[Review Update] Notion Ink Adam Tablet

Now that I’ve had the Adam tablet for a couple of weeks now I can give some feedback on everyday use. Here’s a small update of some things I’ve noticed.

Battery life – it’s not great. Reading around on multiple forums it seems that battery life varies. I’ve seen an average of about 30% battery loss overnight while I was asleep. How could this be you ask? Very simple and very stupid; 3G radio. My Adam is a wifi-only device, however, the software is the same as a 3G Adam which means it is constantly trying to search for a 3G signal even when there is no 3G hardware. Because of that, over 70% of the battery use is devoted to Cell Standby.

How do you fix this? Well, its not really easy. First thing I did was download Root Explorer from the Market, then I navigated into system -> app. I located the apps Phone.apk and Messaging.apk (I figured Messaging would keep searching for a signal because it depends on a phone number); at first I renamed the apps, but that didn’t seem to work, then I said screw it and deleted them. Once you delete the Phone.apk you will get a constant force close, restart the Adam and it’ll be fine. Did it work? ehh, kinda not really. I no longer see Cell Standby under battery use, instead I see Phone Idle. I’ve read that Phone idle isn’t the same and it isn’t burning any battery, but I’m skeptical. The Archos 101 doesn’t have Phone Idle listed so naturally I assume its still causing problems.

Next steps in trying to fix this, I flash a ROM called Perf Tweaked by StephenH over at Notionhacks.com. He states that there is a line in build.prop that needs to be altered to turn off the network connection. Build.prop can be found in the system folder. The line that needs to be altered is toward the bottom and it’s setprop persisit.ril-off 1. You have to make sure that it says 1 and not 0. Once you restart then you’re “suppose” to be good. It still shows the cell phone signal in the notification bar and it still shows Phone Idle.

My final (well almost final) solution was to download an app called Airplane Mode Wi-fi. This app makes your device able to run Wifi while also in Airplane mode so it disables the 3G radio (that doesn’t exist). It no longer says Phone Idle under Battery Use. Now my Adam’s biggest juice suckers is Display and Wifi.. until you restart, then its back to Phone Idle because the Airplane mode is no longer on. Pain in the ass, either way I still don’t think it’s helped much, the Adam has been on for about 4 hours now and I’m down to 72%.

So here’s my next step, I’m going to be installing a ROM called Utopia which is a completely stock Google experience (Froyo) with some Gingerbread theming sprinkled about. I figure maybe Eden is chewing up my battery so maybe a new install with everything stripped out will help. We’ll see, I’ll install that next and write up another update with a review of the ROM, hopefully I’ll see some improvements. Right now it looks like the Archos 101 is murdering the Adam in the battery department. I watched the entire movie Inception while on a plane and it only burned about 15% or so. Hopefully the ROM helps, if not, I hope Notion Ink releases an update for us wifi only chaps.

Cheers!

-Kevin Does.