How bad is your A730 battery?

[dwizard]

The 1100mAh battery supplied is rubbish. I only get about 40 mins of use out of the A730 before it warns me of low battery. This is with sound off and low backlight. I can't use the camera as it drains the battery VERY fast. Is this normal or do I have a dud one?

Has anyone got the 1800 mAh battery and is it much better?

Thanks.

[PROPortable]

First of all, before you go calling names, you should probably ask questions as to what you're doing wrong... because you're doing something seriously wrong. To get 40 minutes on that battery, you'd have to be using the 730 with every wireless turned on, in turbo mode and the sound turned all the way up with the screen set at full brightness..... and you'd still get atleast 45 minutes.

You've either done something wrong, or have a bad battery or motherboard. But the 730 and/or 730w certainly have better life than that...... ask anyone who has it or reviewed it.

Justin
PROPortable

[dwizard]

First of all, before you go calling names, you should probably ask questions as to what you're doing wrong...

I'm sure an inanimate object (battery) won't take offense at me calling it rubbish.
I am ASKING that's why I'm posting... for help and suggestions.

To get 40 minutes on that battery, you'd have to be using the 730 with every wireless turned on, in turbo mode and the sound turned all the way up with the screen set at full brightness..... and you'd still get atleast 45 minutes.

As I wrote in my first post:
Sound = off
backlight = low

and

WIFI = n/a
Bluetooth = off

If I don't use TURBO mode (the default) it is too slow. Even the operating system is sluggish.

But the 730 and/or 730w certainly have better life than that...... ask anyone who has it or reviewed it.

I am ASKING!

[PROPortable]

Wow, well you either don't know what you're doing, or you have a bad motherboard. If you can't read the review here and match it's battery / performance, you have a problem. I can't tell you if it's user error or not, but Asus can tell you ASAP..... they'll want your unit to take a look at it and probably swap out the board.

I don't care about the battery's feelings, I do care about the integrity of the product though. One person who doesn't know how to use it or someone who can't realize they unit has a problem could be a real problem for the device considering how many people read these posts. Ignorance is not going to ruin the product line.

Justin

[Guest]

Having owned an a730 before I decided on a loox, the battery life does diminish very quickly. I honestly don't like having to be told how to use my pocketpc just to get some hours out of it. If it's got the ability to do whatever my will desires, I'd like the ability to do so and not have to worry about my battery ALL the time.

[PROPortable]

Hide behind the "guest" buddy.

I like how you justify "being told how to use it" as some sort of excuse. Under the same settings, miliamp for miliamp, you're not going to beat the battery on the 730 with the loox, or anything else. Same settings.....

Now there are a few people who returned 730's because they all said.. and I quote.... "to spend $600 on a device and not use it at full brightness and full cpu, it's not worth it for me" Now, if you are one of those people, you must leave, now. I heard it probably 3 times and no matter what, no pocket pc is ever tested for "average" life that way. So you would be in the "above average" use range which would mean you'd get "below average" battery life.

Justin

[Registered]

Now there are a few people who returned 730's because they all said.. and I quote.... "to spend $600 on a device and not use it at full brightness and full cpu, it's not worth it for me" Now, if you are one of those people, you must leave, now. I heard it probably 3 times and no matter what, no pocket pc is ever tested for "average" life that way. So you would be in the "above average" use range which would mean you'd get "below average" battery life.

Justin

Very well said! Will have to remember to repeat that paragraph for any future threads of users bashing the A730's battery life.

[niki]

Now there are a few people who returned 730's because they all said.. and I quote.... "to spend $600 on a device and not use it at full brightness and full cpu, it's not worth it for me"

Well, your online shop clearly warns with a red text that battery life isn't the greatest feature of the A730...

[PROPortable]

We put that up because there are people who live on another planet that think that 730 should have the battery life of the 716..... They are expecting 10 hours or something like that. We can't have idiots buying pocket pcs.

The 730 should get 2 hours of normal use, period.. thats normal. Battery life isn't the best feature of any VGA pocket pc. However, 11 months after it's release, the damn 716 is ranked as the 2nd best pocket pc to buy by PC World... People are confusing the two and it's starting to piss us off. It's one thing if we advertised it as getting 10 hours of life, or even if asus did, or if a review did... but for people to come back to us and say.. "this sucks, I thought it would get 10 hours of life" .... then have nothing to back that up... I'm sure you can see how frustrating that is.

But anyway, that "notice" is just that.... to let people know that VGA units don't have the same life as the battery king (716) and they should know what to expect. We've only gotten a few 730's back, but we're not going to get another back because the customers "expected" better life.

Justin

[The Blur]

... idiots. The A730w rocks! (can't comment for the A730)... And this is coming from a previous A620 owner!

[niki]

The A730w rocks! (can't comment for the A730)... And this is coming from a previous A620 owner!

You mean the A730w has an excellent battery life?

[PROPortable]

No, the life is going to be worse than the 730 if you're using wifi and the same if wifi is off..

The difference is, some people use it differently and it's all a matter of personal preference.

Justin

[dwizard]

For the record I have never said anything derogatory about Asus or the A730 my gripe is with my particular battery. I just wanted other users opinions so I could judge wheather mine is faulty.
In fact it is the A730 that attracted me to the Pocket PC. I was using a Palm device previously.

And yet PROPortable has the audacity to say I'm name calling! When HE has called me an idiot and ignorant.
I appreciate he sells these devices, but getting nasty with me won't win him any customers.
I just want honest opinions from current A730 users not sales bullshit.

I suggest he gets laid to release some of that pent-up testosterone.

I've looked at PROPortable's website and he does make it clear, in red lettering, that for heavy users the battery may only last 45 mins, so I guess I'm a heavy user.
Maybe I was expecting too much? I will think about paying extra for the 1800mAh battery and a new case... if I can find one that fits with the larger battery fitted.

[Kzinti]

According to this web page:

http://www.firstloox.org/VGAppc.htm

The Asus A730 does have the smallest battery of the current generation of VGA PPCs.

I am not sure why Justin is (over?) reacting like this. I understand why he wants to protect the product's image, but the fact is that the Asus A730 does have a small battery capacity. Whether or not customers are well-informed about what they are buying is another matter.

[PROPortable]

Smallest battery, yes... worst battery, no. Can I get an agreement that these are two different things? miliamp for miliamp is how they should really rate these things against each other and take into effect what the particular screens are pulling themselves and who's got a better screen. I've heard from 3 or 4 people who either returned the new loox for the 730 or has both and every one of them said the screen on the 730 was nicer and brighter than the loox. So if you take brightness into account, maybe the loox is using less battery in the screen and having a bigger battery would mean a drastic battery life difference, would it not? So, if there was a way to really break it down to what's best.... you have to test apples to apples and then when it comes down to battery life, when one unit has a smaller battery (to save weight or size) then they should comment on whether the design savings was worth the smaller battery and so forth.

Anyway, I didn't call you an idiot, but if you think that was directed towards you and feel like you are, then thats fine by me... but I didn't direct it at you, I directed it to those who think they should be getting a crazy amount of life out of a VGA unit... you never said you were expecting that, so this obviously isn't about you.

Justin