how many hours will my battery last

[offtheroad]

I have an old 52GB Classic iPod never used and I still can fully charge the batter. But how can I lock it in on position to see how many hours of playing time I will have and will it make a difference in the test if I leave headphones attached? Thanks

[kornchild2002]

I'm not really sure what iPod you have as Apple never made a 52GB iPod classic. Even then, iPods classics are available ONLY in 80GB, 120GB, and 160GB capacities. ANYTHING below 80GB will technically not be an iPod classic.

Now, the way to test the battery is rather simple. Make a playlist of songs that is a lot longer (by 15-20 hours) than the Apple advertised battery life for your iPod. The playlist can contain repeating songs if you don't have enough individual songs in your iTunes library. Make sure your iPod's battery is fully charged and plug a pair of headphones in it (headphones NEED to be plugged into it or else the test will be completely worthless). Select the first song in the playlist, set your iPod's volume to 50%, put your iPod down, and walk away. Let your iPod play until it turns itself off. After it turns off, plug it into your computer. Let iTunes update the iPod and sync everything like normal. Go to your iTunes library and sort the songs by play date. Select all of the songs that have been played within the testing period (so long as you don't play music using iTunes between now and then) and look at the bottom of iTunes, it will tell you the length of your selection informing you how long your iPod was able to last on a single charge.

[offtheroad]

Originally Posted by kornchild2002

I'm not really sure what iPod you have as Apple never made a 52GB iPod classic. Even then, iPods classics are available ONLY in 80GB, 120GB, and 160GB capacities. ANYTHING below 80GB will technically not be an iPod classic.

Now, the way to test the battery is rather simple. Make a playlist of songs that is a lot longer (by 15-20 hours) than the Apple advertised battery life for your iPod. The playlist can contain repeating songs if you don't have enough individual songs in your iTunes library. Make sure your iPod's battery is fully charged and plug a pair of headphones in it (headphones NEED to be plugged into it or else the test will be completely worthless). Select the first song in the playlist, set your iPod's volume to 50%, put your iPod down, and walk away. Let your iPod play until it turns itself off. After it turns off, plug it into your computer. Let iTunes update the iPod and sync everything like normal. Go to your iTunes library and sort the songs by play date. Select all of the songs that have been played within the testing period (so long as you don't play music using iTunes between now and then) and look at the bottom of iTunes, it will tell you the length of your selection informing you how long your iPod was able to last on a single charge.

Thanks, it's a 60GB and someone told me to side the top left button till it shows orange they said that way it won't shut it's self off, any thoughts?

[kornchild2002]

That is not a power button. In fact, iPods have never had power buttons, ever. That is just the hold button and all it does is deactivate the click wheel so that your iPod won't do anything if you push one of its buttons in and/or scroll across the click wheel. You don't need to enable hod while doing a battery life test but you can if you want. It isn't going to affect the iPod's battery life.

Assuming you have a 5G 60GB iPod, Apple rates it at 20 hours for audio playback. So make a playlist that is 30 hours long and use that to test your iPod. However, you may have an iPod photo or a 4G iPod with a color display. Those are older models (both released in 2005) that are rated for 15 hours of audio playback on a single charge. I suggest you look at the Wikipedia entry to determine exactly what generation iPod you have.

[offtheroad]

Originally Posted by kornchild2002

That is not a power button. In fact, iPods have never had power buttons, ever. That is just the hold button and all it does is deactivate the click wheel so that your iPod won't do anything if you push one of its buttons in and/or scroll across the click wheel. You don't need to enable hod while doing a battery life test but you can if you want. It isn't going to affect the iPod's battery life.

Assuming you have a 5G 60GB iPod, Apple rates it at 20 hours for audio playback. So make a playlist that is 30 hours long and use that to test your iPod. However, you may have an iPod photo or a 4G iPod with a color display. Those are older models (both released in 2005) that are rated for 15 hours of audio playback on a single charge. I suggest you look at the Wikipedia entry to determine exactly what generation iPod you have.

Thanks for the replys. It looks like a 5G because I remember when I first got it then immeditely they changed to 80GB. Heck I only listen to aiff fikes and I only have 75% if it filled. The reason for all this madness is more madnees. Going to Fla by Greyhound. Ya it will be a beast. I have a lot of SRV, Byddy Guy tons of Dylan DMB and I had to load Paul Simon, Ya I'm a geezer I hope I make it. I got a cheap set of heradphones called Skullcandy supreme sound Lowrider. Only cost me 42 bucks at radio shack.

[kornchild2002]

Well, if you have AIFF files on your iPod (which you don't need), your iPod isn't going to last the 20 hours that Apple states. That is for playback of lossy content only, not lossless. You will likely get about 12-14 hours of use on a single charge if you don't change tracks that much. Pausing songs and navigating to new playlists/albums/artists/songs will shorten your iPod's battery life even further to 6-8 hours.

Compressing your music using a lossy encoder and format, such as Lame mp3 or iTunes AAC, will allow your iPod to get the full amount of time on a single charge. There really is no need to carry around lossless music on an iPod these days as lossy encoders, even at 128kbps, are able to provide perceptual transparency for most people on most equipment with most music. Very, very, very few people can actually hear the differences between 128kbps mp3/AAC files (with modern encoders) and the source lossless versions in proper blind ABX tests. Please note that switching back and forth between the lossy and lossless tracks in iTunes (or whatever media player) is not going to prove anything and has not merit whatsoever.

You are going to be taking a trip and using Skullcandy headphones (all of them are pretty bad), you would benefit greatly from compressing your music.