# Kindle Paperwhite battery issues



## L K Jay

Hello, I've just bought myself an shiny new Kindle Paperwhite and I absolutely love it.

The thing is, I thought the battery was supposed to last two months but it's nearly empty after only two weeks.

Has anyone else suffered this issue?


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## Morf

IIRC the 2 months claim is based on using it half an hour a day with the light set somewhere in the middle.

If you read a lot more, or have the light a lot brighter, the life will be shorter.

I use mine for maybe 1.5-2 hrs per day with the light usually down at 6 or so, and get easily 3 weeks plus.

Contrary to the advice given by Amazon, I actually prefer the light to be quite low in normal daylight (just enough so the background is pale grey not the greeny-grey of the e-ink screen) and only turn it up in low light if I need it.


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## Ann in Arlington

It's also the case that the battery is likely to drain faster than 'normal' when you first get it because you're probably loading more books more frequently.  It will index everything you load on it and that will affect battery life.

It also makes a difference for some people whether the wireless is left on or off. My experience with a wifi only kindle, is that having wireless on doesn't have much affect as long as the device is mostly in a place where there's a good known signal.  If I spend too much time out of a wifi area, though, it will drain a bit faster because it periodically checks and can't find a network.  When i had a 3G kindle it was even worse -- seemed like there was even more battery use for the 3G radio to search for signals.


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## tsemple

Also note that leaving wireless on (as I do) will drain the battery faster. I don't mind charging it more often in exchange for having ready access to wikipedia and other wireless enabled features.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk HD


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## Betsy the Quilter

I think the main problems is Amazon's (and B&N's) metric of half an hour a day for thirty days does not reflect reality.  Most people who buy Kindles are Readers, and most Readers will read more than 1/2 hour a day.  So they're not likely to ever get 30 days out of a battery no matter their settings.

That being said, as long as I get a week or two out of my battery before having to recharge, I'm happy.  I think that's great battery life for a daily use gizmo.

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> That being said, as long as I get a week or two out of my battery before having to recharge, I'm happy. I think that's great battery life for a daily use gizmo.
> 
> Betsy


Agreed. . . especially considering that my tablets all have to be recharged at least every day or two.


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## Linjeakel

I have a 3G PW and I keep the light up quite high and the wireless is always on - but I'm happy if I get a week out it. It's really no trouble to put it on charge overnight every now and then. Even if I get caught short and get the low battery warning while I'm out and about, turning off the wireless usually makes it last more than long enough till I can get it charged.

I can only see it being a problem if you're travelling somewhere where you're likely to be without access to electricity for a longer period than your battery lasts - and frankly that would highly unlikely for most people.

As Betsy said, for a device that gets pretty hefty daily use, the battery life is actually very good.


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## ChrisWard

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I think the main problems is Amazon's (and B&N's) metric of half an hour a day for thirty days does not reflect reality. Most people who buy Kindles are Readers, and most Readers will read more than 1/2 hour a day. So they're not likely to ever get 30 days out of a battery no matter their settings.
> 
> That being said, as long as I get a week or two out of my battery before having to recharge, I'm happy. I think that's great battery life for a daily use gizmo.
> 
> Betsy


Yeah, the six weeks' battery life was a myth that threw me too. However, I'm one of those that only reads about half an hour a day so it does last a while. I got it in January and have only charged it about four times. It's a darn sight better than my iPhone too, which is done after an hour or so of hard internet usage.


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## Alice Coyl

My husband reads occasionally and his Paperwhite battery goes down even without use. I've checked all the settings, the airplane mode is on and the amazon.com case closes properly so the light goes off but still it drains. Any suggestions? Could this be a defect? This has happened at least three times. I charged it last week and today it was dead.


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## Ann in Arlington

Often when a device is discharging more rapidly that would be expected, it's because there's at least one book it's trying to index and can't for some reason -- usually a corrupted file. The kindle will work on indexing even when 'sleeping' and doesn't need to have WiFi on to do so.

The corruption might not make the book unreadable on the device, but gives the indexing process fits.  Also, any time you move things into and out of collections re-indexing occurs and battery drain will be somewhat higher for a short while after that.

To check for a book that is stuck, search on a nonsense word -- something that doesn't exist in English.  You should get a response that it's not found but, more to the  point it will tell you if there were any items not indexed that it couldn't search in.  If you touch that line it's a link which will give you a list of the books not indexed.  

When you page through, you'll come upon one that's grayed out.  That's the problem child.  The easiest fix is to note the title, go back to home, search for it, remove it from the device and then check indexing again.  

You may have more than one problem child so repeating the index check will discover them.  

When indexing is complete, you can re-download any books you'd deleted and check as you do so that they are indexing properly.


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## Atunah

I have to charge my PW 3G about every 3 or 4 days. I have the light always at 5 and I only turn on wifi when I download something, otherwise its always off. 
It was the same though with me K3. 

