Live and learn...

[alexpgp]

Last year, when I was in Kazakhstan, Roy, the lead Pinkerton, was kind enough to "demo" his Samsung Note 8.0 for me. He was really pleased with his unit, and I could see why. And while I didn't end up buying the model he had, which supports a cellular SIM card and effectively turns it into not only a data terminal but a telephone as well, I eventually did buy a Note 8.0 for myself, and I use it all the time.

One of the neat accessories Roy showed me was a cable that had a male USB "B" connector at one end and a female USB 2.0 "A" connector at the other. With this cable, I can plug a thumb drive into my tablet, which is very convenient. What I didn't realize until last night, when I left the thumb drive plugged into the tablet until morning, is that the thumb drive continues to draw power even while the tablet is "sleeping" (I think the only time the unit has been "off" in recent memory was briefly during an Adroid upgrade).

That basically meant that when I picked up my tablet this morning, it was dead, dead, dead.

Fortunately, I was able to charge the battery back up. This time.

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I keep the usb transmitter unit for the wireless mouse plugged into my laptop all the time, and the laptop mostly sits on a shelf. I haven't had any problems with the battery (other than it being quite old now). I wonder if having continuous power at the usb port is specific to your Note or is common to most portable units.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

The Note is like my iPad or my phone: never really "off" unless I specifically do something to shut the unit down (typically, keep a certain button depressed for some time).

Around here, it used to be that the big drain on such units was the wifi connection, but I find that as long as I keep them fairly close to the wireless access point, the drain isn't too bad. I'm also playing around with an app that turns wifi on and off based on various factors, e.g., location, time, and so on.

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

My dumb phone doesn't seem to drain the battery much if at all when it's off, but I have a lot of things that do, like electronic calipers and an electronic level, where you have to take the battery out when you're not using it.