Are you happy with the battery life on the Fuze?

“Don’t you think that player would be kind of heavy for a shirt pocket?”

Not really. If the player weighs 3.1 ounces vs the 2.1 ounce weight of the Fuze, it still won’t be too heavy for a shirt pocket.

@jk98 wrote:

Would you be interested in a player 50% thicker than the Fuze if the battery life could be tripled? How about just doubled?

That would be my dream machine. And instead of a poly battery, I would like the infinite battery life of an AAA or AA rechargable battery. Or even a rigley’s gum battery as I have four left from an Iriver 450 cd player.

http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Site-suggestions-Product-feature/AA-battery-powered-mp3-player/td-p/63452

I’d be OK with 50%.

I’d also be OK with about and an inch longer (or maybe a half-inch in each dimension to accomodate a slightly larger screen).

I’m slightly disappointed with my battery life.  It’s a couple of years old, so it’s a reasonable 8 or so hours.  It lasts me a few days, since I’m not a hardcore user.

I wouldn’t mind thickness at all.  The brick of an iPod Photo feels good in my hands, but a more reasonable thickness would be a Fuze sized player with the thickness of an e200 (with a replaceable battery, of course).

@saxmaster765 wrote:

I’m slightly disappointed with my battery life.  It’s a couple of years old, so it’s a reasonable 8 or so hours.  It lasts me a few days, since I’m not a hardcore user.

 

I wouldn’t mind thickness at all.  The brick of an iPod Photo feels good in my hands, but a more reasonable thickness would be a Fuze sized player with the thickness of an e200 (with a replaceable battery, of course).

Only 8 or so hours? Weird…my V1 is close to two years old, I think… ( have to ask the original owner ) yet I get 15 or so.

@jk98 wrote:
http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Site-suggestions-Product-feature/AA-battery-powered-mp3-player/td-p/63452

That’s a good thread! But I’ve lost my patience for a mp3 player that has all the normal features and infinite battery life. So I Rockbox’d my fuze and I’m looking at products similar to this Minty Boost Kit. Commercially made ‘emergency’ usb chargers using AA or AAA batteries are available too. Looks like this poly battery craze has made a whole new market…LOL

"JK98 wrote: http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Site-suggestions-Product-feature/AA-battery-powered-mp3-player/td-p/634… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That’s a good thread!"

Not good enough to motivate Sandisk to make a great AA battery(or even AAA or other low cost swappable battery) powered player though. The thread is almost two years old.

I have 3 usb battery packs, the Tekkeon mp1550 which uses 4 AA nimh batteries,  the Duracell Instant Power and the Lenmar Poweport Mini. The last twohave a built in Lion battery. I am happy with the Tekkeon mp1550 and Duracell Instant Power, but am disappointed with the Lenmar Powerport Mini and I suggest it be avoided. Aside from holding too little power, the Powerport Mini seems to lose charge at a much faster rate when idle than the other two chargers. The other two have a power switch which the Powerport Mini lacks.

The Tekkeon mp1550 has a voltage regulator and can charge nimh batteries in it via usb(charging is slow though, around 6 hours for 4 batteries). Having a voltage regulator for the output power from a AA battery powered usb battery pack is very important to protect your gear. I do suggest that people not use alkalines with the Tekkeon mp1550 as it might become very hot when using them, and much of the power might be wasted as heat. The heat might even be enough to damage the mp1550. I never used my mp1550 with alkalines, as I know how poorly alkalines are at putting at high curent, and know that the comments of others about it getting to hot with alkalines makes sense. It works great with nimh batteries though, and doesn’t get hot with them.

http://www.tekkeon.com/products-tekcharge1550-specs.html

My favorite comment in the AA battery powered player thread is the comment that the Clip+ gets around 12 hours of play time with around 3 hours of charging, so play time is 4x charge time, while with 4 Sanyo AA nimh 2700 mah batteries charged in a 15 minute charger, and a player that can play 40 hours on one 2700 mah battery, play time is 640x charge time. That didn’t seem to impress many people. I hate the chore of charging batteries though, and having the play time/charge time ratio as high as practical is important to me. 640x vs 4x is very impressive!

Next time I will buy a music player, I will definetely look for replaceable batteries, also because it will make the lifetime of the same player longer, which is environmentally friendly. With extra long battery time (or flexible solution), I would be willing to pay more.

