10 replies to this topic

[pavankp]

I finally made the switch from the i-mate SP5 to the BlackJack. I like the phone so far, but for a few issues.

1. The battery indicator keeps showing 100% for about a couple of hours after being unplugged from the charger. It then quickly drops to about 70%. Has anyone else seen this? Or do I have a faulty device?

2. My BlackJack has the Samsung Popup homescreen on it, which is pretty nice. Has anyone managed to customize the Samsung plugin used in this homescreen? Like changing the short-cuts that show up, having a fixed set of icons instead of the MRU?

3. I've seen a "Card Wheel" homescreen mentioned in some posts here. Does it work on the BlackJack or it is only for the European version i600? Where can I get that plugin and homescreen?

I appreciate for your responses.

Thanks,
Pavan

[chucky.egg]

The first 1/4 of the battery gauge will go from 100% to 75% (for example, it may well not be a literal 1/4 of the battery capacity).  So 4 of 4 bars means "between 75% and 100% charge", once you get below 75% it drops to 3 of 4 bars, meaning "50% to 75%"

If 1/4 of your battery goes within "a couple of hours" it might suggest you're in a bad coverage area, that you're actively using lots of wireless data, or the phone's been busy with voice/text etc.

If none of those things sound right check your ActiveSync status (if you're sync'ing wirelessly) as it might be stuck doing a sync and eating your battery.  Killing your data connection and/or AS tends to cure it for me, but it's annoying as hell!

[pavankp]

chucky.egg, on Aug 13 2007, 12:42, said:

The first 1/4 of the battery gauge will go from 100% to 75% (for example, it may well not be a literal 1/4 of the battery capacity).  So 4 of 4 bars means "between 75% and 100% charge", once you get below 75% it drops to 3 of 4 bars, meaning "50% to 75%"

Thanks chucky.egg! I am using the SmartMonitor plugin to display the battery level as a percentage -- and that shows 100% as well for a long time, and suddenly goes to around 70%.

chucky.egg, on Aug 13 2007, 12:42, said:

If 1/4 of your battery goes within "a couple of hours" it might suggest you're in a bad coverage area, that you're actively using lots of wireless data, or the phone's been busy with voice/text etc.

I just checked again -- it's been about 5 hours since I took the phone off from the charger, and it's still at 100%. Not bad. But I am worried that the sudden drop from 100% to 70% shown by the SmartMonitor plugin might indicate a defective battery or something.

[chucky.egg]

I've noticed that too - the built in battery monitor (and the one in Resco Explorer) seem to be no more accurate than the 4-bar indicator on the Homescreen.

I suspect the battery itself (or whatever gubbins monitor it and report back to the OS and other apps) is no more accurate than that.

[pavankp]

chucky.egg, on Aug 13 2007, 14:07, said:

I've noticed that too - the built in battery monitor (and the one in Resco Explorer) seem to be no more accurate than the 4-bar indicator on the Homescreen.

Great. So it's not just me . I would have hated to have to go back to the store for a replacement and then set it up all over again.

Thanks for your responses!

Pavan

[Retard-X]

I think its just the way samsung have designed the battery meter in this phone as my i600 goes 100% 90% 70% 50% 30% 10%. corresponding to the the lil 4 bar battery meter with 100% & 90% being 4 bars, 70% being 3 bars, 50% being 2 bars, 30% being 1 bar, and 10% being an exclamation mark.

All these phones have a different battery meter style for instance all my HTC Smartphones went down by 1% ie 100% 99% 98% etc but when i got my HTC Hermes it went down in 10% increments ie 100% 90% 80% etc

So the battery itself is fine its just the way the software reads the level annoying i know but it looks like we are just gonna have to deal with it.

;-)

[pavankp]

Retard-X, on Aug 15 2007, 12:48, said:

I think its just the way samsung have designed the battery meter in this phone as my i600 goes 100% 90% 70% 50% 30% 10%. corresponding to the the lil 4 bar battery meter with 100% & 90% being 4 bars, 70% being 3 bars, 50% being 2 bars, 30% being 1 bar, and 10% being an exclamation mark.

All these phones have a different battery meter style for instance all my HTC Smartphones went down by 1% ie 100% 99% 98% etc but when i got my HTC Hermes it went down in 10% increments ie 100% 90% 80% etc

So the battery itself is fine its just the way the software reads the level annoying i know but it looks like we are just gonna have to deal with it.

;-)

Thanks Retard-X! I noticed that the indicator in Settings->Power Management is somewhat more granular than the values reported by SmartMonitor. I can't tell what the granularity of the bar in 'Power Management' is, but I wonder why the plugin would only read the levels as 100%, 70%, 50% and 30%. It's quite annoying, because it shows 30% for a while and then suddenly you are at "low battery" warning. My previous phone was an HTC device, and I got used to interrupting my work for a recharge only if it fell to 15%.

[wilson_pilson]

Within the task manager there is an option to display the battery life. This gives a much mor accurate reading. TO access this hold the home key and then once the taks manager opens press menu and then choose battery.

[pavankp]

wilson_pilson, on Aug 20 2007, 05:10, said:

Within the task manager there is an option to display the battery life. This gives a much mor accurate reading. TO access this hold the home key and then once the taks manager opens press menu and then choose battery.

Thanks. So the task manager is able to get this more accurate reading from the system, but the iconbar plugin and the SmartMonitor plugin are not able to. I wonder why that is, and if there is a work-around. I just had one more surprise "critically low battery" warning -- I suppose I just have to get used to treating 30% battery as low battery warning.

[chucky.egg]

The Task Manager battery meter on mine (I600) doesn't have a numeric display, so it's just a "progress bar" style thing.
I like numbers me!

[pavankp]

chucky.egg, on Aug 21 2007, 03:33, said:

The Task Manager battery meter on mine (I600) doesn't have a numeric display, so it's just a "progress bar" style thing.
I like numbers me!

Same here (i607). The two "more accurate" readings are progress-bar style readings. The numerical readings are less accurate. Kind of weird.