iPod touch IPod Touch 2G - Battery Life

[Undefined]

Great battery life

I think 2-3 hours of game battery life is good because they use accelerometer, video, and speaker/headphones. I watched 2 movies (2 hours long and 1 hour 30 minutes long) and listen to music for about 2 hours. Had 20% battery life. For such a small device with so many options i think the battery life is great. I guess if you HAVE to play games constantly and watch movies constantly than this device is not for you. But I see it as an MP3 player that can also play games and movies. So you can expect greater performance on the music devision.

 

[mrdurdenad]

Well lately i've been doing some tests with my 2g's battery life, and here are my findings:
Contnious music and occasional os browsing to select songs: 36:05, just as apple claims, and I did browse for songs quite a bit.

Video: 5:35 with wifi off and brightness at %70

Wifi: 3:45 continuous use refreshing forum page every 30 seconds or so, and a couple of YouTube vids. Brightness also at 70 and no location services or push.

Games: 3:05 running koi pond and about 6 taptap revenge songs. Probably less with a game like cromag or spore.

In conclusion it could do better with apps and wifi. But I bought I mostly for music and it holds charge great for that. One thing I did notice is than when playing games it gets considerably warm almost hot. Especially with Cromag or tap tap, also durin the first hour of charging the battery, with videos and music this doesn't occur at all though, is this normal behaviour?

Hope this info was helpfull

Adrian d

 

[ofiaich]

Hi mrdurdenad ! You say 36:05 ! so just more than 36 hours?

I am searching about battery drainage and have read many threads. Don't want to post in all of them ! People will be angry with me if I did that !

I have an iPod Touch 32 ist gen. I have WiFi off and fetch data off...

so do I understand correctly, I can expect 30 hours of music only?

Last night I watched video's on my Touch and the battery level dropped quickly, but I didn't note a percentage, because I was on my 3rd beer !

Thanks, back to my searching !

edit - found this thread - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/570503/ interesting !

Ofiaich

 

[Jiadin]

Having the same problem too.
After playing Lux touch for one hour, Wi-Fi on, Aut. Fetch on, the battery goes down 20%..!

I'll try playing it with Wi-Fi and Aut. Fetch off.

 

[Muncher]

I think the State of Charge meter for the battery is permanently funky. My iPod will charge from 20% to 50% in 20 minutes - that can't be right, when according to Apple it takes 2 hours to go from 0% to 80%.

Before you test again, try charging for a full 4 hours. I think the battery is tricking itself.

 

[Jiadin]

I think the State of Charge meter for the battery is permanently funky. My iPod will charge from 20% to 50% in 20 minutes - that can't be right, when according to Apple it takes 2 hours to go from 0% to 80%.

Before you test again, try charging for a full 4 hours. I think the battery is tricking itself.

I've noticed the same thing too, iTunes (and iPod too) says to me that it's fully charged after only 1h/1h.30. I'll try to fully recharge it this night.

 

[mackmgg]

Ditto, I am having very poor battery life. Use it less than 2 hours per day and have to charge it daily. Seems to drain even when off.

mine died when off twice (once off, other time sleep) and they said to bring it into the apple genius bar.

 

[Mazda 3s]

There is definitely something going on with the battery life on the 2G. I just got a 32GB 2G today to replace my 32GB 1G and the battery life is atrocious.

I charged it up fully and Fetch/Location Services is disabled. Backlight is set to auto and WiFi was on. I browsed the net for about an hour (no music playing), watched a 6-minute YouTube video, and played five minutes of X-Plane.

The 20% battery message came up after about an hour and a half of total on time from a fully charged battery. WTF?

My 1G would have been above 70% at that point.

And for an even bigger kick in the teeth, I rolled over to plug in my generic wall adapter plugged in near my nightstand that I have used for years and got the message that it wasn't compatible. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

[AlphaTeam]

Glad I'm not the only one with this problem.
Is this something that can be fixed with firmware update?

 

[Mechanicus]

Glad I'm not the only one with this problem.
Is this something that can be fixed with firmware update?

I thought Apple altered the battery consumption with the 2.1 software.
Also aren't some of the new 2gs coming with 2.2 beta software?

This battery thing is setting me back. I was so close to buy one, and now I'm waiting for more information if it's a software or hardware thing.

 

[Bladehntr]

There is no way the 2nd generation Touch can sustain a 36 hour battery charge.
I charged my Touch for 4 1/2 hours, turned off WIFI, Fetch, Auto Brightness and Location Service. I use my Touch at work to listen to music, and I turn it on at around 8:30am, and at around 3:30pm, i'm getting the "20% battery life" message popping up on my screen.

