone know what the contacts on the Asus battery are for or do? It appears to be 2 sets of 4 contacts. Perhaps they are just duplicated, as once inside the unit only the right side contacts are used.
But all 4 are used, I would have thought only 2 for +/-. Maybe the other 2 are for charging?

[Guest]

What are forums for? Only for those who are knowledgable and contribute? Are you saying that those who questioned and object should not be allowed to post? Who are you to identify who should be allowed to post? And what kind of repercussions are you talking about? If a person posted under a identifable name, that gives you the pleasure of knowing who you're hating on does it not? Or is it so you can ban them so that you don't have to hear the "terrible" things that are said.