Battery life in G2

[cyrille de brébisson]

Hello,

G1 and G2 have completely different power profiles. This makes it very hard to make side by side comparisons.

G2 uses more power when calculating. BUT, since it calculates faster, it uses less energy to perform a calculation. So this one is a point for G2.

G1 uses slightly less energy while in idle mode (from memory, I am not 100% sure). And G2 will spend more time in idle mode because it computes faster. So this is a point for G1.

G1 uses much less power in off mode than G2 (because of the G2 RAM which, despite being "low power" uses much more juice than the G1 technology, and is also bigger. Unfortunately, the RAM type was imposed by the CPU which did not handle the RAM technology used in G1). So, big point for G1 here...

G2 has the comma mode which uses virtually no power, as a result, G2 can stay in this mode for months. G1 does not have that mode and will die in off mode. So a big point for G2 here...

G2 also has a bigger battery 2000mAh vs 1500mAh, so another point for G2.

Unfortunately, when to use comma mode is a hard nut to crack. At the moment it is set to 3 days, but you can manually enter comma mode at the end of the day if you remember it, thus saving a lot of batteries...

I have a G2 at the country house, where I go in the WE that has not seen a charger for 6 months and that still has batteries.


For a heavy user, I would say that G2 batteries will not last as long, among other things because the higher speed means that you will do more calculations! But.. your mileage might vary.

There is also the fact that the charge status is very hard to measure accurately in SW and that they are a lot of variations from one battery to another. So whatever is reported to you by the calc is ~~~~.

Cyrille