 

[sgtboy]

I charged my Touch for 4 1/2 hours, turned off WIFI, Fetch, Auto Brightness and Location Service. I use my Touch at work to listen to music, and I turn it on at around 8:30am, and at around 3:30pm, i'm getting the "20% battery life" message popping up on my screen.

Ok, what was the volume/brightness set to. Did you have the Ipod screen on (not turned off with sleep button) Did you skip songs a lot and change playlists?

 

[~Foxy Lady~]

battery life

hi, i got my ipod touch a week ago and im kind of surprised of the battery life, apple.com says it should last up to 30h mp3 playing, but i feel not getting it.

i see u have a same problem, my question is... how lond should i charge it by usb, or is it better using the apple charger which i can buy sepparately?

p.s: can someone add me diana-p.c.d@hotmail.com to give me instructions bout the applications and bout using itunes...
thanks

 

[-Dark Angel-]

hi, i got my ipod touch a week ago and im kind of surprised of the battery life, apple.com says it should last up to 30h mp3 playing, but i feel not getting it.

i see u have a same problem, my question is... how lond should i charge it by usb, or is it better using the apple charger which i can buy sepparately?

p.s: can someone add me diana-p.c.d@hotmail.com to give me instructions bout the applications and bout using itunes...
thanks

If you got the 2nd gen iPod touch, charge it through the usb since apple doesn't allow charge through firewire anymore. Also to try and improve battery life, turn off wifi when not in use, turn off fetch and your location services.

Wifi and fetch is in settings
Location is in settings-> general.

 

[OrangeDog]

I've had a 32gb 1g and now my 32gb 2g and the 1g's battery charge definately lasted longer. I still much prefer the 2g and wouldn't worry to much imo.

 

[cav23j]

on my 1st gen itouch
it seems like video takes the most battery
i watch a movie and my battery was down to 10%
then i turned on music and put it on sleep mode and it lasted me till i could charge it

 

[a7xsteve]

Yea the battery in mine doesn't last very long either. But it does help to turn of Wi-Fi. I just charge mine more often. I have yet to use it on long trips, so right now it isn't too big of a problem. But I'm sure that soon it will be an issue. Apple should give new batteries to the iPod Touch 2G owners.

 

[Impulses]

Make sure you haven't turned on that Nike+ thing by mistake either... That would use the accelerometer constantly I think.

As far as I can tell the biggest battery burners are the screen and the WiFi, I usually turn the WiFi off when I won't be using it for a while... And I keep the backlight brightness way down unless I'm gonna be watching video, since I use it on the car a lot and I keep the auto-lock off so I can easily skip tracks (which inherently keeps the screen always on and burns more battery).

I haven't touched the push settings, graphic intensive games do eat up the battery even more than the WiFi does though... I dunno how Spore is but anything with any kind of 3D rendering is rough on the battery. You might wanna turn that brightness down if you're gonna be surfing for hours on end. As you said, music itself doesn't really burn much battery.

I doubt the simultaneous task of browsing and playing music is much worse (since it's idle a lot of the time), it's just the screen being on constantly that's killing ya. I'm surprised only a couple people mentioned the brightness, IIRC it comes set at halfway or higher, and I have mine turned almost all the way down. I've noticed a big difference. /shrug Don't really need it way up unless you're outdoors or watching a movie.

I think the fact that it gets hot when playing games is quite normal, you're putting a lot more stress on the processor I imagine (and the screen itself generates some heat too). I've also noticed the fact that when you charge it the meter seems to go up to 50%-ish much more quickly than it does from 50% to 100%.

Be aware that it's not fully charged 'till you see that AC plug over the meter on the top right though... Sometimes it seems like it's at 90% for a whole hour. Mine seems to be taking 3-4 hours to fully charge every time, whether on USB or using a generic USB/AC adapter I got from an Energizer AAA battery charger.

Edit: Nice testing btw, I don't think I had seen anyone confirm the 36 hours of music claim so far...

 

[racerboi25]

Yeah I've been having issues all this week with my iPod too
Admitadly, i do skip through songs a little, but im getting nowhere near the supposed 36 hours of playback....whilst i dont expect this extreme, i would at least expect a good 25-30 hours or so, not the 3-4 im gettin right now

I always let the battery completely die right out before charging, and i only every go for a full 4 hour charge, so i expect far better than what i am recieving...i use Wi-Fi for say 30mins tops in a session, and then turn it straight off afterwards, so i dont see why im not achieving the results Apple claims we should be getting

 

[Impulses]

You shouldn't let the battery run out completely to the point where the iPod shuts down, that's actually not good for the battery AFAIK.

