iPods dirty secret!

Bubba

Everybody has heard that after 18 months of purchasing an iPod, the battery is meant to die and only last for 20 mins a day. But i was wondering has that happened to anybody here yet? I have just got an ipod for christmas and i was wondering after 18 months will the battery have to be replaced? does it happen to all iPods??

If you don't know what im talking about go here

Lump

Some one was on about it in IRC...


John

rabbitinlights

just bring it back after 11 months and say the battery only last 1-2 hours (4 is considered faulty). thats what i plan to do!

Sean

Creamy Goodness

i know two people who have the first gen ipod (2+years old) and they havn't had any battery problems and they use it every days.

Red Alert

Battery life isn't always certain - i use two identical dell laptops (one being mum's and the other being dad's). Both use the battery heavily - one died after 6 months and the other is still going strong on 2 years. The problem with the iPod battery is that it's availability is quite limited.

Go with MiniDisc if you're at all worried about this - the batteries are normal rechargeable packs.

yallingup

I've used my first-gen iPod every day since I bought it in December 2001. Battery life is now down to about four hours continuous, less if you play it intermittently over a couple of days. And the battery discharges itself altogether if you leave it unused for three or four days.

So, not a great result but given the amount of use and abuse it's got, I'm happy enough. Not greatly gruntled about the 120 yo-yos charge by Apple to replace battery. Might buy an iPod Mini - same-ish storage for probably 150 more than cost of replacing current battery.

When you compare the ****ty interface on other MP3 players with removable batts - MuVo, Zen, etc - the battery grief is well worth it. And don't get me started on MiniDisc...

the_syco

Just get an MP3-CD Player. Got a sony one. Play my normal CD's or I put 10 albums onto a CD, and listen to that :P

Cost me €270 about 2 years ago. It NEVER jumped:), even when I was legging it to the bus at top speed:D

Dooom

Originally posted by yallingup
And don't get me started on MiniDisc...

What's wrong with MD's? I've had one for about a year and never had any problems with it. Never skipped or broken or anything...

eth0_

Please stop spreading this rubbish.
I've had my ipod nearly a year and the battery life hasn't degraded.
I have friends who have the old style ipod over 2 years and ditto for them.

It uses a Li-ion battery. They won't last FOREVER.
Any nokia phone I ever had, the battery died after about a year. I don't see any scandal about this with nokia. Why should iPod be any different? It is possible to replace the battery in iPod, yes it's dear, so are the batteries for mobile phones, laptops etc.

Mutant_Fruit

thats a whole load of bolax (excuse the language).

The battery is not designed to last 18 months, its designed to last for 300-500 charges. The same as any other lithium ion battery. So obviously, if your bettery lasts 500 charges and you charge it every single day it will die after about 18 months. Thats not apples fault, its just the type of battery used. Unfortunately unless you spend 100's on wierd battery mixes, thats the best you'll get off any similar battery.

My advice, don;t charge your players daily. Charge them when they're wasted. If you're going to use it a lot in one particular place, run it off the mains.

Check out this link

bugler

Originally posted by Spike
What's wrong with MD's? I've had one for about a year and never had any problems with it. Never skipped or broken or anything...

Many MD players, and particularly Sony ones, have a rather unendearing habit of dying after a while...a 'while' often being just over the warranty :-) . I know two friends of mine who have had woes with this kind of thing. One was a couple of years old, the other wasn't even a year. Some of the Sony models have taken flak over this big time on Amazon if I recall correctly. Of course you just hope that they die in warranty...

I bought the Sharp 280(E) model from Currys, the first one went tits up after about 4 weeks. I brought it back and got a new one, I've had it for about 2.5 months now and its going fine. I bought the extended warranty (thats 3 years cover, accidents and all) so I know I'll have a player regardless of how dodgy it gets until at least November 2006.

Sorry for the off-topicness.

Explosive_Cornflake

I've been using mini disc for many years, and i've had no problems with 'em. I have an old mzr 70 in my room, you should see the state of it. Its got so many dents, and its been sprayed any crap like that, but it still plays perfectly. The thing i really like mini discs though, is that a lot take an AA battery, and do last around 30 hours. And they recharable life 'aint to shabby either. But all that said, my friend was very unlucky with one. That and richer sounds are/were are shower of ****es.

yallingup

MiniDisc: Yes, good battery life, reasonable sound, handy for bootleg recordings, I'spose. and, er, that's it.

But woefully inflexible compared with MP3 players and their playlists, not to mention that feckin' ATRAC format which works with nothing else non-Sony. And the software that comes with them ... yuck.

Give me a 'Pod anytime.

Guy:Incognito

minidisc players can be used for basically anything: live recording, mp3s(converted to atrac) copying from cds, tapes etc(anything with an analogue or optical output) so whats the problem. Mp3 is a crappy sound quality anyway on everything except headphones. What difference does it make what the minidisc converts it to before copying to the disc, it sounds fine so so where the problem? Plus the most expensive minidisc battery is €20 (for the flat ni-mh 1) and are easily replaced. Ive been useing them for a few years and am perfectly happy with it. Tbh the fact that the ipod will hold 20 gigs or whatever is of no consequence to me as im never far enough away from my pc to have to worry bout needing 10,000 songs or anything like it. Minisdiscs will hold around 100 songs per discs , whether copied from cd or mp3 so that suits me fine. ive never had the need to carry more than a couple of discs at a time , and tbh bout 10 or 20 grams of extra weight being carried round is not sumthing i spend my days obsessing about.

Korg

Mp3 is a crappy sound quality anyway on everything except headphones.

It's easier to hear the distortion (especially in the high freq. area) caused by mp3 encoding on the average pair of headphones than it is through the average pair of speakers. Also, although there are other more advanced compression algorithms out there now, mp3, encoded properly (lame is a good example, using one of the the --alt-preset parameters), is better than the press it gets. A well encoded mp3 will fool most people even on more extravigant HiFi systems. In short, mp3 is pretty good.

Some german magazine ran blind tests on some golden-eared types, babelfish this link.