Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

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DaMadFiddler
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Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by DaMadFiddler »

I bought an iPod Touch back in August, and I've found that I use it in the car a lot more than on its own. I carry it in my pocket for occasional Internet browsing, and I use it once a week or so when I go running with my friend Chris. I do use it as a PDA for work, but that involves maybe 5-10 minutes a day of calendar editing and contact lookups, total. Most of its use is during my daily commute to work, which is about 20-30 min. each way, in which it is plugged into a charging/FM broadcast dock. in the car.

I'm concerned, however, that all these short, frequent bursts of charging may damage its battery life over time. I don't use it *much* outside the car, but when I do, I don't want to worry about a severely reduced battery life because of how it's more often used.

Any suggestions?
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Re: Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by Quzar »

By the time the battery starts having problems or dies, the damn thing will be incompatible with everything. Now that people have figured out these sorts of devices you won't have to do the Zodiac and keep it around because there simply isn't a good replacement.
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Re: Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by DaMadFiddler »

Hah... I got a lot of mileage out of that Zodiac. :P But it eventually got to the point where one of the shoulder buttons was worn out, the analog stick wasn't working quite right, and the battery was only lasting for an hour or two with an SD card in.

My main concern is that twice a day, five days a week, the iPod is getting "plugged in" for 20-30 minutes, and I'm worried about what that might do to the charge cycle.
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Re: Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by Quzar »

A LOT of people have similar usage for the things, as well as all sorts of devices that seem to have infinite recharge. Although they're correlated, batteries can fail with a very low amount of recharge cycles. Remember my laptop? Going on 5 years old now and I havn't even hit 300 power cycles (and a lot of it has been in the past few months were the power plug has gotten flakey), yet half the cells are now bad.
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Re: Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by Ex-Cyber »

If memory serves, Li-ion batteries (which is what most expensive portable stuff uses) will lose their capacity over time regardless of how (or even whether) you charge them.
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Re: Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by curt_grymala »

Five or ten years ago, this would have been a major concern. The old batteries found in cell phones and other portable, rechargeable devices were very fickle. If you charged them without them being fully depleted, or if you didn't charge them fully, the lifespan of the batteries would go way down.

However, over the last five years or so, these types of rechargeable batteries have changed drastically, to the point where it really doesn't matter how often or how much you charge them.

I really don't think you've got anything to worry about.
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Re: Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by Travis of the Cosmos »

Has any one here ever bought a replacement battery for an ipod or other mp3 player off of ebay. Are they any good? I needed a new one for my ipod mini and noticed they only cost $7 shipped on ebay, but about $30 at online stores and at brick and mortar battery specialty stores.
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Re: Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by Jaded JAaron77 »

I got one of the first generation iPod Nanos in Spring of '06, used it mostly in my studio classes for a few months, but ever since, it's been mostly used in the car plugged into a charger+transmitter. Now, from a complete charge I get just under two hours of battery out of it... far cry from the 14 I believe it was originally advertised to have, but I think the most I ever got was 10 anyway.

...for the, what is it, $50 that apple charges for a new battery, I could probably go right now and get a new 3rd-gen on clearance...
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Re: Battery Suggestions for Best Practices

Post by Roofus »

I wouldn't worry about it. By the time the battery life becomes unacceptable, you'll be ready for something else, either whatever the then current iTouch will be or some other device.
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