After 5 years of using this phone, you'd think I'd had figured this out by now ...

When I go traveling to a place that doesn't have US CDMA coverage (international, remote US), I power off the phone function of my i500 so it doesn't waste energy looking for a signal. I still use it for the Palm PIM functions of course.

Sometimes I'll go traveling and will pack up the phone and not look at if for days. With the phone function powered off, and the phone "closed", I'd expect that it would be consuming next to no power. Yet upon retrieving the phone, I find that it's completely dead. After charging it (or sticking in my backup battery) and powering it up, it is completely wiped and has none of my data in it.

Of course I can recover the data the next time I do a sync, but typically I'm returning from a long trip (e.g. at the airport) and won't be able to do that for a couple more hours or days. But I need my PIM data!

Has anyone figured out a way to prevent the phone from blowing its brains out like this? Power saving tips? I'm already turning off the phone function. I could check the calendar and make sure there's no alarms to kick in and start draining the device. Anything else?

This isn't the answer you were looking for, I'm sure, but I usually bring a spare battery with me, and often a USB cord so that I can recharge the phone from my laptop while I'm away.

Making sure the beam receive option is off is usually suggested. Turn the brightness down as low as you can stand so you use less power when you do open it...not much else you can do

OK, thanks guys

I used to do the USB cable thing too. Then one trip I somehow misplaced the cable, and suddenly found myself about to start a very busy weekend in Chicago with a dying phone.

Come to think of it, that was exactly 2 years ago today. I posted in this forum and one of the guys here actually met me at an L station and gave me his charger!

And I found the missing USB cable just last month when cleaning out a dark corner of my office.

Now I double check the presence of the USB cable in my bag when packing, AND I have an extra travel charger just in case. Lord, this phone is important to me :/

IIRC, you will be better off by truly powering the i500 totally OFF (no PalmOS running). You can briefly remove the battery, then replace quickly. That shuts down PalmOS and it won't reboot until you press the PWR/END key once.

Also... 1) an extended i500 battery will give you nearly twice the battery life, 2) if you're really going where the CDMA part of the i500 is pointless, you might consider bringing a Palm PDA instead... in such cases, I often bring my old PalmV PDA... the battery lasts much longer and I don't really care if it gets lost/stolen/damaged. PalmV's are pretty cheap these days...

Ohhhh, good power off tip there, thanks!

Just a followup ... monkeyboy's tip worked great for me. I went on an overseas trip, and when I came back and turned on the phone after we landed, it still had my data in it. Thanks again!