iPod battery lasts about six hours - is this normal?

[Phil_S]

I recently picked up a 10Gb (3G) iPod and so far I've been really pleased with it. There's just one thing - I'll only get about six hours of play out of it before having to recharge. I appreciate that the battery times given in the specs (8 hours) tend towards the optimistic, but I was wondering if this was pretty normal.

I'll normally just listen to a few albums right through, without jumping around. I don't really use the backlight or EQ either, if this makes much difference...

Cheers in advance...

 

[AWNR]

I usually get around 6-7 hours of battery-life on my 20GB 3G iPod. If I'm really pining for an extra hour or so -- once the "low battery" icon appears -- I simply turn off the EQ and Soundcheck, and reset the Contrast setting to 50%.

All those factor in to how long the iPod can keep up. Also, the low battery icon appears while there's still a bit of charge left (usually 30 minutes to a whole hour) on current settings.

If you're carrying it around in your pocket anyway, and not constantly changing songs manually, you can probably leave the contrast relativly low. The LCD takes up a lot of charge, in the long run.

 

[hob]

ditto!!

 

[janey]

if you listen to long songs (i think around 10 minutes or more) your battery will die sooner.
The hard drive in the iPod isnt always on, it is active until it can copy around 10 to 15 minutes (maybe even 20) worth of songs to memory so it can play the songs using the smallest amount of power possible.
You can see this for yourself...Listen to around 15 seconds of a song, then go to the next song, then hit the fast forward thing a few more times. Your iPod will stall as it looks for the song on the hard drive and copies it so it can play the song for you.
As a result, if you listen to a long song, the hard drive will constantly be active sucking up battery power...

On the other hand, the length of time a battery can hold a charge will decrease as time goes on (look at all those battery complaints from 1g and 2g iPod owners ) and its a natural thing (those idiots are treating the iPod battery as though its a long lasting eternal thing, they wouldnt make the same fuss if they realized that the iPod battery is like a laptop battery...just as if not more expensive), so if that ever happens rest assured you can always open your iPod and replace the battery for a mere $80 or so.

Tips for making your iPod battery last:
dont use the backlight, or soundcheck. Set contrast to the minimum you can stand. The equalizer should be off, and the songs you should be listening to should be relatively short (a 20 minute long song will drain the battery).
Don't recharge it all the time, recharge when needed. Try not to play games and do half the stuff in the Extras folder. Once you listen to a song try not to change the song/volume as much as possible. Once you are done listening to your iPod, turn it off. Good luck

 

[brhmac]

You can save battery juice by ....

just letting it play. In other words, using the "next" and the "previous" buttons to move through songs vs. letting the selected playlist do the work seems to activate the hard drive more and drain the battery faster. My iPod (30 gb) is about 9 months old and I get 7 hours +, if memory serves, when I let it be.

 

[paulsecic]

When will Apple make new Imacs? Macworld was disapointing. I can't afford one until May.

 

[Capt Underpants]

Originally posted by paulsecic
When will Apple make new Imacs? Macworld was disapointing. I can't afford one until May.

What in the world does this have to do with battery life?

Anyways, I have a 3G 10 GB version and I get about 6 or 7 hours.