 

[ekim]

iPod Touch 2G batter Life

Okay - Have turned off location, wi fi and fetch/push data. Played spore - got 1 hour 11 minutes before it died.

Played wurldy on my gen 1 touch - lasted well over 2.5 hours - and now am playing music on my gen1 - still going.

Recharged gen 2 touch and started just playing music - into hour 3 - but already had the 20% battery life.

Clearly I am getting LESS battery life on the 2G than the 1G.


So either I have a bum battery on the 2G - or we are all getting similar battery life and dont realize it. Probably dont try and play games for 2-3 hours solid - hey I was on a plane - so it was my entertainment. Tomorrow gonna do some more tests with video.

ANyone else - what are you game playing battery times like?

DOnt want to return it just to get the same issue. (bought at costco - so at least not much hassle). I learned my lesson with the 1G and bad screens - wanted an easy return path in case there were issues.

Should I start another thread on gaming/battery life? Really want to find out if this is typical or not...

--------------------------------------
'Screen brightness' is another setting that can make a major difference to battery life. Did you set both 1G and 2G the same when you compared the two?

 

[seeny]

there’s been loads of talk about battery life so i thought i’d test my 2g touch

first fully charged it, it’s not fully charged when itunes says it is it’s only fully charged when the battery indicator on the ipod is fully green

i have the wi-fi and the location services turned on

the test was with video but before starting the videos i sent 2 emails and received 4 mail one had a attached photo (4.2mb), started running videos at 12:30pm got the first battery warning at 16:42 (4hr 12mins) it turned off at 19:05 so i turned it back and it lasted till 19:10, so my battery life for video is 6hr 40mins which i think is very good, i’m going to test music next

 

[Impulses]

The test I'm really interested in doing, but haven't had the time to do so, is music playback time without turning on auto luck but with the screen brightness turned way down. Why? Frankly, having it auto-lock when I'm using it in the car is a pain, makes switching songs much harder than it has to be... And unfortunately Apple doesn't include separate backlight/lock controls.

The first week I had it I wasn't getting the battery life I wanted out of it while using it in the car a lot w/o the lock, but I was also fooling around a lot at home with the WiFi etc. Haven't had much time to keep track of it since.

Double clicking home for the music controls is a lousy workaround though (still takes too much of my attention on the road)... And jailbreaking it just to add that one setting also seems silly. The other workarounds I've thought of are A) getting a car charger/mount or B) getting that mic adapter/extender (cord with a mic+button and jack for headphones or w/e). I guess the charger's ideal, though I already have a universal mount and I'm wary of giving the battery so many short charging cycles when I'm out and about...

Who knows, maybe having the backlight low enough grants me enough battery life to be happy w/the lock off when using it in the car and I don't need any workaround... I'll prolly test it this week, that'd be nice though, that way I can always glance at the playlist and stuff. I'll probably do B anyway and see how well I can place the mic/cable in my car so I can press the button once for pause and twice for next track, that way I can have the auto-lock engaged to save battery life on long trips.

If anyone's wondering about that mic adapter, it's this Philips iPhone Microphone Adapter for $9.99 at Target.

 

[racerboi25]

Still Annoyed

Ok so i've had my iTouch for 12 days now, and only once have i had a decent battery life cycle...that was back on Sat when it lasted a good 12-14 hours or so on the one 4-hour charge
But even then, that was only with the iPod playing music, with Fetch wifi & auto-brightness off and only playing music whilst mostly staying locked
So even that result isnt anything to get all excited about...battery life isnt getting much better (maybe an extra 45-60 mins) to around 5-7 hours battery life, but this isnt a result to get all excited about
Considering im still within the 14 days, should i just take it to my local Apple store and ask for a replacement? Im really not pleased

 

[scrappledog]

I hear you. I sent my iTouch 32g 1st gen. back when I heard the 2nd gen. was coming out, and I'm still waiting on people's reviews to reorder (though I think I will). Does the big-storage Classic get great battery life? That would be an option for me, but I want to be able to do audio-in recording, so that pretty much limits me to the Touch, no?

As for the mic, I'm looking for a small bud mic to plug in, something to do interviews with.