I read at size 5 though, counting from the left, so I use more page turns. 

It what I expect now from my kindles, at its been always like that. As long as I can go for 2 days, I would be cool. 

I don't let my battery go all the way down though, I like to charge when its around a 1/3 left. Or what I assume is a 1/3, since its so hard to tell without percentage. 

If I see it below 50%, I just top it off so I can start a new day with a full battery. 

Other than that I stopped worrying about the batteries mostly. My K3 is going on 3 years now, and the battery seems to be about the same as it was.


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## Alice Coyl

Ann in Arlington said:


> Often when a device is discharging more rapidly that would be expected, it's because there's at least one book it's trying to index and can't for some reason -- usually a corrupted file. The kindle will work on indexing even when 'sleeping' and doesn't need to have WiFi on to do so.
> 
> The corruption might not make the book unreadable on the device, but gives the indexing process fits. Also, any time you move things into and out of collections re-indexing occurs and battery drain will be somewhat higher for a short while after that.
> 
> To check for a book that is stuck, search on a nonsense word -- something that doesn't exist in English. You should get a response that it's not found but, more to the point it will tell you if there were any items not indexed that it couldn't search in. If you touch that line it's a link which will give you a list of the books not indexed.
> 
> When you page through, you'll come upon one that's grayed out. That's the problem child. The easiest fix is to note the title, go back to home, search for it, remove it from the device and then check indexing again.
> 
> You may have more than one problem child so repeating the index check will discover them.
> 
> When indexing is complete, you can re-download any books you'd deleted and check as you do so that they are indexing properly.


My husband only has two books on his Paperwhite. It is new and the only other things on it are the dictionaries. He said he looked at it two days ago and it was fine and appeared fully charged. Today, he got the "low battery" message. We are charging it right now and will monitor it very carefully. If this continues, I will contact support to replace it.


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## Betsy the Quilter

Alice Coyl said:


> My husband only has two books on his Paperwhite. It is new and the only other things on it are the dictionaries. He said he looked at it two days ago and it was fine and appeared fully charged. Today, he got the "low battery" message. We are charging it right now and will monitor it very carefully. If this continues, I will contact support to replace it.


Have you checked to see if something is indexing, as Ann mentioned? Sometimes books get stuck indexing and it will run the battery down. See Ann's post for how to check.

Betsy


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## tsemple

Make sure the light goes off when you press the power button to put it to sleep. On a few occasions my Paperwhite light has failed to go off but I did not notice until I had it in a dark room, as I usually keep the light level pretty low. Obviously that will drain the battery. Restarting has always fixed this. 

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk HD


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## Alice Coyl

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Have you checked to see if something is indexing, as Ann mentioned? Sometimes books get stuck indexing and it will run the battery down. See Ann's post for how to check.
> 
> Betsy


Yes, I have. We are watching the battery closely now. He is not using it until we know what is happening. I put a nonsense word in search and nothing came up. I have deleted the books he has and will download them again. I noticed that the battery has gone down slightly since yesterday's charge.


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## sebat

Alice Coyl said:


> Yes, I have. We are watching the battery closely now. He is not using it until we know what is happening. I put a nonsense word in search and nothing came up. I have deleted the books he has and will download them again. I noticed that the battery has gone down slightly since yesterday's charge.


I had a bad battery in my Fire.

I'd call Amazon CS even if your aren't sure there's something wrong with it. They might not do anything on the first call except have you reset it, but at least your complaint will be logged. They sent me a new charger after my first call, then when I called with the same issue the second time I received a replacement. As long as it's under a year old, you shouldn't have any problems getting a replacement from them. The one thing I wouldn't do is not use my Kindle.

I only get about a week to week and a half on my KPW because I read quite a bit. My husband who is lucky if he gets in 30 minutes of reading a day, I don't remember the last time we charged his.


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## Alice Coyl

I downloaded the latest update, 5.3.5 and will see if that helps.


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## Betsy the Quilter

How's it going, Alice?

Betsy


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## OldPingHai

Replying to "reply #9"...are you saying that there is a way to check for all books not indexing properly at one time? That would be really helpful, but I don't understand the instruction/directions.


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## Ann in Arlington

OldPingHai said:


> Replying to "reply #9"...are you saying that there is a way to check for all books not indexing properly at one time? That would be really helpful, but I don't understand the instruction/directions.


To check to see if books are not indexed, do a search for a word that doesn't exist -- like a random bunch of letters: xprms or qlgyc. It should, fairly quickly, tell you that it couldn't find it and will say if there are any items not indexed.

If it says items are not indexed, tap that line and it'll list the ones that are not finished.

If you page through you should see one (or more) grayed out when the others are not, or vice versa. Chances are that one is the one that is possibly a corrupt file and causing the indexing to hang. If you go back to the home page and delete it from the device, that will let indexing continue.

Then you can re-download a fresh, hopefully non-corrupt, copy.


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