Hi, I'm new here so I'm sorry if this has been done before, but I couldn't find any info on this on the forums. I've been carrying out some tests to find out how bitrate and format actually affect the battery life. Considering that Sony claim a 30 hour battery life on the NW-HD3 but also claim that MP3 will reduce the batttery life I've decided to test it for myself. I performed these tests by doing the following. Firstly I charged the player to full, but without the USB cable attached, so I could still use the player when it was charging. When power reached full I turned it on and navigated to an album with the desired format and bitrate. I then set that album to run on repeat and shuffle (shuffle was the only way I found to get repeat to work, but it shouldn't affect battery life as it still reads ahead several tracks, it just does it randomly). I then disconnected the charger and started timing on my phone's stopwatch. I kept the player near me and checked it every so often, but didn't press any buttons to prevent the hard disk spinning up. Once the battery indicator got down to 1/4 left I checked it every 10-15 minutes or so until the battery ran out. Here is the details of the tests done so far:
1) Atrac 3plus 256kbps. Album used: "The Wall CD1". Battery life: just over 22 hours.
2) MP3 VBR average 246kbps. Album: "Revolver". Battery life: just under 15 hours.
3) Atrac 3plus 192kbps. Album used: "The Wall CD1". Battery life: just over 23 hours.
4) MP3 VBR average 146kbps. Album: "Plastic Ono Band". Battery life: 18:40 hours.
I was actually pretty shocked at the impact MP3 had on the battery life: it was reduced by nearly a third! This is a shame because I've been using MP3 increasingly often these days due to the easiness of re-encoding and importing from my archived flac sources. I intend on carrying out tests for 256kbps MP3 non-VBR, 192kbps atrac3plus, 352kbps atrac3plus, MP3 VBR in the 160kbps range and finally 128kbps MP3 non-VBR. I'm not bothering with 64kbps/48kbps atrac3plus as I personally never use them and the trend from 192/256/352kbps should indicate if using them would increase battery life anyway.
Edit: I now have results for atrac3plus 192kbps. It managed only one hour more compared to 256kbps. I'm inclined to think that the impact of bitrate on battery life is exaggerated. Interestingly enough I originally did this test using Oasis: Definitely Maybe. The volume was considerably louder on that album, painfully loud to listen to, yet I got 22 hours battery life. I don't think the volume used affects battery life heavily at all. I also have results for MP3 VBR at around 150kbps. Interestingly bitrate seems to affect MP3 battery life much more than it affects Atrac3Plus battery life.
Question
AlexMcIver
Hi, I'm new here so I'm sorry if this has been done before, but I couldn't find any info on this on the forums. I've been carrying out some tests to find out how bitrate and format actually affect the battery life. Considering that Sony claim a 30 hour battery life on the NW-HD3 but also claim that MP3 will reduce the batttery life I've decided to test it for myself. I performed these tests by doing the following. Firstly I charged the player to full, but without the USB cable attached, so I could still use the player when it was charging. When power reached full I turned it on and navigated to an album with the desired format and bitrate. I then set that album to run on repeat and shuffle (shuffle was the only way I found to get repeat to work, but it shouldn't affect battery life as it still reads ahead several tracks, it just does it randomly). I then disconnected the charger and started timing on my phone's stopwatch. I kept the player near me and checked it every so often, but didn't press any buttons to prevent the hard disk spinning up. Once the battery indicator got down to 1/4 left I checked it every 10-15 minutes or so until the battery ran out. Here is the details of the tests done so far:
1) Atrac 3plus 256kbps. Album used: "The Wall CD1". Battery life: just over 22 hours.
2) MP3 VBR average 246kbps. Album: "Revolver". Battery life: just under 15 hours.
3) Atrac 3plus 192kbps. Album used: "The Wall CD1". Battery life: just over 23 hours.
4) MP3 VBR average 146kbps. Album: "Plastic Ono Band". Battery life: 18:40 hours.
I was actually pretty shocked at the impact MP3 had on the battery life: it was reduced by nearly a third! This is a shame because I've been using MP3 increasingly often these days due to the easiness of re-encoding and importing from my archived flac sources. I intend on carrying out tests for 256kbps MP3 non-VBR, 192kbps atrac3plus, 352kbps atrac3plus, MP3 VBR in the 160kbps range and finally 128kbps MP3 non-VBR. I'm not bothering with 64kbps/48kbps atrac3plus as I personally never use them and the trend from 192/256/352kbps should indicate if using them would increase battery life anyway.
Edit: I now have results for atrac3plus 192kbps. It managed only one hour more compared to 256kbps. I'm inclined to think that the impact of bitrate on battery life is exaggerated. Interestingly enough I originally did this test using Oasis: Definitely Maybe. The volume was considerably louder on that album, painfully loud to listen to, yet I got 22 hours battery life. I don't think the volume used affects battery life heavily at all. I also have results for MP3 VBR at around 150kbps. Interestingly bitrate seems to affect MP3 battery life much more than it affects Atrac3Plus battery life.
Edited by AlexMcIverLink to comment
Share on other sites
2 answers to this question
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.