10 replies to this topic

[SKINJOB]

HI PEOPLE,

ANYONE BEING DRIVEN MAD (LIKE MYSELF) BY THE A701'S  SHAM OF A BATTERY. I LOVE THE PHONE. SAT NAV, WM ETC, BUT WHAT A S--- BATTERY. FULLY CHARGED PREVIOUS NIGHT, BY 9 OCLOCK AM  DOWN TO A 3RD OF POWER LEFT AND I HAVEN'T EVEN USED IT.


hi
thanks to jn753 for your post, cpu speed makes a huge difference, I now have it on low, boy, what a transformation. basically i hadn't used the e-mio utility. "dumb"
being on low does not seem to make any difference to performance, i use tomtom and memory map and the work fine.

I can get back to just enjoying the phone, cheers

Edited by SKINJOB, 12 April 2006 - 06:36 PM.

[murf62]

Please don't post in capitals, it's not nice to read.

The battery should last a lot longer than that, you need to check your configuration. Turn off BT when you're not using it. Set it to go into sleep after 1 min, put processor management on 'auto'. If the screen is staying on for whatever reason, then the battery will flatten quickly as with any mobile device.

Mine doesn't drop much below 100% on the meter overnight.

Edited by murf62, 10 April 2006 - 12:50 PM.

[murf62]

PS. I tried my satnav at the weekend running GPSDash and it lasted around 2 1/2 hrs until I got 1st low batt warning (with the screen on). I really don't think anyone can expect better than that from a 1300mah battery.

[PaulOBrien]

Agreed, mine hardly discharges in standby, it's very reasonable on battery life in general use, and if you are using it for sat nav, you'd expect to need to charge IMHO!

P

[SKINJOB]

sorry for caps, I've had a701 from 10th march and configured as suggested, I guess it must be a bad battery.

at risk of being called thick BT?

[PaulOBrien]

BlueTooth!

P

[jn753]

Dear All, a few positive comments:
I received A701 + MioMap v2.0 (512SD + DVD of Europe maps) last week from supergps.co.uk/superetrader. They delivered promptly and I was happy with everything. This was the first time I had ordered from them, but it all worked out very well apart from the Citylink delivery turning up during the last few minutes of the morning. Supergps.co.uk would do well to have a pre-9am option.

I placed the 512 SD card with the UK maps on into the SD card & was pleasantly surprised that it auto-installed MioMap2 at that point. I installed & paid for GPSdash2 immediately. I had not used a GPS before, so this has all been entertaining.

I took the Mio hiking over this last weekend and, although learning without manuals, managed to setup Miomap navigation to and from the hiking location. Impressed. I immediately recognised that battery life will be an issue, but this is understandable so do take the supplied cigarette lighter charger with you!

The user interface is quite difficult on MioMap2 & I advise that you change, in the options, from 'Standard' to 'Extended' immediately, as this latter 'expert' mode actually makes understanding the software more facile.
I managed to log several walks successfully, although in hindsight chose the wrong NMEA output data criteria i.e. which makes my life more difficult trying to overlay it onto a hand-scanned map self-calibrated in OziExplorer. I still hav enot yet succeeded in overlaying this track data post-hike, let alone thinking about how to use it during a hike. Will understand that eventually.
With GPSdash running & logging, in the power icon under Settings setting the screen to auto-switch off in 30secs; I turned (in the e-Mio utility icon) the CPU speed to Low (rather than auto - to see if GPSdash would still work ok; i think it did) ; I switched off the GPRS phone / flight mode (I took second phone). I have not tried Bluetooth at all as yet, as I really do hate it. (Never really worked for what I have ever wanted to do with BT pretty much!)
My log data lasted for 6h 20min with the standard 1300mAh battery.

Questions:
Does anyone have experience of using a 4gb SD card in the A701? I would like to load the full 1.6Gb Europe map off the Mio DVD (otherwise you have to soft-reset between map regions, which is boring if you travel a lot.

Also, via the WM5 card reader USB option,
has anyone managed to mount an Ipod via a mini-USB to standard USB adapter?

Are there any double-life e.g. 2600 mAh batteries that might work? My ex-SPV c550 wall charger does power the A701 - it is identically power rated... but out in the field, using the screen for proper navigation, I think will require at least 2600mAh for a 6h hike. Yes, BATTERY power is the big issue for the serious handheld, in the field, user.

I was waiting for this type of convergent device for sometime ~2 years, & I am very happy with the purchase as I do a lot of navigation-based "sports". It will be some weeks before I tap the full potential. I particularly like the 'Emergency SMS texting' option, although this requires the Flight mode to be off of course = extra power drain.

cheers!

[gilesjuk]

My thoughts:

If you have a badly coded application running (one that has a lot of CPU activity) then this may prevent the device going into standby. Also the device has an "Auto" performance mode which more than likely resembles the speedstep functionality on Intel laptops (clock speed is varied depending on need).

Someone mentioned 4GB cards, I will be able to answer that shortly as I have one on the way from the USA

Battery life so far has been great for me.

Another thing, I don't really see this unit being much good for hiking, it's not waterproof and rugged enough, so the battery life in this instance isn't really a worry for me.

[barfoo]

gilesjuk, on Apr 10 2006, 16:40, said:

My thoughts:

If you have a badly coded application running (one that has a lot of CPU activity) then this may prevent the device going into standby. Also the device has an "Auto" performance mode which more than likely resembles the speedstep functionality on Intel laptops (clock speed is varied depending on need).

Someone mentioned 4GB cards, I will be able to answer that shortly as I have one on the way from the USA

Battery life so far has been great for me.

Another thing, I don't really see this unit being much good for hiking, it's not waterproof and rugged enough, so the battery life in this instance isn't really a worry for me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

4GB works just fine for me.

[PaulOBrien]

Check out GPSVisualizer.com to convert NMEA to other stuff

P

[Malkatraz]

4GB transcend cards work a treat.