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Subject: Re: PDA's, Chess Engines & Extended Batteries

Author: Frank Schneider

Date: 21:31:39 12/04/03

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Hi,

thanks, cool report!

Frank

On December 04, 2003 at 23:32:58, Mike Byrne wrote:

>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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