maemo.org - Talk - View Single Post - Does switching off and on consume more power than standby?

	krisse	2008-02-07 , 20:24
	Posts: 1,540 \| Thanked: 1,045 times \| Joined on Feb 2007	#18

For those of you confused by this, compare switching on something simple like an electric fan to switching on a desktop computer: the fan starts working straight away (it might take a while to spin but it starts spinning immediately), whereas the computer takes a relatively long time to set itself up to begin work.

Some PCs can take several minutes before they've finished doing all their startup stuff, and the whole time they're accessing the hard disk, loading drivers, running various programs, really DOING stuff. Once it's done that the computer calms down, it hardly ever accesses the disk, hardly ever starts a new process.

A computer has to work a LOT harder to get into a state where it is useful, whereas simple electrical devices don't have to do any work. That's why computers might use a lot more power starting up than simple electrical devices.

Desktop computers don't run off batteries so we don't notice it, but they too probably consume more power starting up than being left on standby. Tablets do lots of startup stuff just like a desktop computer, they have to work hard too to get started.

I tend to toss the PlayThing into my bag, turned off, for the day (where it invariably slips out of the soft-felt pouch. I can't *wait* for my Proporta case to get here).

Then I end up turning it on as needed.

Try NOT turning it off. Try leaving it on forever, charging it while it's switched on so you don't run out of battery life.

Now, I'm all for just leaving it in stand-by... but that charge time seems excessive (not that it's even hit 'battery full' and I know today the thing's been charging for the last 11 hours).

I have no idea why your tablet would take 11 hours to charge, unless you're running lots of battery-hungry applications while you have it in standby?

My tablets have never taken anything like that long to charge, even when I have Skype running in the background.

Whoah.

Just like 'fit to view' that screws up and slows down my New York Times web page, leaving the unit on all the time until it *really* needs a charge seems kinda counter-intuitive.

I obviously am still on the slippery learning curve here

This isn't anything specific to the tablets, this is a general issue with complex computers that run off batteries. If they take more energy powering up than being on standby, then leaving them on standby may make the battery last longer than switching them off.

Originally Posted by Hagar

You might want to take into account that the locking keys and screen doesn't help. The moment the pop-out camera is pressed, the keypad and screen becomes active.

I have never, ever had the N800 camera come out by itself, so I think it's an exaggeration to say that locking the screen doesn't help. It might not help if the camera comes out, but that's fairly rare at least in my experience.

Plus N810 and 770 owners don't have a pop-out camera at all.

Last edited by krisse; 2008-02-07 at 20:36.

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