Fuse battery life

I don’t think I get the 24 hour battery life that is touted for the Fuse. I use a combination of Sennheiser Px100 and Sennheiser Mx500 earbuds and so far it seems like I get about 15 hours. I do listen to videos about 10% of the time, FM radio about 30%, and mp3s and Audible audiobooks the rest of the time. My mp3s are encoded at various kbps from 192 to 320. I was hoping I should get over 20 hours, but that isn’t the case. When I listen to audiobooks, I notice that the battery life decreases about 10% every half hour. I have upgraded to the latest firmware V01.01.22A. Also my brightness is set at the second lowest level. 

I’ll track my battery life more accurately from now on to be sure, but it seems to be disappointingly low. On a side note, the recharging time by USB is surprisingly quick. I think I get full charge in just one and a half hour. 

Different media needs different amounts of power, If you look closly with video you only get about 5 hours of battery (if video is played solely) I would guess that if you played nothing music (All at the same bitrate and wavelength) you would do better. Try turning the backlight timer to 5 seconds and the backlight brightness all the way down. this may help as well.

As it has been reported here in the forums before, the stated battery life with the fuze is based on playing nothing but 128kbps mp3 files.  I haven’t used a 128kbps mp3 file in about 10 years, but even so … compared to other brands of players I’ve had in the past, I think the battery life with the fuze is amazingly good.

Okay I’ve timed the battery life for 9 and a half hours, and its at 36%. From any type of extrapolation, I’d find it hard to see how it can break 20 hrs, much less 18 hrs. I have exclusively used Sennheiser MX500 earbuds at about 50% normal volume. I only listened to 2 audiobooks, and listened to FM radio for almost all the test time. I’ve hardly needed to use the screen so that shouldn’t be the reason the battery is running down so quickly. Finally I’ve used the player continuously for 2 to 3 hours at a time. I’m a bit disappointed that my battery times will be so far off the reported battery life. I believe Sandisk really overestimated their times and computed the times according to the most ideal conditions. Any one facing similar situation?

@lukev wrote:
Okay I’ve timed the battery life for 9 and a half hours, and its at 36%. From any type of extrapolation, I’d find it hard to see how it can break 20 hrs, much less 18 hrs. I have exclusively used Sennheiser MX500 earbuds at about 50% normal volume. I only listened to 2 audiobooks, and listened to FM radio for almost all the test time. I’ve hardly needed to use the screen so that shouldn’t be the reason the battery is running down so quickly. Finally I’ve used the player continuously for 2 to 3 hours at a time. I’m a bit disappointed that my battery times will be so far off the reported battery life. I believe Sandisk really overestimated their times and computed the times according to the most ideal conditions. Any one facing similar situation?

The battery level indicator…I don’t believe it necessarily shows us info in a truly linear manner. I know with my Clip, it seemed to drop too quickly at first, and then not change at all for quite a while…and it still was playing loud and strong when it hit 0%. You’re not going to truly know how accurate that 36% is until you complete your test. My clip when I tested that, dropped into the 60% range quickly, then was there for quite a while. ALso, none of the battery estimates are done with the radio, they are listed with with the low bitrate MP3, like fuze owner-GB said. All your MP3s are much higher than that. So wait on your final judgement until you finish your test.

If I recall correctly, playing ff radio will decrease the battery life, it consume smore energy than playing mp3 files…

That doesn’t seem right since two of my Sony AM/FM radio portables take one AAA and AA battery each and run nearly 100 hours or so. Incredible they are, but I didn’t think radio would take so much processing power.

Your Sony radios probably have a standard tuner, all they need power for is the amplifier, The fuze is what I believe to be a digtal tuner this requires power for the tuner to operate. Do yout Sonys have an Antenna?

They are both analog radios. No external antenna. The AM antenna is within the case of the players.

The Fuze does get 24 hour battery life if the equalizer is off, playing 128 kbps mp3 files if set to play continuosly without pressing any buttons, the screen brightness is set at the lowest, and screen time at the lowest setting. Typical run time for those who don’t use video or the equalizer, who use mp3 files, and have the screen brightness and time set to the lowest setting is more like 20 hours. Your battery run time seems reasonable, especially since you play videos. The radio probably uses around half the power than when playing mp3 files. WMA files, and especially protected wma files use more battery power than mp3 files at the same bitrate. Higher bitrate files use more power than lower bitrate files. If you watch videos 10% of the the time, then you are getting 13.5 hours for audio and an hour and a half for video, which is equivalent to roughly 21 hours of audio alone(video eats up power at about 5x the rate of audio). Not  bad. If you want longer runtime, skip the video.