Have you ever been using your iPAQ when all of a sudden a warning message comes up that indicates that you are low on power? If you have been engrossed in a program, game or just surfing the net and that message appears from nowhere, it sort of takes you back a bit if you’re not anticipating it.
All of a sudden you need to “shut down” and find a source to recharge your iPAQ. Hopefully you’re at home or the office and have your charger available so you can get that much needed surge of power into your device. Of course, with my luck, I would be in a situation where I needed to continue to complete that task I was working on and now I am faced with a potential disaster — no power. What is worse is that if I were in a location where I couldn’t get to a power source — what then?
I suppose a spare battery is a possible solution. If I could carry an extra battery, then if I was faced with a low power situation then I could at least change the battery to be able to continue with my task and avoid disaster. Having a spare battery is really not a bad idea even if you never use it; it certainly is a comfort knowing that you have the ability to continue with what you were doing after a quick battery change.
Although changing a battery “mid-stream” is a solution, is that really the best solution? For several years, I have adapted what I was doing or going to do because of the limited battery life I had on my iPAQ. I would use my iPAQ everywhere I went but if was always careful to make sure I was at full charge before I began a task. If I was not at a full charge, I adapted — that is to say, I either didn’t do what I wanted to do or found a power source to bring myself up to full power.
Truly this process, even though it worked, was an inconvenience. There had to be a better solution. I had given serious thought to an extended battery and eventually had given to me at Christmas, an extended battery that gave me more power than I had with the stock battery that comes with the 4700. However, I was surprised at how it came.
It was a larger battery but the extended back was empty. The design was a battery the same length and width of the stock battery but had a deeper measurement. A new back cover came with it but it was a silly design — it was filled with a large void space. Why? It made no sense to have an extended battery with a new cover that was large and EMPTY.
It was just a design feature I guess — dumb as it was, I had more power than before so I was able to perform additional tasks without too much fear of running out of power. But then that day did occur and I was not a happy camper. There was no question in my mind that if that battery was larger, that is, if it had extended into the void space of the back cover, I would have never run into that problem.