I have been trying out the new Duracell batteries designed for
high drain devices.  Hal Goldstein from the Palmtop Paper was
kind enough to send me some to try.  I have run two sets of
them through my palmtop.  I also did two sets of Lithium
batteries and one set of standard alkalines.  I used each set
until the palmtop's low battery warning went off.  I monitored
these trials with a program called Battlog.  This program makes
a graph of battery voltage vs. time.  I have captured these
graphs as *.pcx files and uploaded these pcx files to the
library as a self-extracting archive called TESTBATT.EXE.  They
can be viewed on the palmtop with LXPIC.  You can also see them
on a 200LX by going into Setup (CTRL-FILER) and pressing F4
(Owner) F8 (Picture) and pointing to the file.  This will make
it the Topcard that shows when all System Manager applications
are closed.

My system is a DS 32 Meg 200LX.  I usually check my E-mail once
a day or so using batteries.  I use one of two PCMCIA 14.4
modems for a 60-90 second acCIS 4.0 run.  For longer modem use I
use the AC adaptor.

Some impressions.  The standard alkalines lasted about 18 hours.
 Both sets of new Duracells lasted about 28 hours.  The Lithiums
lasted about 38 hours.  I was not able to run either of my
PCMCIA modems with the regular alkalines.  The palmtop showed a
low battery warning right when I plugged in the modem.  The new
Duracells were able to provide the high current required for
online runs fairly well.  Notice the sharp downward spikes in
the voltage on the graphs.  The new Duracells did better than
the regular alkalines, but still had some voltage drops.  I was
able to run the modem closer to the "end of life" of the
Lithiums than with the new Duracells.

Overall, I found the new Duracells nearly as good as Lithiums
for powering my palmtop with intermittent PCMCIA modem use.  The
regular alkalines lasted about half as long as the Lithiums, but
didn't have to run the modem (since they couldn't anyway).  The
new Duracells lasted about 75% as long as the Lithiums and were
able to run the modem.

 The pcx files in the archive are:
 Alkaline.pcx:  the alkaline battery voltage graph
 Duracel1.pcx:  the first set of new Duracells
 Duracel2.pcx:  the second set of new Duracells
 Lithium1.pcx:  the first set of Lithiums
 Lithium2.pcx:  the second set of Lithiums
 NiMH.pcx:      my normal usage pattern with rechargeable NiMH


Steve Carder