Periphera

Batteries

Depending on how much you use your Palm OS device, and the type of batteries you choose, a set of batteries will last anywhere from a few days to a few months. I use my Palm OS device almost constantly, and for me a set of batteries lasts about a week. (This is, incidentally, an exceptionally high rate of battery consumption: everyone else in the family gets at least a month out of a set of batteries. But the other members of the family do not enter several kilobytes of text a day, either.)

You may find yourself buying a great many batteries, as you find more uses for your Palm OS device.

If you find yourself buying batteries frequently, you might consider getting rechargeable batteries and a battery charger. Remember you will need at least four batteries: you will need a set of charged batteries to put in when you take out the exhausted ones.

If you use rechargeable batteries, you should set the Palm OS device’s battery profile to the type of battery you are using. This avoids damaging the batteries through over discharging them. See the description of the BatMon freeware program for more details.

Your Palm OS device is very good—perhaps too good—about warning you when its batteries are low: the first low battery warning generally comes when the batteries still have about one quarter of their charge left. The first few low battery warnings really mean “if you do not have a new set of batteries handy, get a set in the next few days.” Even when your Palm OS device refuses to turn on, you should still have a week or so in which to change the batteries before you lose your data.

I have found no great difference between “industrial” alkaline batteries and “heavy duty” alkaline batteries. I have found “heavy duty” alkaline batteries to give less than 50% more service than “normal” alkaline batteries.

Nickel-cadmium (NiCd) batteries have a “memory” effect: unless they are completely drained before being recharged, they “learn” to have a reduced capacity and will eventually “learn” to have no capacity at all. You can avoid most of this “memory” effect by not recharging NiCd batteries until your Palm has become quite insistent about its need for new batteries. Of course, this risks the loss of data in the device.

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are alleged not to have the “memory” effect of NiCd batteries. However, my personal experience with Li-ion batteries has been poor: keeping them charged appears to rapidly destroy them. This is why I avoid Palm OS devices with permanent batteries: when the Li-ion battery goes, the device goes.

I have had good results from rechargeable alkaline batteries and nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. NiMH batteries seem to have a substantially greater lifetime than rechargeable alkaline batteries, but are also about twice as expensive. Both rechargeable alkaline and NiMH batteries have the advantage over NiCd batteries of not being hazardous waste when discarded.

Rechargeable batteries wear out. Eventually they will provide little power, and have excessive recharge times. When you have only a single Palm OS device, you can notice this easily, and buy new rechargeable batteries when needed. If you are using a single set of batteries for a number of Palm OS devices—as in households with a Palm OS device for each family member—you may wish to track the batteries. You can do this by putting labels on the batteries numbering or otherwise uniquely identifying them, and recording their use and their recharge times. You can detect battery wear through your battery logs, and know which batteries need to be replaced.

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Copyright © 2002 Brian Hetrick
Page last updated 15 July 2003.