iPod touch Battery life question

[vwDavid]

Regarding sleep vs. shut down, are there any conclusive posts that demonstrate one or the other is better.

I'll be making an overseas trip and for periods of days I may not use my iPod but want to conserve power. I don't know if it will completely drain in sleep mode over a couple days or if its better to shut down. I have no time to test.

Any opinions?

 

[Evangelion]

They're reviewers.. they say nice things about their advertisers and the people who give them freebies. It's just business. Not really a lie, just reprinting what they've been told to say verbatim.

14 hours of battery life with wifi enabled? Not a chance. Ever.

I don't think Ars has received any "freebies". The devices they tested were purchased fair 'n square. And I haven't seen any Apple ads in their website.

So you are basically claiming that Ars is being dishonest? Like I said, that is a very bold claim to make. Ars is one of the better websites out there, and their integrity is very high.

If what you say is true, how do you explain the various negative reviews those websites make? Surely they would only publish glowing reviews so they would "please the advertizers"?

 

[LordEntropy]

Yeah, it's odd. I mean I doubt you're doing anything wrong that would take such a big hit off battery life.

The possibility about your charging method and whether perhaps you're getting a full charge is a good one, OTOH you got reasonable results with video playback. That should indicate that your battery really is pretty full when you do your tests.

I think there's got to be something unnecessarily draining your battery during music playback. Not something you're doing, but something the iPod is doing. If you think about it, it makes no sense that your music playback time would only be a little longer than video playback, since video playback is definitely more power-consuming.

Exactly what I was thinking with regards to the disparity between video and audio battery performance, it just doesn't make sense. On top of that 2 well respected websites have review figures well in excess of this makes me smell a rat.

We've had Screengate is it now time for Batterygate??

 

[vwDavid]

Exactly what I was thinking with regards to the disparity between video and audio battery performance, it just doesn't make sense. On top of that 2 well respected websites have review figures well in excess of this makes me smell a rat.

We've had Screengate is it now time for Batterygate??

Playback with Wifi enabled vs. playback with wifi disabled? Or was that already covered?

 

[LordEntropy]

Playback with Wifi enabled vs. playback with wifi disabled? Or was that already covered?

Wifi off and only around 8 hours..This was quoted I believe without and track changing etc so real life will be even less. Sounds like some really poor batteries...

 

[dazz87]

How the hell does my battery drain when it is turned off for the day. Full charge this morning and 16 hours later its down to half............ Little things like this are making me think about returning it.

 

[LordEntropy]

How the hell does my battery drain when it is turned off for the day. Full charge this morning and 16 hours later its down to half............ Little things like this are making me think about returning it.

There is definitely something fishy going on here. Had another play with one in the Regent's street Apple store in London. Played with one that had the negative screen issue and was a week 37 but overall liked it better than I did when I played with it yesterday and as I brought my own earbuds (e2cs) was able to test the sound which was good and no audible hiss.

However this battery issue is really putting me off. If the unit is switched off the battery shouldn't drain and I cannot see how Apple could hand wave this issue away, maybe we should start a poll to see how many people are affected by this?

 

[cubbie5150]

How the hell does my battery drain when it is turned off for the day. Full charge this morning and 16 hours later its down to half............ Little things like this are making me think about returning it.

Ugh... I just noticed this myself, though not quite to the extent you experienced. I fully charged touch last night, and had it in my bag all day, never turned it on. I just turned it on & the battery appears ~15-20% drained...

 

[LordEntropy]

Ugh... I just noticed this myself, though not quite to the extent you experienced. I fully charged touch last night, and had it in my bag all day, never turned it on. I just turned it on & the battery appears ~15-20% drained...

So the both of you should contact Apple and ask them WTF!!

Anyone else reading this thread would be good if you could try the same thing and post your results.

There are either some very bad batteries out there or the Touch is doing something weird when it is turned off.

 

[dazz87]

this is getting ridiculous! Had about 40% battery left when i shut it off tonight. 4 hours later I turned it back on and now I'm get a warning saying that the battery life is down to 10% WTF is going on.......Its going back to BB mad:...... Anyone else having this issue?

 

[halfgoon]

this is getting ridiculous! Had about 40% battery left when i shut it off tonight. 4 hours later I turned it back on and now I'm get a warning saying that the battery life is down to 10% WTF is going on.......Its going back to BB mad:...... Anyone else having this issue?

I sometimes get that with my 5.5G iPod. I'll use it through the day, it will have about a quarter battery life left, then I'll leave it for 4 hours and it won't turn on again. Odd.

 

[Evangelion]

IIRC, there has been reports here that touch eats batteries when switched off. And IIRC, it actually eats less batteries if you put in on standby. Sounds like a problem in the firmware or something.

 

[dazz87]

I sometimes get that with my 5.5G iPod. I'll use it through the day, it will have about a quarter battery life left, then I'll leave it for 4 hours and it won't turn on again. Odd.

I never had this issue with my 6gb ipod mini. I have a feeling the battery is still running even tho its turned off. I am going to test it out tomorrow. Full charge tonight and then will turn it on tomorrow afternoon. If it does drain its going back to Bestbuy. I understand if I had it in sleep mode and the battery drains but not when it is completely turned off....

 

[DocVT]

Shutting down apps

My iPAQ PDA would use up batteries when apps were left running. You had to turn off all the apps to have the battery hold.

I wonder if turning off the apps on the iPod touch (hold down home button for 4 or 5 seconds) would give better battery results when left idle.

Just a thought.

 

[LordEntropy]

Seems like it is still doing something when switched off.

Apple need to know about this and do something about it.

Anyone know a good way of bringing it to their attention?

 

[LordEntropy]

So anyone who has had battery problems loaded 1.1.1.1?

If so can you test to see if this has had any effect on battery life in standby as opposed to switched off?

 

[LordEntropy]

Come on Guys/Gals, anyone?

This potentially is a bigger problem than the screen as it is less obvious. They fixed that didn't they but they wont fix this unless we can put some data behind our suspicions about the battery.

 

[pantalaimon]

i have to say after the update the battery seems much better! I've been using it all morning at work, mainly listening to music and the battery still shows as being full

yesterday with the same usage battery would be down to about 65% by now

 

[LordEntropy]

i have to say after the update the battery seems much better! I've been using it all morning at work, mainly listening to music and the battery still shows as being full

yesterday with the same usage battery would be down to about 65% by now

What would be interesting would be to see if you charged it to full and then powered it off tonight whether the battery level has dropped in the morning like some people have seen. Of course this is only any good if you were seeing that behaviour before?

 

[pantalaimon]

i powered it off last night and this morning i was surprised to see it was still full...

 

[LordEntropy]

i powered it off last night and this morning i was surprised to see it was still full...

So just to clarify you can confirm that previously you had done this and when you had switched it on in the morning it had suffered some loss of battery?

 

[pantalaimon]

yeah previously a loss of 10-20%

 

[dazz87]

yeah previously a loss of 10-20%

thanks. Will try and update tonight......again lost about 10 - 20 % battery life this morning after turning it on.

 

[LordEntropy]

thanks. Will try and update tonight......again lost about 10 - 20 % battery life this morning after turning it on.

Dazz87 did you update and test the battery again?