so i've had my new ipod for about a month. i carried it with me yesterday in my pocket for about 1.5 hours. it was about at half-power before and at a thin red line after.

today, after recharging overnight, it's about done after only SEVEN HOURS. Looking online, i guess i was dumb for not "locking" it to keep the screen from coming on. But why would the charge drop so dramatically, over half, based on that one incident? i didn't do anything bad to it, just probably (i can only guess) keep the video on by rubbing against the keypad during lunch.

Does anyone have a similar experience? Why would i be down to 7 hours battery life already? That's highly disconcerting.

that is disconcerting. the locking issue should only affect how long the battery lasts on the day you fail to lock it, not long term (unless you do it a whole lot maybe).

was the light on? Did it actually conk out? my battery life never seems to have anything to do with what the screen says.

have you been leaving it charging for like days on end?

the video ipods now have a screen brightness setting that they didn't have prior to the itunes 7 update. try knocking your brightness donw a few notches and report back. that screen eats power.

ok. will do.

to clarify, i didn't use the lock feature before today as a result of what i read online after finding my battery went from half-life to near-dead over lunch.

i'm going to start using the lock feature more often to save juice.

only good news: i called best buy & they said i could have the battery replaced for free under my 3 year plan. i'll see how the ipod works tomorrow after i reset that screen light setting.

still, i shouldn't be down to 7hrs already.

With the light on the battery life is going to take a serious hit. Can you turn the backlight off except for when you hit the buttons, like the non-photo, non-vid models did? I have mine set for 5 seconds so that if I hit a button the light goes off after 5 seconds. Besides the hard drive, the screen is about the only other thing that's going to use a lot of power on the Ipod.

actually, the backlight is set to only come on when the keypad is touched.

as for the hard-drive mention, i've heard the harddrive to extra work the last few days. (it reminded me of my rio.) thought i was hearing things or it was an anomale. haven't even dropped the damn thing yet...

You should always drain it completely before recharging.

you got SEVEN WHOLE HOURS!

That's amazing. I average about 4 playing music, and my iPod isn't old at all.

the ipod 60gig is advertised at 20. for the type of battery it has, i expect at least 14 initially (gradually going down over months/years). 7's almost a defect in my opinion, like if the ipod only played half of every album.

ipod shows me at approx half battery life after 2.5 hours of usage. and yesterday i ran it nearly dry. (there was a thin, barely visible red line left.) total crapola.

if this persists, i might take best buy up on replacing the battery for free even though i could be without my ipod for up to 2 weeks.

yeah you'd best have them replace it. i'm sure you'll be ok without it.

Have you done the battery test? One thing that the Apple test doesn't suggest that makes the test a lot easier to do is that once you find the album on your Ipod, make sure the playcount is cleared so that when you reconnect it you can just check that rather than babysitting your Ipod to see when it stops playing, which is kind of asinine.

My 80G has amazing battery life. When you first got your ipod did you charge it completely and then drain it all the way down. Supposedly this ensures maximum results over the life of the ipod. If you followed that step and it's losing battery life then utilize your warranty and replace.

when i first bought my ipod i charged it completely but didn't drain it all the way down. i've never been lower than approx 25% remaining until this current problem.

That could be your problem then. Just don't mention it when you look for a replacement/refund.

How long is the battery supposed to last? I'm nearing my year anniversary with my 30gig, and in the last few days I've noticed a severe drop in battery life. I charged it completely last night, listened to one 45 minute album today and the battery bar was down to red.

Up to this point, battery life has been amazing. I'll try the backlight thing, but something must be wrong.

update...

so all thru last week i had about 8 hours of battery life; whereas before my mall trip, the battery power indicator was at about half-way green at 8 hours.

over the weekend i hooked it up to the usb/charger as i normally would and didn't use it. this week, it seems [knock knock knock] that it's back to normal, at about half-green power at the end of my work day (which includes listening to the ipod to/fro work).

i have no idea what went on. i still hear the rio-like crunching every-so-often. i now experience this "initial play hiccup" where, when i unpause after locking the ipod, it sometimes plays a garbled second, is quiet, then starts the song over or skips to the next song. (weird.) and a rare occurence of it just stopping playing and fading to black ("turning off").

those, while they might indicate that this thing could be doomed before the year's out, are minor to me compared to not having enough juice to last me through the workday, so i'll tolerate 'em for now. But if i ever slip back to 8- hours of battery life again, i'll probably take it in to best buy.

for the record, apple boats 20 hours of battery life initially. In practice, and found on a number of review boards, the thing sees about 14-ish hours initially. and of course, that battery life degrades over time.

So, did you ever do the battery test? It'll answer all your questions.

ive had my ipod for just under 2 years now, and the battery life is still good, but the catch is that i ride my bike most days and so i rarely use the thing.
sort of beating the odds but not really.

not yet.

ok, so now it's back to the 8-ish battery life again. been this way for a week+. i think it happens as a result of simply carrying it in my pocket (vertically). not sure how to make it "go back" to normal battery life.

i'm hoping wifey bought me some sort of "at work" charger/speaker-system for it for xmas. otherwise, i'll probably just buy a usb-charger. silly i have to do that though.

I get 20 hours out of putting one AAA battery into my Sandisk mp3 player.

how many tunes can you get on it though (and at a high bit rate?)