Extending iPAQ battery life for walking

[hornist]

Just thought I'd ask about 2 different options for extending battery life on my iPAQ 5550 for when I want to go out walking with Fugawi. I can get up to about 3-4 hours off the built in battery if I don't use backlighting at all, but it's touch and go. I want to get up to about 6 hours, which is then comparable to the life of the BT GPS recevier. Note that I also want to add CF capability to the PDA, but wouldn't need to use it when out walking.

Most readliy available options seem to be:

1. Carry a 'battery extender' with 4 NiMH AAs in it, and plug in when iPAQ's own battery is getting critical. Buy a separate CF jacket for when I want to read the CFs from my camera.

2. Buy a CF jacket that has extra battery built in (e.g. NexiPak Dual CF and PowerPak). However these look quite bulky to be carrying on a walk.

Does anyone have any experiences of either, in terms of:
- size and portability
- how much extended battery life can be achieved

Thanks,
Paul

[nej]

I'm sure you can get some "Battery Saver" type software that can switch off the screen without switching off the IPAQ. Then you could do that when not actually looking at it (as presumably you are watching where you are walking and not staring at the pretty moving dot on the map!) and then just press the button or whatever to bring the display back up when you want it.

I stand ready to be corrected, though.

[Dave]

I think option 1 would be the best option. It's not the most attractive and it will mean that you have a cable coming out from a battery pack to your iPAQ, but it will give you around 3 complete charges of your iPAQ extending the battery life by 3 more times! So if you're getting min of 3 hours out of it now, then you should then get around 12 hours :D

For a more compact setup then the external sleeve would be good, but I don't think you'll get as many hours as a battery pack, and the beauty of it is most coats have tons of little pockets that are easily big enough on the sleeves to place 4xAA batteries in as spares, so there's no reason why you couldn't go for 24 hours.

If you went for the battery pack and you wanted a more rugged PPC then using an Otter Armor box like the 3600 would be good, and you could easily place the battery pack under the iPAQ.

We've got reviews on both the AA battery pack and the Armor 3600 on the site.

[hornist]

Many thanks Dave. Very helpful advice!

Paul

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!