Spinning discs and battery life

[McFly]

I've just read this news:

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/panasonic-slct820-cd-player-with-220-hour-battery-life-021310.php

Panasonic's new "SL-CT820" has the world's longest battery life for MP3/CD players: 220 hours.

As you would imagine, there are a couple technicalities to this figure. First of all, you need to be playing WMA files; your maximum battery life with MP3 is 210 hours. (Oh damn). You also need to use one of those external batteries - you know, the ones you somehow connect with a cable to the CD player. But even if you choose not to, you still get a 130 hour playback time of MP3 audio. Pretty swell, considering even the latest hard drive-based players get, what, 20-some hours of playback?

I guess the disc is not spinning the whole 130 hours, but still impressive. The PSP's UMD discs are smaller, so it should be a bit less power expensive to spin them. Maybe the battery life of the PSP will not suffer that much from a disc based media as many thought.

Fredi

 

[PC-Engine]

SONY has already said that PSP will last about 10 hours max with screen off while playing audio only. Anyhow if those figures for the Panasonic player are realworld then that is truly amazing.

 

[one]

SONY has already said that PSP will last about 10 hours max with screen off while playing audio only.

I think it's all too early to believe "10 hours max for audio only" at this stage.

http://psp.ign.com/articles/513/513734p1.html?fromint=1

"So, what is the battery life going to be on PlayStation Portable? It will be on par with traditional handheld systems, or approximately 10 hours. It is comparable to an ATC [ATRAC] portable music player, or approximately 8 hours. Or, it will be comparable to portable DVD players, which, in many cases, is about 2 and a half hours.
--Kaz Hirai, May 11, 2004

The thing that troubles us, of course, is the gaming equivalency comparison -- do the math, because this does not compute. One could put gameplay expectations somewhere in between that 10 and 2 1/2 (although some could mistake it in the speech, Mr. Hirai did not mean to say that these numbers correspond with each function of PSP use -- they're just estimations of max life.)

So Hirai avoided talking directly about PSP.

 

[Teasy]

The PSP's UMD discs are smaller, so it should be a bit less power expensive to spin them. Maybe the battery life of the PSP will not suffer that much from a disc based media as many thought

Do we know how big this player is, how big the battery is? (the internal one). Its battery may be quite a bit more powerful then PSP's. Also consider the fact that PSP will not be optimised as an music player.

BTW if you mean its battery life in general, then I have to say that there's a big difference between game based disc access and music. With 128MB of cheap ram and a decent caching system you can play 130 hours of MP3/WMA music with very few disc accesses.

 

[PC-Engine]

I think it's all too early to believe "10 hours max for audio only" at this stage.

Huh? What you just quoted said pretty much exactly what I posted...

 

[one]

I think it's all too early to believe "10 hours max for audio only" at this stage.

Huh? What you just quoted said pretty much exactly what I posted...

comparable != max
You are assured to have 10 hours for music, at least. Can we wish more, by any possibility? Yes.

 

[PC-Engine]

Well sure it may be able to last more than 10 hours while playing audio, but there's really no point in stating that possibility because it's just splitting hairs. It probably wouldn't be that much more anyway maybe 11-12 hrs max if that. It sure isn't going to be 20 hrs let alone 120 which is what's relevent to the topic.

 

[jvd]

Looks nice. But if i recall correctly hardrives have spinning disks inside them too don't they ?

The only players with out moving parts are flash players .

Anyway my new ipod gets 16 hours of life out of it (yea i know it says 12+ but we tested it the other day .) and i for the life of me don't know why you'd need more than 20-30 hour charge .

Even the 10 of the psp is pretty good. Unless you have a 5 hour drive both ways to work or bus ride both ways to work it wont be a problem.

Hope that they get at least 6or7 hours of game play out of the unit forget the music

 

[passerby]

I always wondered if that 10-hour figure was for the audio playing thru the stereo speakers of the PSP, or through ear-phones plugged to it.

 

[PC-Engine]

I always wondered if that 10-hour figure was for the audio playing thru the stereo speakers of the PSP, or through ear-phones plugged to it.

Me too.

Even the 10 of the psp is pretty good. Unless you have a 5 hour drive both ways to work or bus ride both ways to work it wont be a problem.

Well see the problem is the fact PSP is a multipurpose device. If you're going to be playing games and then later want to switch to music, you won't be getting 10 hours of music. The iPod does not have to worry about this because it only plays music.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Well see the problem is the fact PSP is a multipurpose device. If you're going to be playing games and then later want to switch to music, you won't be getting 10 hours of music. The iPod does not have to worry about this because it only plays music.

Eh :?
So in your opinion, PSP should have separate bateries for music, video and games?

 

[PC-Engine]

Well see the problem is the fact PSP is a multipurpose device. If you're going to be playing games and then later want to switch to music, you won't be getting 10 hours of music. The iPod does not have to worry about this because it only plays music.

Eh :?
So in your opinion, PSP should have separate bateries for music, video and games?

No in my opinion is should have a higher capacity battery or it should've been designed with lower power consumption since it's trying to be a multpurpose device.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I see, but what did the iPod have to do with this, as it is not a multipurpose device ?

 

[PC-Engine]

I see, but what did the iPod have to do with this, as it is not a multipurpose device ?

Maybe you should go back and read jvd's post or the first one about 130hrs of music playback...

 

[rabidrabbit]

sorry PC...
somehow, I just assume things too soon when reading your posts

 

[Ty]

Well see the problem is the fact PSP is a multipurpose device. If you're going to be playing games and then later want to switch to music, you won't be getting 10 hours of music. The iPod does not have to worry about this because it only plays music.

That's a silly way of trying to spin LESS FEATURES as BETTER. Fact is you could just play only music on the PSP and you'd be "ok". Yes games will lower operating time but at least you'd have that option.

 

[thop]

Anyway my new ipod gets 16 hours of life out of it (yea i know it says 12+ but we tested it the other day .) and i for the life of me don't know why you'd need more than 20-30 hour charge.

What, 16h? Not on this planet.

 

[jvd]

Anyway my new ipod gets 16 hours of life out of it (yea i know it says 12+ but we tested it the other day .) and i for the life of me don't know why you'd need more than 20-30 hour charge.

What, 16h? Not on this planet.

Yes my new one is an hp 4th gen player.

Start it up select it to play through a song list and have the song list on repeat . then don't touch the system for 16 hours .

 

[Ty]

Start it up select it to play through a song list and have the song list on repeat . then don't touch the system for 16 hours .

So you're just playing the ONE song for 16h? That's hardly indicative of average use if so.

 

[jvd]

Start it up select it to play through a song list and have the song list on repeat . then don't touch the system for 16 hours .

So you're just playing the ONE song for 16h? That's hardly indicative of average use if so.

You missed where i said select it to play through a song list ?

My song list is a 210 songs for my ithica road trips which is 4 hours both ways . I normaly put it to select a random song after each play .