Sansa Clip+ 8GB firmware V01.02.09P, Grado SR60, mixture of MP3 and Vorbis 128-192kbps VBR, backlight set to 5 seconds, volume below 50%. Charged fully several times from a mains USB charger or PC.
I haven’t yet managed to listen to more than a couple of albums, the battery power meter reaches 50% and a few minutes later the player shuts off. Total play time around 2.5 hours maximum.
Do I have a bad battery? Anyone else experienced such poor performance?
Should I return the player, or wait for a firmware update?
I’d heard that VOrbis really ate up the battery life, but that still doesn’t seem typical. I’ve been listening to a mixture of MP3 and WMA for about 3.5 hours, bitrates between 115 and 402, and my battery is at 73%. So I think something is wrong with yours…see about getting a new one.
The battery metre isn’t great either, so that may have affected your test if it looked like there was more left than there really was. For example, the lower end of the scale is practically non existant as the clip shuts down around 40% (irc).
I just sent my Clip+ 8gb, purchased 1/4/10, back to Sansa for a replacement due to my poor battery life. After 4 hours my fully charged battery showed 50%, after 2 more hours it shut down. I charged it back up to 100%, installed newest firmware, held down the power button for 20 seconds to reset and tried the experiment again. Very similar result +/- 1/2 hour or so. I’m running the newest version of WMP, cds ripped at 192 kbps, very little screen use during playback. When I called to complain, the Sansa Rep (in India, with broken English) seemed like he was reading from a script and was not helpful other then to set up my return authorization. He could not/would not answer my basic questions about battery life other than to say the battery should last up to 15 hours when fully charged.
I charged the player for 4 hours. After about a half hour of charging the battery was already at 50%, after two hours the player said it was at 100%, I left it for another two hours, will have to see what battery life I get today.
I charged the player for 4 hours. After about a half hour of charging the battery was already at 50%, after two hours the player said it was at 100%, I left it for another two hours, will have to see what battery life I get today.
I’m running a little test on mine…resuming from where I stopped earlier today. Currently at an indicated 55% after 6.5 hours total play time. At this rate, I’ll have to stop whenever I go to sleep, and resume the test when I wake up.
Edit: Indicated 51% battery after 7.5 hours.
Test resumed at 11:28Indicated 46% after 8.5 hours.
Message Edited by Marvin_Martian on 02-19-2010 11:28 AM
Message Edited by Marvin_Martian on 02-19-2010 12:39 PM
Nice looking chart! I had to abort my test, because I needed to charge mine back up so I could use it at work tonight without any worry of it running down.
Interesting to see your chart drops off at the 50% point. Your getting twice the runtime I do. How long do you leave your player charging?
I charged my player for 8 hours, at that point the battery meter read 84%! Managed to get 5 hours of play using mixed Vorbis and MP3 (VBR).
The battery meter managed to read down to 16% before shutting off.
Another 4 hour charge and the battery meter is reading 81%. So it looks like the battery meter tries to calibrate itself based on the time it has been charged for?
At this point I don’t think I’m going to see a runtime anything like the advertised 15 hours. I’ll persevere for the rest of the week and then return the player.
Tests like this don’t give too much info when using mixes of audio files. I thought, my clip was defect when I used to listen to flac format which very quickly ■■■■■ it dry. It was 100% to 90% in the first 30 minutes. But using 128kb mp3 (audiobook) resulted in a totally different behaviour. I didn’t run my tests to 0%, so I don’t know what it’s real limit is on mine, just that the format used makes a big difference.
I was expecting to be able to play music for a couple of hours a day for 5 days a week without having to recharge. My player doesn’t get anywhere near that, I have to recharge it for 4 hours every day which is a major inconvenience. So either I’m doing something wrong, or my player is faulty.
The player supports several encoding methods, and claims up to 15 hours of playback time. My reasonable expectation was that I would be able to play back a mixture of file formats with a mixture of content for 15 hours, but I’m getting 5 hours at most.
I don’t think that batteries discharge lineraly enough to extrapolate your 10% in 30 minutes to 100% in 5 hours, it’s just a coincidence that I get about 5 hours.
I’m going to try MP3 only, but I don’t really want to re-encode my Vorbis collection.
I was expecting to be able to play music for a couple of hours a day for 5 days a week without having to recharge. My player doesn’t get anywhere near that, I have to recharge it for 4 hours every day which is a major inconvenience. So either I’m doing something wrong, or my player is faulty.
