V1s battery wear, stop one from buying it?

Hey all,
Read that not only a few, but many of the v1s owners complain about battery wear.
I'm wondering how serious it is, how it effects your usage and if you'd recommend me to wait/look around for aternatives or well.. just go ahead and buy.
And also, i don't think i've fully understood it, what exactly happens with battery wear?

The thing is i really like v1s size/performance but if the problem with the battery is serious i'm concidering the g1s.
Would the g1s extra weight and size (i'm content with v1s performance so the extra with the g1s is no deal breaker) be worth not having a troubled v1s?

thanks

 

Actually, It was decided there is no battery wear on the V1S, The V1JP does though. The problem with the V1s battery is that occasionally when you have both the main, and modular batteries in at the same time, it will kill the main battery.

That said though, the V1s ACPI drivers are pretty badly made, Unless you recalibrate the battery fairly often they will report the battery holds less than it does, it still holds 100% but the software might show 90%, As the battery drains down it will correct itself (I saw my capacity increase on battery once XD)

 

matt is quite correct. But I have doubts about the "occasionally" adjective w.r.t. "main kills modular" issue. I think it should rather be 'regularly', 'consistently', or 'in every known instance'.

Battery wear is (designed max charge - currently held max charge) / designed max charge * 100, in percent. This will grow above 0 percent as batteries get older. In the ASUS batteries with the wear problem, the wear increases abnormally fast and cannot be reversed.

In the V1S, the wear increases abnormally fast but it is fake (firmware bug) and can be reversed.

 

In SOME V1S...

Mine did never show abnormal values. But even if yours shows wear levels of 10% and more - don't worry, it's just a driver bug and does not constrain usability.

 

Kill... as in main battery becomes useless and you have to buy a new one?
So if i understand it correct, this kinda big time defeats them batteries purpose?
I can no longer hope to prolong v1s runtime by using an extra modular battery?

In any case, a v1s without modular battery is the perfect companion?
No other - serious - issues?

 

Yes, you understand correctly. Because of this defect, modular batt for V1S is useless (even damaging).

As to how perfect it is, that's up to you to decide, considering your needs.

 

I doubt that there is any better companion you can get for this price. The V1S is simply perfect (within the 15,4" class, of course).

You can prolong battery life by using another main battery. Same price but nearly 100% lifetime increase compared to the 50% a modular battery can deliver.

 

Sure but you have to carry that as an extra...

 

Of course. But it is quite slim and if you need very long battery life it is worth to put it in your bag.
I would prefer it because it gives me more lifetime while I can still use my 2nd HDD. It is a question of what you need, but anways, as the modular batteries are still faulty a 2nd main battery is the only possibility right now.

This makes my decision between main and modular battery more easy, because price is the same

 

Heh indeed
I'd love a modular bay on my V6J. I barely ever use the ODD... but I would have a lot of use for a 2nd HDD or even a battery. And my next computer will certainly be sub-14" so not much hope for a modular bay.

 

Tank you all for your replies.

I don't really need THAT much juice in my everyday use since i'll almost be corded, but for them rare occasions which you don't really expect, i MIGHT need say 2-3h someday, and when that day comes i don't want to be stranded with a laptop where you _can't_ get 2h (As with c90 for instance).

So, i guess a v1s with occasional (frequent?) recalibration will do well.
Oh, speaking of recalibration, is it a tiresome process?
And how often is "fairly often"?

 

No problem with V1S.

Most V1S do not need any recalibration at all.
As mine does not need recalibration, I can't answer your other questions

EDIT: I am using mine for about 3h with typing and turning on WLAN several times for some minutes at screen brightness set "not too low". I am doing this about once or twice a week.

 

Thank you very much!
Man i think i've finally come to the end of this laptoptunneldjungel, light oh light i see you!!
V1s order to be placed tomorrow

Only thing i don't like about the v1s is its lack of speed buttons.
I'm used to this HP i have here with dedicated volume buttons (when turning on the audiobook at night i don't want to fipple with FN + BTN, two hands?? noo) plus a remote.
But... I guess that's what makes life so interesting

 

The recalibration just effects what you see, it dosent effect performance, You will get the same battery life (100%) but it will read it to be less as it drops, so you dont need to recalibrate unless your retentive .

A new batch of modular batteries has been released by Asus so hopefully they will fix the problem.

 

Do you have any news when they will be available?
And of course, ther SN, so that we don't buy the old ones accidentally?

 

Someone posted the new SN a while ago, in the battery wear thread I beleive, My first modular battery died, they gave me a replacement and the replacement killed my main battery, I think the original modular battery worked though, so I think the newer one is from the bad batch that killed other V1s

 

Very bad. This means there are batteries from different batches out there... How can we identify the right ones?
I hope the SN posted helps.