“Next time I will buy a music player, I will definetely look for replaceable batteries”

You can look for players with an easily swappable battery, but if things don’t change, you will only find basic players without a display like the Slotmusic player or Slotradio To Go player, low quality players, or very old low capacity players. I keep hoping things will change, but until then I have an external usb battery pack that uses AA nimh batteries.

http://www.tekkeon.com/products-tekcharge1550.html

I hope your tekkeon is still working. I just for fun tried to recharge the batteries through the device and now its RMA’d. The support team was only interested if they could sell me on a larger unit for the low amphour fuze…LOL

I hope you haven’t tested the tekkeon 1550 to the marketed limits with only your fuze…LMAO

go to belkin or http://forums.adafruit.com/viewforum.php?f=15 when your unit pops and it will.

Imo the vast majority of those who have had problems with the Tekkeon mp1550 were probably using it with alkaline batteries at some point. I think that very few people who only used it with nimh batteries had problems with it. Imo the heat generated from using alkaline batteries in it is what might damage its circuitry.

How long do want it to last, maybe I’m lucky but mine lasts for days literally. My daughter has a zoon and mine last at least 3-4 times longer then hers and twice as long as my sons i-pod.

Mine is over two years old now.  It’s hard to be exact, but I probably get around 8 hours with average scrolling around/LCD use.  Maybe a bit more.  Capacity has decreased noticably in the last two years with daily use.

I’d like the option of a replacable battery- seems to be fairly simple thing to open a segment of the case and drop in a new batery similar to a cell phone.  I also think using AAA batteries makes some sense even if it adds to the size.  Nothing like the ease of use and availability of standard batteries. 

I recently bought a new camera and one criteria that I prioritized was use of AA batteries because of our past camera using proprietary battery and seemingly alwasy running out of batteries and not having a spare charged up.

Anyway, at the end of the day, it’s just an mp3 player so probably bigger things in life to worry about.  Back to work.

My Fuze has a great battery life. I use it a couple of hours a day for audiobooks and only need to recharge every couple of weeks. It lasts about the same as my last device - a Creative Nano that took AAAs, and without the environmental impact of tossing batteries. 

@jk98 wrote:

Imo the vast majority of those who have had problems with the Tekkeon mp1550 were probably using it with alkaline batteries at some point. I think that very few people who only used it with nimh batteries had problems with it. Imo the heat generated from using alkaline batteries in it is what might damage its circuitry.

 

 

 

 

My tekkeon popped only using rechargable batteries. Worked great until I plugged it in to see if it would charge also.  One week and its going where all the writers of  bad reviews on Amazon sent theirs. The support desk only asked if I needed a larger capacity unit they sell. Mintyboost looks like the unit to get if you have the skills.

Which rechargeable batteries did you use in the Tekkeon mp1550? Were they nimh? The mp1550 won’t charge nicad batteries. Perhaps you might have done something else wrong, or there was a problem with your batteries? The Tekkeon mp1550 manual also states that the batteries should be completely depleted before charging them in the device.

As an answer to the original question, yes, I am perfectly content with the battery life on the Fuze. With my usage (while exercising every day, in the car back and forth to work, various other times) it easily lasts for several days. And if it’s low, I simply hook it up and charge over night, and it’s ready in the morning.

I wouldn’t want a AA battery based player, it would increase the size too much. The current Fuze size is great, no need to change that.

I also find that how it is used makes a big difference. My wife and I used to do a 6 hour drive out to my daughter’s college. I would use the player the whole time each way, playing pretty continuously the whole time. After 12 hours of play time, it would be barely down to half charge. But using it in normal daily activites, with a lot more on-off activity, it does not last nearly as long, I think. The on-off cycle seems to drain the battery a lot faster.

@jk98 wrote:

Which rechargeable batteries did you use in the Tekkeon mp1550? Were they nimh? The mp1550 won’t charge nicad batteries. Perhaps you might have done something else wrong, or there was a problem with your batteries? The Tekkeon mp1550 manual also states that the batteries should be completely depleted before charging them in the device.

I was using NiMH 2000 mAH rechargeable. The batteries were run down until my fuze wouldn’t charge. The tekkeon popped while trying to use it to charge. It never got hot. It flashed red indicating it wouldn’t charge the batteries. And it  just wouldn’t light up anymore or charge my fuze. I did do my due diligence and put a different set of recharged batteries in the tekkeon. No green lights. JK98, if yours hasn’t popped yet, keep it safe. I believe they made a bad batch of units. The bad reviews for the tekkeon 1550 start to concentrate in June 2010 and extends to today on Amazon and the product came out over a year ago…