The player supports several encoding methods, and claims up to 15 hours of playback time. My reasonable expectation was that I would be able to play back a mixture of file formats with a mixture of content for 15 hours, but I’m getting 5 hours at most.
I don’t think that batteries discharge lineraly enough to extrapolate your 10% in 30 minutes to 100% in 5 hours, it’s just a coincidence that I get about 5 hours.
I’m going to try MP3 only, but I don’t really want to re-encode my Vorbis collection.
Something must be wrong…even my old Fuze and Clip, both of which had higher-capacity batteries than a Clip+, would charge fully in less than 4 hours, even after a battery rundown test.
The player supports several encoding methods, and claims up to 15 hours of playback time. My reasonable expectation was that I would be able to play back a mixture of file formats with a mixture of content for 15 hours, but I’m getting 5 hours at most.
This might have been what you expected, but just like gas-mileage on new car window stickers it’s not reality. The 15 hr. claim is based on very low (128kbps) .mp3 files only, played constantly at low volume, with no backlight on or fiddling with buttons, etc.
Like I said, not reality. No manufacturer’s claims are reasonable . . . well, maybe a few.
“I don’t think that batteries discharge lineraly enough to extrapolate your 10% in 30 minutes to 100% in 5 hours, it’s just a coincidence that I get about 5 hours.”
You’re right with that, timg. The linearity of the battery status is not given at all. As far as I read here, usually the first 50% displayed are like 80% of the real overall capacity while the last 40% are like 10%, something around this, please don’t fix me on that numbers. My clip has another funny effect. Around 50%-60% displayed battery status it seems to have most of the actual battery capacity, since the same 30 minutes flac take ony 4% of displayed capacity here. Calculations get really hard under such circumstanses, if not plain impossible.
But:
What I said was this: Starting at 100% displayed charge status, 30 minutes flac use that much energy, that 90% are displayed… whatever that means for the overall capacity for flac. 128kb mp3 starting at 100% take way less, like displayed 2% or 3%. So, even if that gives no absolute information, it gives the relative one, that the used formats make a huge difference in battery usage. And flac and vorbis are well known to ■■■■ mp3-players dry very much quicker than “normal” mp3, which seems to be true for any mp3 player which supports those formats. I was just surprised how much more energy it uses.
Please let us know the results of your test with pure mp3.
P.S.
In the thread for the new firmware update I just read others who complain extreme power usage while playing ogg. 4h to 5h seem to be the normal capacity for pure ogg playing. You might want to have a look here: Firmware update discussion (Page 3)
My new Clip+4gb never got over 5 hours, typcially 4-4.5. Recently, it would never indicate more than 82% charge, no matter how long left plugged-in (mains adapter only). I tried adjusting volume, brightness, EQ, etc. (I’ve had many mp3 players before and know how all this works), but the battery life was horrible and borderline unusable. I finally called Sandisk and they said it might be a bad battery and gave me a UPS tag to return it. It is in NC now, awaiting whatever (assume they send either a new or refurbished one back–I can’t believe they bother to repair these things). It sounds to me as though there is a serious quality control issue with the little batteries in China on these units. There seem to be quite a few people getting really short battery life no matter what they do.
This stuff happens…but it does say something about Sandisk quality control that so many of these units are in the field. Apparently, they don’t test them too seriously (or their test units were carefully selected by the manufacturer in China—which is another QC issue). Hey, it’s a 45.00 mp3 player, not a Toyota Prius, so I understand they aren’t going to do the same level of quality control on something like this. Still, a widespread component quality issue can really screw up a reputation for quality, and Sandisk should probably look a little closer in this area.
Hey, it’s a 45.00 mp3 player, not a Toyota Prius , so I understand they aren’t going to do the same level of quality control on something like this. Still, a widespread component quality issue can really screw up a reputation for quality, and Sandisk should probably look a little closer in this area.
Given the massive recall problems with Toyota lately, this probably isn’t the best example to cite for stellar quality control standards.
just an update…I called tech support a couple weeks ago and went over the short battery life issue (also, the player would not charge beyond 82% after a month of use). They had me send it back. It was handled very well, in my opinion and the return cost me nothing (printed UPS label they emailed me). I got a brand new player back in the mail about 10 days later and so far (knock on wood) the battery life seems much better. It still shows 52% and I’ve been using it about 6 hours (whatever that’s worth…I know the battery indicator is not very accurate).
My clip has another funny effect. Around 50%-60% displayed battery status it seems to have most of the actual battery capacity, since the same 30 minutes flac take ony 4% of displayed capacity here. Calculations get really hard under such circumstanses, if not plain impossible.