Psion Series 5 - Battery Performance Charts by PsLight5 - Alkaline

Jon's comments : These are "Daimon Alkaline" brand batteries, from the low-price LIDL store. The results were gained from a S5, no CF, some backlight use - I was doing fairly intensive development work on the machine at the time, so processing was pretty intense throughout the test. They cost 99p for four batteries - I think you'll agree that the price-performance ratio is pretty good! :-)

Can't argue with that Jon

These have to be near the top despite the fact that they only show a 20 hour life. They were subject to extensive heavy usage doing GPS moving map with both Route Planner and RealMaps - hence less than 18 hours to the 1500 mAh mark. The 'normal' usage voltage at 1650 mAh had recovered to over 2.1V but I had to change them for some testing I was doing at the time. This (as with all my own charts) is a Series 5 classic with 12MB CF card. They're in this position because not only did they hold their voltage under severe conditions, but they were bought from Curry's at less than half the price of Duracells (£2.99 UKP for 10 cells) !

Series 5 + CF with conventional Duracells (ie. Not Ultra, No Power Indicator Strip) - useful life ~ 1700 mAh / 28 hours to 2.0V. The heavy usage at the beginning was GPS moving map followed by about an hours fun with a Mandelbrot set generator. - interesting how this type of intensive processing narrows the voltage range. I think these have a slight edge over the Tesco ones below but it's a close call and probably not worth the extra pennies for the 'copper coloured top' !

In this example I ran the batteries until my Series 5 was actually pegging out so that I could check the wrap worked and see the 30 hour point come up (WinCE users please note <g>) - however I don't recommend that you try this without backing up your data first and ensuring that your backup cell is fairly new ! In general, I think that a residual level of 2.0V with alkalines is a safe limit to aim for.

Series 5 + CF with Tesco alkalines. Note how the range of voltage levels increases as the battery is used. The heaviest usage was in the first 2-3 hours and included significant use of the backlight and moving map. Note also how switching on the backlight at around 1460 mAh dramatically dropped the voltage tipping the Psion into the 'Low' battery region. Although I only ran these for 24 hours, the 1500 mAh voltage is nearly comparable with the Duracells above.

Rather disappointing performance from these Duracells - normally only available in bulk. Typical usage for me; general use, a bit of moving map, some programming, and not much backlight use.

Well, believe it or not, this is a set of Duracell Ultra. Fairly light usage for me; mostly programming and general use, small amount of routeplanning and moving map, little backlight use. I'm not sure why these didn't even make it to the 1500mAh mark but it may be due to slightly heavier usage near the end.

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Sunday, 25 May 2003