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Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Everyone’s favorite tablet company, until they shipped the tablets, has yet more troubles.
Over on the Notion Addicts blog, a fan site for Notion Ink owners and wanna-be owners, several reports of battery life issues have been raised on two different threads. NI had claimed their Adam tablet’s lithium ion battery could last for 6 hours of continuous, heavy video-play usage; namely 1080p video at full brightness. They estimated 15 hours or more with a typical tablet regime, but users are saying otherwise. It’s not comparing well with the iPad’s ten hour battery charge. Here are a few of the complaints:
So after a few charges i seem to only get 4 – 5 hours.
I have the PQ with 3g.
I am getting this with wifi on and 3g off. Airplane mode on as well, gps off. Not using the pq screen, but brightness at 75%.
Basically just surfing web and setting it up…some downloading of apps.
running launcher pro at the moment.Not sure it is, at 50% brightness it uses 7% in 30 min and with the back light off adam went from full to empty in about 8 hrs the wifi was on I left it on the counter until the battery indicator light went red then off…. the main use is still cell stand by. Tried airplane mode but noticed if I activate it from the power button the wifi stays on, its only in the settings menu that airplane mode turns off the wifi…..
In my test the battery lasted 4 hours 40mins of playing video in airplane mode. 3 hours with 75% brightness used 55 % battery. Then i increased the brightness to 100%. 45% finished in 1 hour and 40mins. Not at all happy with the performance. Emailed NI abt this 3 times over 5 days and no response. Very Unhappy with NI support.
Screen used 96% battery and the os 4% according to batter stats.
Pixel Qi, wifi +3g model.My Battery life is pretty crummy too. I tried doing the engadget test, where they loop the same standard defenition video at 65% brightness with wifi on, and I got less than 6 hours. This is less than the galaxy tab….
Battery Life
Dell Streak 7 3:26
Archos 70 6:00
Archos 101 7:20
Samsung Galaxy Tab 6:09
Apple iPad 9:33
Notion Ink did come up with a software update that was supposed to fix the battery issues, but many users reported no change in the drainage pattern. Slashgear notes that there has not been a controlled test of the battery, these are all anecdotal reports. Why hasn’t there been a controlled test? Could it be because Notion ink didn’t send out any review units of their tablet? Ya think???
To add to the troubled tech firm’s woes, their design director, Andre Rodrigues, has left the building:
Nothing in his twitter feed or his online portfolio addresses his leaving NI, though; just the status info. He has moved back to Mumbai from Bangalore, and said he didn’t miss the traffic there. Rodrigues designed the Eden UI’s usage pattern. Meanwhile, users are clamoring for the taste of Honeycomb (Android OS 3.0). Vanilla honeycomb, minus the jungle of Eden.
Meanwhile, the official Notion Ink blog has a new update today, the first in a week. Honeycomb is being developed, and Eden is still a part of it. There’s a new lead on the UI, no name yet but he’s younger than CEO Rohan Shravan (who is 23). Another “major update” is coming. They’ve gotten more people to deal with patent and IP issues. And they are stress-testing their order system; news to follow on what people should do if they weren’t included in the second round of pre-orders.
Let us know in comments if you’ve actually seen an Adam is use, and what you think of it.
Source: Notion Addicts via Slashgear (image)