Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 20:32:58 12/04/03
As one could imagine, chess programs are killers for PDA batteries. In fact I reccomend that if you do play chess on the PDA, turn "pondering off". But chess players also know that pondering "on" lets the PDA play better chess as it is contemplating a response on your time. I have owned 3 PDA's and everyone , Palm, Ipaq and DELL , would generally last between 3 and 5 hours going full speed while playing chess and pondering on your move. I think my Palm Vx lasted about three hours, my Axim will last just about 5 hours. But these are maxed out times - there would be almost no battery available at the end. With pondering off you would be able to play for maybe 7 hours on an Axim and still have a some battery life left. That is assumimng you are taking the same amount of time as the PDA to make your move. Recently I purchased some NiMH batteries for my digital camera. I also bought 4 extra NiMH batteries to use in a device call a "battey extender" (~$8 on eBay) a little pocket size device that holds 4 AA batteries and plugs into My Dell Axim. These 4 batteries (2100MA)cost about $10 and rechargeable. Total cost $18 (not counting the charger). I fully charged the PDA, and the 4 battteries - plugged it into the Dell Axim , set the device so that there was no dimming of the screen at all and so that it would not power power down until the batteries ran were dead. I started up Pocket Chess Genius, set up a position, and turned analysis mode on. The unit was set to use full consumption of power until the PDA batteries and the extended batteries ran out. I then left it running, periodicaly checking the unit from time to time to ensure itw as still running. I also might add that I set the unit at 590 Mhz - almost 150 faster (and also 150 % more power consuming) than the specificed 400 Mhz teh untiwas designed for. The results: After 10 hours, it was still running, still computing with full brightness. I checked the battery in the PDA and it was nearly at zero. At this point I was fully satisfied with the performance and ended the little experiment. The battery extender display an impressive amount of utility for relatively low cost. (Extra Dell batteries run nearly $60 I believe).
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