Question on NW-A1200's Battery Life: ATRAC vs Mp3 files

[Jay100]

Can any one tell me wich file format atrac vs mp3 gives a better battery life on the sony walkman NW A1200 ?

thanks

[Guest Stuge]

Can any one tell me wich file format atrac vs mp3 gives a better battery life on the sony walkman NW A1200 ?

thanks

Welcome to AtracLife!

Atrac will give you better battery life ,if both the bitrates of Mp3 & Atrac files are same .

[Jay100]

thanks

I just got my sony NW A1200 and am goin on a 8 hour long trip

I plan of listening to mostly audio books and some music

that thing is great except for the volume wich is ok but not so loud even after unlocking it, I'm experimenting with the equalizer controls at the moment.

Edited November 8, 2006 by Jay100

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Well, if you take Sony's tech info as being vaguely accurate (use of various supported codecs.. being non-device specific) ..

The running time specs (aka battery endurance) on most ATRAC devices is based on the use of ATRAC3PLUS nowadays, where the benchmark the power measurements are based on either 48k or 64k ATRAC3Plus (i forget which, probably 48K).

But it's pretty much the case that, in my experience of Hi-MD and D-NE series CD and the NW-A3000, that opting for ATRAC files to use on the decks pretty much brings you damned close to the kinda figures Sony quote.

Put it this way, going from my experience of the D-NE1 (the original ultra-long endurance ATRAC CD units of the first-gen variety) - my unit (using ATRAC3 132K primarily) met and exceeded Sony's figures regularly.. it was only the times i was forced to ramp up the phones volume hideously and use EQ and the MegaBass (or whatever they called the bass enhancer) that the figures dropped.. and a moderate use of those two things brought the figures back into line with the specs.

Note, in the D-NE1 instance, i never used the external back pack.. purely used the internal cells packs only.

Notably, MP3PRO's (played back as 22Khz full-bitrate-range VBR MP3's aka MP3PRO VR in legacy mode) dont fall far short of low-mid bit-rate ATRAC files for impact on battery life - note, i mention this as it comes to mind, i know i'm probably the only one here mad enough to use MP3PRO in legacy playback mode as a MP3 source... (however, when on a long trip, it sure eeks out the battery life when using carried over mp3 cd-roms if they were mp3pro encoded).

So i would say if you are trying to eek out the max endurance on the deck of choice, definately go with ATRAC file use.

Now clearly, when you go into ATRAC3 105/132K and the 96k+ ATRAC3PLus rates, you may not find it so clear cut vs the other supported codecs.

Beyond that, i guess you are just gonna have to test and assess for yourself

Be Cool Always

'Tom Kat'

[kunteper]

i wonder if i unlock the volume limit, the battery life will be less ?

any ideas?

[markey]

i wonder if i unlock the volume limit, the battery life will be less ?

any ideas?

If you are listening at higher volume levels once you have unlocked the volume, yes you will use more battery and it won't last as long.

[DannyB37]

The battery life is 64kbps atrac3plus.

And I have always found the sony times to be pretty accurate.

Edited November 23, 2006 by DannyB37

[kerfuffle]

I thought it was measured at 48kbps, not 64kbps. O.O

[kunteper]

i have tested my a1200 2 days ago.. i started to play mp3 files(128kpbs,256pbs,320kpbs mixed) and i have never touched any buttons to search or something else.. and battery took about 13.5 hours!!

indeed, for (about) 14 hours playing, you should not to search any song or jump a file etc...