topic PRS 650 Battery Life in eReaders

PRS 650 Battery Life

eternal422 — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:58:50 GMT

I have just got a new PRS 650 reader and finding that its battery life is rather short - I'm finding that it goes down to about half charge from full in roughly 2 days. I'm charging it from a Sony mains charger and it seems to reach full charge after about a couple of hours at most.

Whilst not reading I leave it on standby, which shouldn't take much power from what I've read.

Does anyone think I've got a faulty battery / reader or is this about the battery life people are getting?

PRS 650 Battery Life

domarro — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 22:15:32 GMT

Judging by the way my PRS600 loses it's charge I believe that the figures advertised are completely erroneous, and established in some completly unrealistic circumstances.

I also charge my Reader with the mains charger, always, and never leave it on standby, which may, or may not make it harder on juice, since a bootup each time could be tougher on consumption.

In general I'm very disappointed in the overall battery performance, and don't believe that I could be enticed into buying another.

PRS 650 Battery Life

specialist-convergence — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:30:57 GMT

Hi All, the advised page turns for battery life are on the basis of continues turns, best way to maintain battery is Sleep mode and not standby; please see instruction manual insert

Battery life (continuous playback)

Maximum Battery: Approx. 10,000 continuous page turns

when reading only *1

1 Measured using a text based content in ePub format and a

fully charged battery, consecutive page-turns at

approximately one second per page under the

recommended operating temperature. Actual battery life

may vary based on usage patterns and individual device.

Battery life seems short.



The operating temperature is below

to the battery characteristics and not



The Reader is discharged automatically

use for a prolonged period. It is recommended

charge the Reader again before turning



The battery was not been given enough

fully. Charge the Reader until the charge/

turns off. (The battery icon does not

battery power during charging.)

PRS 650 Battery Life

eternal422 — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:54:00 GMT

I have been keeping the reader in sleep mode - and the charge only lasts as stated in my post. Switching it off completely seems to keep the charge for longer - as you would expect, so the battery is holding a charge so it seems that even in sleep mode the charge is being drained.

Could this be a software problem - perhaps the reader is not going into sleep mode correctly? The sleep mode screen shows up ok.

PRS 650 Battery Life

Cymraes — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:13:45 GMT

Hi there

my PRS650 battery life is far less than advertised too, despite charging with a proper charger from the mains.

I always switch it off with the sliding power switch at the top - is this sleep or standby mode? How do I put it into each of those modes?? I can't find any on-screen instructions and there's nothing in the tiny instruction manual that came with it.

Any help appreciated!

PRS 650 Battery Life

carpetmojo — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:37:17 GMT

I didn't even know there was a Stand-by mode - what does that involve ?

Mine seems OK , but I do d/load a fair few books, so gets plugged in PC at least once a week.

From tips on MobileRead, I always leave it in Sleep, and charge when down to 2 bars

PRS 650 Battery Life

Cymraes — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:53:38 GMT

Well well! Thanks for that - looks like I've been going to standby all this time, which probably explains my draining battery. I'm glad I'm not the only one that didn't know there were two different shutdown modes.

I need to recharge it overnight, and will monitor how long the battery lasts now that I know how to turn the device right off.

Thank you!

PRS 650 Battery Life

carpetmojo — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 08:09:03 GMT

So, in other words, "Powering Off" - or "Switching Off" as it was commonly known - is "Stand By" ?

Well, yes, in the sense that a car is in stand-by mode until you put the key in and turn it.....................

Only Sony................

Speaking of which, could we please have the true rationale behind why replacement of a battery, for the PRS say, is not designed to be as simple a task as, say a camera, a remote, a fire alarm, a torch a radio, oh, a lot of other gadgets oops sorry, technical aids and devices ?

It can't be because the batterries are dangerous, can't be because they think we're incapable, can't be because the engineers can't do it, can't be because it's not a sensible idea............................

Can't think of many other reasons, really........................:smileywink:

Be interesting to hear - p'raps the lack of a wall charger could be covered as well ?

PRS 650 Battery Life

eternal422 — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:53:07 GMT

Sleep Mode is activated by just flicking the top slide switch - the screen then displays a picture and text to say how to get out of Sleep Mode (by flicking the switch again). This is customisable so you can have it set so that you just have a blank screen in sleep mode.

To power the reader down completely, slide and hold the switch for approx 3 seconds and you will be prompted whether you wish to power down the reader or not. Tapping the 'Yes' button on the screen will then cause the reader to power down completely (and therefor enot draw any power from the battery).

I am currently powering down in between reading from it and an still on full charge (4 battery bars) after 4 days. So it does look like even in Sleep Mode the battery is being drained.

Hope this helps. I'm thinking of just powering down completely overnight and leaving the reader in sleep mode during the day when I want to read. That way I should get a much better battery life.

UPDATE (28/04/2011) : Since this post I've been powering down my reader overnight and in-between reading, although leaving it just in sleep mode during the daytime if it's a day when I'm off work and able to read every now and then. This has made a dramatic improvement to battery life. I'm still on 3 bars after about 4 weeks of doing this. So it looks like if you want an extended battery life between charges that you need to power down the device overnight - after all, why leave it in sleep (standby) mode overnight for 12 hours when you're not going to be using it? I'm also not sure whether the battery performance improves after a few cycles of charging - it almost seems that I'm getting better performance now after only a couple of charge cycles.

Message was edited by: eternal422