K3 battery life?

[amafan]

Good morning all! At least it's morning here in California. 
I received my Kindle3 on Friday and immediately charged it before I did anything else.  I've been using it a lot to read, organize colletions, web surf, buy stuff, etc.  This morning I noticed the battery indicator was down to 1/2.  That's a little faster than I was expecting, based on the claims.  Are you other K3 owners seeing the same or better? worse?

[CaroleC]

I received my Kindle on Friday, and I downloaded my books and collections, made sure everything was indexed, shut off the wireless, and recharged Friday night. Since then I have just been reading and have not recharged. My battery is still fully charged - - by that I mean that any battery usage is still completely imperceptable.

Are all your books indexed properly? To check, hit your "Home" button to go to your home page. Then type in some nonsense letters and search on them. You will be told if any still need to be indexed. If there are any still indexing, delete them and re-download them again. When you have 0 books indexing then recharge and shut off your wireless and you should be set.

[Ann in Arlington]

Good morning all! At least it's morning here in California. 
I received my Kindle3 on Friday and immediately charged it before I did anything else.  I've been using it a lot to read, organize colletions, web surf, buy stuff, etc.  This morning I noticed the battery indicator was down to 1/2.  That's a little faster than I was expecting, based on the claims.  Are you other K3 owners seeing the same or better? worse?

If you loaded a lot of content and are sorting it out the battery will drain faster as it indexes everything.  Also, if you have left the WiFi/3G on it will drain faster as it continuously has to check the connection. . . .it's worse if it's a poor signal in the first place.  I would say give it a few days until you're pretty sure everything is indexed* and then turn WN off and just read and see how the drain goes.

*you can check to be sure by searching for a nonsense string. . .it will return a list of items not indexed.  If it's just a couple that don't seem to be getting done, there could be a corruption in the file.  Delete 'em and download again, and then check for indexing a while later.

[Basket lady]

I got my K3 on Friday too, charged it, downloaded the 11 books I had purchased (new Kindler here) and have been reading with it non-stop since.  My WIFI is off, but my battery has gone down to half.  I always wondered how much reading per day they consider average in order to say it has a 30 day battery life.  When I read, I read at lot in one day. So I expected mine to go down a little faster.  Be interesting to see how much others go down though too.

I did check the "indexing" with your suggestions and do not have any that show up that say indexing.  Not that I know what that means!

[history_lover]

I've just noticed my battery is down to half power too (received it Saturday morning) - nothing is indexing (unless I'm checking wrong somehow?) and I didn't download a lot a content, only about 10 books and some samples - is that a lot? It'll be pretty frustrating if keeping the wifi on drains the battery this much - I don't want to have to constantly turn it off and on! (I don't have 3G so I can't just rely on that). I think I'd rather charge it every other day than do that but how disappointing.

[amafan]

If you loaded a lot of content and are sorting it out the battery will drain faster as it indexes everything.  Also, if you have left the WiFi/3G on it will drain faster as it continuously has to check the connection. . . .it's worse if it's a poor signal in the first place.  I would say give it a few days until you're pretty sure everything is indexed* and then turn WN off and just read and see how the drain goes.

*you can check to be sure by searching for a nonsense string. . .it will return a list of items not indexed.  If it's just a couple that don't seem to be getting done, there could be a corruption in the file.  Delete 'em and download again, and then check for indexing a while later.

I don't have a lot content.  Twenty books or so.  I have had the wireless on all time since I got it. I ran the indexing test and it came back without any book showing as being un-indexed.  It may also be that a new battery takes a few deep discharges before it reaches full potential.  I'll try without the wireless on and wait for the battery to completely drain before I charge it for the next few charging cycles.  If that doesn't improve things, then I'll get CS at Amazon involved.

[history_lover]

Well, I just checked the website and noticed the battery life with wifi on is still supposed to be 3 weeks, not 2 days. So I'll also be contacting CS if it continues to drain this quickly.

On a good note, it hasn't frozen/rebooted since this morning so knock on wood but hopefully it was just having teething problems.

[CAR]

Like I said in a post about battery life in another thread, sometimes it does take rechargeable batteries a few recharge cycles to get to full strength. Also if you are doing a lot of things other then reading, such as browsing, downloading books, building collections etc.. it can drain the battery pretty fast, that was the same as the Kindle 2.

Now with all that that said, I did think of one thing... on the specs for the Kindle 3 with wireless on it lists the WiFi only as 3 weeks and the 3g+ WiFi as 10 days.  Is the 3g + Wifi 10 days even in WiFi mode?  I would not have thought that would have been the case, but starting to wonder now  

Update: Found this: Might be possible to get same 3 weeks battery life on 3G+WiFi Kindle if the device is within WiFi range most of the time.

Chuck

[Linjeakel]

My battery has run down pretty fast over the last two days but I've been downloading, indexing, sorting into collections etc for most of the time I've been using it - I haven't actually read on it yet! It only takes an hour or so to charge up from under half way to full which seems a reasonable time.

So I'm not going to worry too much at the moment. Once it's been charged a few times and I'm only reading on it, I'll see how long it lasts then. As I have a DXG I prefer to keep wireless on so the two devices can sync and so I can get my newspapers emailed from Calibre - if the K3 will last ten days like that it'll be more than enough for me. If not, I'll see how long it lasts with wireless off. That will let me know if the battery is OK or not.

[danio1972]

My K3 [Wifi 3G] model arrived Saturday and was fully charged.  I used it quite extensively on Saturday and a bit yesterday; by late last night the indicator was saying 50% battery; I thought that was perhaps a bit low for only 2 days use, but, as others have said I put it down to harder use and the initial indexing of my 53 titles.

However, it's been left asleep (but with Wireless on and Wifi connected) since last night.  I just picked it up to read and was greeted with a screen telling me the battery is absolutely flat.  Please charge.

So, leaving wireless/wifi on has completely used 50% of battery approx in less than a day even though it's been set to one side and unused.

I'm a little concerned about that I have to say, especially when you read Amazons stats of 10 days with wireless on and a month without.

[pidgeon92]

I'm a little concerned about that I have to say, especially when you read Amazons stats of 10 days with wireless on and a month without.

Please remember that it takes a few charges before a battery reaches its full capacity. Give it a few weeks before worrying about it.

[Cyanide5000]

Hey im new here as a new kindler myself, i was also wondering about the battery life, as an iphone owner im used to having short battery lifes! but i thought the K3 did drain a little quicker than i expected it to, but since i read next to a plug socket, it isnt such a major deal, and i dont really plan on taking it outside much.. appart maby on holiday.
But i must say im liking it quite a lot at the moment ^_^