palm m515 battery/charging issues

[kayetie]

It seems that my palm m515 is not holding it's battery charge anymore, nor is it charging correctly. I use to be able to charge my palm for a half our, and I would have a full battery/charge that would last me a week when needed. Now I am having to charge this thing EVERYDAY, and I have not been using it any differently. I will look at a document in WordToGo, and after editing a few lines I close it, and check my battery, which will now be around 80% in less than 2 minutes of use. And now has to sit in it's cradle to charge for over 2 hours to completely charge the battery back up to 100%.

Has anyone else had this issue?

I am planning on sending back my palm, and my cradle to have them checked within the next couple of days, but I would still like everyone's input on this.

Thanks,

Kayetie

[Dave Langston]

If you are depending on the "battery gauge" to tell you the state of its charge, you might need to recalibrate the gauge. Simply put the M515 on the cradle and soft reset it, then allow it to charge on the cradle for two hours.

If this trick doesn't fix your battery problems, then seek warranty service from Palm.

[kayetie]

I sent back my palm m515, and they sent me back a broken palm. I am still under warranty. And they have promised me a replacement palm (refurbished), and that I would have it today, and that I would receive an email the night before showing a tracking number, etc. NOTHING!!!

Why is palm lying to me??????????? And why won't they send me my refurbished replacement like they said they would???????

I will NEVER EVER tell anyone to buy palm again....

Is this what they want?

I will be putting up a web page on how I'm getting screwed by palm, and how I am continuing to be screwed by palm.

[kayetie]

Palm finally sent me a refurbished palm m515... given it arrived DOA (Dead On Arival)... I let it charge for over 12 hours in my cradle. Checked it today, the damn thing freezes at random, and whenever you push the up and down buttons it freezes forcing you to soft / hard reset it. I have soft reset, and hard reset the refurbished m515 more than twice. I have emailed them today concerning this.

This is the second lemmon that palm has sent me...

[Jennifer S]

It behaves this way even after a hard reset (before you HotSync to restore)? I'm sorry. Hopefully they will escalate your case and double-check the next one.

[kayetie]

I had to escalate my case in order to get the refurbished palm m515 that I have now that is broken. I am now corresponding with palm corporate. I'm getting even more pissed off the higher I go up the food chain.

[Jennifer S]

Let me know if it isn't resolved promptly - I'll see what I can do.

[kayetie]

Thanks, Jennifer. I am going to be calling John Ward @ Corporate tomorrow and see what happens.

[kayetie]

2/10/2003:
No email or phone call from "CSO AE" - Norm. Called John Ward @ corporate he transfered me to Matt Tarzon in corporate escalations. Told him the WHOLE sad story. Said, he was VERY sorry, and is sending a bran new palm m515 by Wednesday.

- Knocking on wood!

[hassi]

Originally posted by kayetie
It seems that my palm m515 is not holding it's battery charge anymore....

Has anyone else had this issue?

Interesting you should post this, since I came to the forum tonight to post a similiar experience.

I use to benchmark ~6 hours of use according to Battery Bench 2, a program that stresses the palm's battery life to the max and puts far more stress on the battery than any user could under normal operating conditions. In actual use I would routinely get 24+ hours of "on" time, and several days of sleep time.

Now I get about 3 hours of on time, probably less than an hour if I were to run Battery Bench 2.

I believe the LiIon battery has simply lost it's charge slowly over time (about 10 months), a purposeful design "defect" (in my opinion) that will insure Palm will receive expensive service requests for very cheap battery swaps for many years to come once the warranties expire on these units.

I was very disappointed in Palm to see them go with LiIon batteries and no longer offer a color Palm using standard AAA batteries, and this just furthers my dissatisfaction.

Yes yes I know the internal rechargeable battery the m515 uses offer more power than two AAAs and those would require more frequent recharging (or replacement), but at least I would be able to simply replace them rather than remember to charge the Palm on the cradle for two hours every couple days.