Least liked thing of the Fujitsu P1620
Don’t get me wrong, I am still loving the productivity I am achieving with the Fujitsu P1620 but like Kevin showed us with his new Samsung Q1 UP, not always is everything exactly to our liking. The one thing that is driving me nuts about the Fuji probably won’t matter to most folks but given the way I work it is having an impact that I don’t like. I often use the Fuji in the morning at home prior to heading out for the day and when I am done using it I pop it into the dock to top off the battery so that it’s fully charged when I pick it up to head out. The problem is that is usually doesn’t charge when I do this so when I head out my battery is not fully charged.
Many mobile devices have a threshold to protect overcharging the battery and most of them will not charge the battery if you hook it up to power and have ~95% or greater battery life left. This is by design and is not a big deal most of the time. What I have discovered about the Fuji is that it will not charge the battery unless it is less than 90% charged when I pop it in the dock. It gets such good battery life that I rarely use up more than 10% of the charge with my early morning ritual so even though I pop it into the dock to charge while I am getting ready for work I find that it usually isn’t charging. Every day I am heading out the door with only about 94% battery life because it won’t top off the battery. I understand that safety is important but I really do need my battery at 100% when I head out for the day. I am getting between 5 – 6 hours on a charge so that 6 – 10% of missing battery could buy me an extra half hour of battery life and that is significant. Of course I have my 2nd extended battery so I’m not going to run dry but this could save me a battery swap. What I find myself doing is trying to use up more than 10% of the battery with my morning usage by changing the power settings to "maximum performance" so it will top off when I need it to. This doesn’t always work though so I have to be careful that I’m not using even more juice than necessary doing this. Plus I have to remember to set it back to "power savings" mode when I head out so I won’t use up too much juice doing my field work. I wish the threshold was much higher like 95%, I could live with that.
Well that’s not much of an issue in my opinion, I think its a good idea for them to prevent the charging with less than 10% useage. You can do your morning browsing with another machine (I think you have one or 2 other around)
Or have it plugged in during the morning session.
Have you checked to see if there is a setting to change this threshold? I know that my Lenovo X41 has this setting under the ThinkPad Power Manager -> Battery Maintenance. The P1620 might not have this option, but I’d take a look around and see if you can find it.
Overcharge your battery a few times. Then you can say hello to 3-4 hours of normally battery usage. Then your second battery won’t be enough to get through the day. I understand what you mean James, but batteries are very temperamental.
Why not swap batteries before leaving? Then swap again at night before docking. That way you’re taking advantage of always having the 100% battery being used.
Mark M, it might be useful to run something like regwatch while changing this setting on your X41.
Hey James, I know what you mean about the battery. I have the Fujitsu U810 and have the same problem or not a problem, but when I use it if the battery doesn’t go below 90% then it will not charge at all. Actually once it hits 89% its when it starts to charge. I also like when its 100% when I start to use it on the road; I do get 5 to 5 1/2 hour of battery life on it so I can’t complain and if I get another battery I will be good to go all day. I do leave it in Standby all the time also that way I can be using it within 6 seconds.
My Fujitsu T2010 also has the same problem – it will not charge if the battery isn’t over 90%. Same as you that 10% makes a big difference, since I get around 5-7hr use depending on what I’m doing.
As HG said, if it drops under 89% it will start to charge all the way to 100% – but I’d like to find a setting where you could change the threshold.
the threshold isnt 90% because they are trying to protect from overcharging. the threshold is 90% to help keep the number of charge cycles to minimum for people who dont understand battery technology (which you dont as evidenced by your charging routine).
what most people dont know is, every battery has a limited number of charge cycles. whether you the battery is on 85% when you decide to recharge it or 55% it will STILL count as 1 full cycle. thats why you should always get the most out of each cycle before recharging your battery, although a deep discharge (under 40%) can be mildy harmful.
this is the #1 reason most people make that cause poor battery performance, frequent “toping off”.
quoted from http://www.apple.com/batteries/
” Using and recharging 100% of battery capacity equals one full charge cycle.
A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could listen to your iPod for a few hours one day, using half its power, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so you may take several days to complete a cycle.”
I may be wrong but I thought my P1610 refused to recharge above 98% rather than 90%. If I’m right (and I can’t guarantee that I am) then it’s a big change for Fujitsu to make.
James I have a question for you. I think I remember that you use Outlook with exchange server and the verizon air card correct? Did you have to treak any settings to get outlook 2007 to connect through the aircard? I can connect fne when on my wireless network at home or the one in the office but when I plug in the air card (595 pc card) I get a good internet connection but outlook wont connect. Thanks for your help.
James – I guess this is just a Fujitsu-specific charging quirk…my U810 does the same thing, and I thought something was wrong with it when I first got it, then it finally dawned on me what was happening. It’s a little different than most devices, which will top-off no matter what, even if just for a few minutes. I actually kinda like the feature, especially with the long battery life the U810 has.
Does the P1620 also have the two separate charging lights (one that shows charging status, one that shows battery level by red, orange, green) like the U810?
Yes, the 1620 has two LEDs that show charging and battery level.
JK,
In all this time that you had the P1620 and your complaint was only the 90% charging issue – its a safe bet the new P1620 is a solid improvement over the P1610. I can’t wait until the 3G version comes out as I am using my P1610 daily for work and it can use a little extra oomph
Question for you battery experts. Does it harm the battery to leave it connected to the charger overnight or during the day when connected to the docking station? Should I discharge the battery to a low level, charge it to full, and then dis-connect the charger? or does it not matter?
Thanks.
I have not run into any problems with modern batteries using it normally, popping it to charge when I can, topping it off when I need to. I haven’t seen any evidence of short battery life or anything else. Personally I am not a battery expert but don’t see a problem using it the way I do.
jc, here’s everything you need to know:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
The pertinent part is quoted below:
‘Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.’
In other words – leave it on the charger. Modern Li-Ion batteries incorporate a protection circuit that manages the charging process, monitoring both heat and input voltages.
Perfect! Thank you.