Good but Power Hungry

HarryStottle · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 09, 2010 Posts: 2

First impressions highly favourable but the power usage is off the chart. I first noticed it this morning when the phone become pretty warm (not quite hot) after using it for a test drive of just 3 or 4 miles.

I've just driven 15 miles home from one of my main customer sites. My Blackberry Bold was on charge all afternoon and fully charged when I left. By the time I got home (25 minutes later), the battery level had dropped 25%. At that rate, however good the system is, I couldn't risk relying on it for a journey more than about 60 miles long!

Is this a unique experience or is everyone seeing a drain?

mikealder · Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:54 pm Post subject:

Any GPS device/ application running on a PDA, PND or smart phone will hammer the processor creating heat and a heavy demand on the battery.

The best approach is to power the device from the car using a charger cable, you don't mention such a cable so from the battery figures you have stated I would assume you aren't using one? - Mike

j8ke20 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 15, 2010 Posts: 39

yea man..seriously.. get a car charger

HarryStottle · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 09, 2010 Posts: 2

I have a car charger but I guess I've been spoiled. I was a Nav4All user until they lost their data access licence earlier this year. And that didn't use a tenth of the power this one uses. Having said that, it was a much simpler (turn by turn only) system which didn't do as much processing.

Also, I have to point out that this makes it pretty useless for walkers and others who don't have access to power...

SyBorg · Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2010 2:20 pm Post subject:

Interesting one to keep an eye on. I'm stuck with 4.5 at the moment as 5 doesn't work for me on my 8900. I used 4.5 to drive 1.5 hours yesterday and was surprised when I got to the airport that the battery level had hardly gone down at all (from full charge leaving the office). I wonder if v5 is more hungry than 4.5?

Bussiebaer · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 22, 2010 Posts: 1

I also would rather have a less battery-consuming turn-by-turn navigation as an option. Nav4All was great in that, I could use it without to sweat about the battery state too much. If they had their servers running, I would still use it, and not searching for an alternate like Telmap.

SyBorg · Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 8:05 am Post subject:

Alternative wise, all of these companies must be doing a lot of thinking at the moment. Google Maps voice turn-by-turn navigation is coming. It's on Android in the US and UK, and on Blackberry in the US on beta. Other platforms coming soon. I keep check ing back to see when I can get it for my 8900 in the UK.
You have to wonder what companies like Telmap can do to position their product to still make it worthwhile once the full Google product is in the wild Confused

j8ke20 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 15, 2010 Posts: 39

Syborg, i agree.

I was almost considering even buying an Android phone just to have access to that free google GPS app.

It looks amazing, but i am not sure it will ever make it to regular feature phones like the C905.

kwdunn · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 05, 2008 Posts: 8

Syborg,

You mentioned that Google Navigation is avaiable for Blackberry in the US on beta. Can't find it, so where is it (I thought it was only avaiable for the Android so far)

dliu24 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 25, 2010 Posts: 4

It's been awhile since I used Telmap, but I downloaded the latest version yesterday and got it to work.

It worked pretty well, but it was also power hungry. Even though I had my car charger plugged into my BB 8900 (AT&T), my battery meter went from 96% charged to 90% charged. That was for a 10 mile drive!

Is there a fix for this yet? Otherwise, I am happy with it.

SyBorg · Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 2:16 pm Post subject:

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