"Real-world" battery life of Go 720?

[EAJack]

I used my 720 yesterday on my trips to and from work. Total driving time of an hour or less. I turned it off when I got home, but left it in the car. The 720 was charged the night before. This morning, I turned it on, and within seconds I got the green "battery dead" screen and the unit powered off. I didn't even have the "low battery" icon in the corner of the screen yesterday.

The 720 lists battery life at 5 hours. What is the "real-world" battery life of the unit? I'm guessing to get a full 5 hours, you need to have the brightness turned down to 10%, mute the speaker, and turn off the screen between turns. (Who ever does that anyway?)

Well, my unit is set to 80% brightness (daytime) and the screen stays on all the time. I also have Bluetooth on for my phone. Am I just going to have to live with the cord dangling all over the place?

[Tim]

See this thread and then this thread.

[EAJack]

Thanks Tim. I did a search, but limited it to the TT GO forum. Guess I should have looked a little broader.

I'll play around with my brightness and turn off Bluetooth as it's not working well with my phone anyway. I don't think my Verizon Palm Treo 700wx is a supported device. I'll check out the other settings too, but I think they are okay.

[smitti1]

I had a similar thing happen this morning when leaving the dentist office.  I think the symbol that showed up was a battery & it shut off at each attempt.  I had left it in the car for nearly two hours.  After it warmed up it started back up just fine.  I'm guessing that TT didn't like 32 deg for nearly 2 hours.

[EAJack]

I disabled my Bluetooth and turned the brightness way down. On my first test from a full charge I got 3-3.5 hours before the 720 shut itself off. Most of the run time was at night, so the screen was using the dimmest setting.

On my second test, I only got 2-2.5 hours out of it. But most of the run time was during the day, so the screen was at the daytime brightness, which I think it set to around 20-25% so I can see it in the sunlight.

Either way, It's looking like plugging the 720 into the car charger is going to be required for any sort of trips. I'm a bit dissapointed, as with the advertised 5 hour battery, I figured I could knock off any trip running off battery alone. Even an afternoon or running errands (several short trips) isn't possible on batteries alone, even if I turn the unit off between legs.

Oh well.

[racesarabhorses]

I don't know about you, but my Tom Tom 720 turns itself on automatically when powered off the correct way earlier in the day. It is going back tomorrow, and I'm going to keep searching for a GPS. Unfortunate, because I like the 720.

My battery life has been terrible--similar trouble to yours.