14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that the period of time an e-reader can run for before its battery gets depleted is an issue that companies selling such things are taking quite seriously, as proven by a recent couple of statements.
While Amazon has had its current-generation Kindle e-book reader out and about for quite a while, Barnes and Noble brought out its newest Nook quite a short time ago.
Both products have their assets, but it seems that a misunderstanding of sorts emerged in the wake of the latter's announcement.
B&N said that the new Nook can last for up to two months on a single battery charge, but Amazon thought that was made to sound more extraordinary that it should have, based on some assumptions regarding usage.
Amazon thought the equation used to set the Nook life to 2 months involved just 30 minutes of reading per day and keeping the wireless always off. It also revised its own battery life numbers according to this perceived formula.
“A single charge lasts up to two months with wireless off based upon a half-hour of daily reading time. If you read for one hour a day, you will get battery life of up to one month. Keep wireless always on and it lasts for up to 10 days. Battery life will vary based on wireless usage, such as shopping the Kindle Store, Web browsing, and downloading content. In low-coverage areas or in EDGE/GPRS-only coverage, wireless usage will consume battery power more quickly.”
Barnes and Noble took note and responded quickly to this act, saying that the Nook's battery life is still about twice as long as that of the Kindle.
“With up to two months on a single charge, the all-new Nook has the longest battery life in the industry and superior battery performance to Kindle 3. In our side-by-side tests, under the exact same conditions, continuous use of the device resulted in more than two times Kindle's battery life,” Jamie Iannone, president of Barnes & Noble Digital Products, reportedly stated.
“While reading at one page a minute, the all-new Nook battery lasts for 150 hours, where the Kindle battery, using the same page-turn rate, lasts for only 56 hours (both with Wi-Fi off). We've also done a continuous page turn test and at one page turn per second, the all-new Nook offers more than 25,000 continuous page turns on a single charge.”