topic Re: Poor Battery Life in PCs & Accessories

Poor Battery Life

ronnieboot — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 09:18:06 GMT

I am so disappointed with the battery life on my Pocket Vaio, the manual says that it will last for 20 hours - well mine only manages to achieve around 3 hours of playback before it dies.
Also if I fully charge the unit and leave it in the drawer for just two days, when I try to use it , the battery is flat. It seems to me that it does not switch off (even though I double check that the power shows on screen that it is off)
Does anyone else have this problem, or do I need to return it to Sony?????
Ron West

Re: Poor Battery Life

Chris384 — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:21:24 GMT

what bit-rate do you have your music at?

the bigger the bit-rate the better sound quality but also means that the battery will not last as long, this is the same on all players of this type!

Re: Poor Battery Life

ronnieboot — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 09:51:20 GMT

Thanks Chris, I never knew that higher bit rate recordings would affect the battery life. So many people are complaining on this forum about the battery life I am sure that they will be interested in this fact. Does it mean that, to get the '20 hours' batterery life that Sony quote, we need to record at the lowest bit rate possible? Has anyone conducted a test to prove this statement? If they have, I would be interested to know the outcome.

Ron West

Re: Poor Battery Life

Chris384 — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 13:50:46 GMT

yes to get the full 20 hrs you would have to encode at a lower bit rate, i think you maybe able to get very near 20hrs with 64kpbs, but if you use 48kpbs you could probably get a bit more than 20hrs.

however 48kbps doesn't sound great, i have my music at 132kbps using atrac3, i probably get a bit over half the max battery life.

also if you are using mp3 coding this may also affect the battery slightly (i maybe wrong) but since this player was optimised for Atrac it will probably last longer using atrac!

Re: Poor Battery Life

saltire2005 — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:28:48 GMT

hi.. i have no problems with battery life while running, but as you say if the unit is unused for a couple of days the battery dies....

sony today told me that this is normal as the internal clock uses power when the unit is off...

wish they told you this before you buy...!!!

as i travel away for 2-3 days at a time i was needing a unit that could give me long play, which i thought this unit would do...

its not ideal to have to carry the cradle everywhere, but sony say you have to stick it in the cradle when not in use....

very poor i thinks.....!!!

Re: Poor Battery Life

davidstrachan — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:50:16 GMT

I also have been having problems with battery life if you leave the player for a couple of days. If Sony say this is due to the internal clock, then I'd say the machine is just not fit for purpose. I am going to demand a refund under the sale of goods act. Useless, uterly useless, and damaging surely to Sony's otherwise good reputation

Re: Poor Battery Life

nrmalle — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:20:41 GMT

hi,i am sorry sony doesn't know about this.i have been in touch with them and they fogged me off with different excuse.
please could you tell me how i change the bit rate of the music already on the hard drive and also on the VP.
thanks

belgrave

Re: Poor Battery Life

ronnieboot — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:54:40 GMT

If you have already transferred music to the viao then you will have to delete it and transfer it again at a higher bit rate. I have tried 48kbs and this is not very good at all. You will need to use at least 64kbs (or higher). The battery life is still very much under the 20hours that Sony claim.
Like a previous forum member, I am thinking that I will claim a refund from Sony for this player because it really does not come up to the advertised specification.

Re: Poor Battery Life

MadarbWoT — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 15:45:55 GMT

claiming refunds will only get you more trouble i think.
it takes time and all,it needs money for lawyers or whatever,plus it will only make sony turn her back to the customers that do this and most likely to the rest that use this product.

is it really THAT annoying to you that the battery is not responding for a very long time?i know that the advertisment said otherwise but consider that it said you can transfer mp3s directly and i really dont think that anybody did that succesfully up till now.i mean,mp3s are more important than battery life for me and since noone complained about that,they shouldn't use the same excuse for something else.

or are you maybe that much let down from the vp?

Re: Poor Battery Life

kikelone — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:03:22 GMT

Hello Im sorry for my english but Im spanish...
How can i change the bit rate of the music...for example for 48kbps to 64 or 128kbps?

Re: Poor Battery Life

kikelone — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:06:04 GMT

Hello....How can i change for 48 kbps to 132kbps?

Re: Poor Battery Life

MadarbWoT — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:34:14 GMT

first of all you cant just take a file that already exists and alter the bitrate.

what you can do is:
when in s.stage you try to transfer your files over to the vp,you can go to the "transfer mode" menu and select the bitrate you want your music to be converted into.

other than that,you can select the bitrate in any program you use to conver music into mp3s for example,in the menu of the program.

Re: Poor Battery Life

ronnieboot — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 10:24:41 GMT

Assuming that you have recorded your music on to your computer already, here is what you should do to transfer to your vaio player:-
1. Connect the cradle to your computer
2. Load the Sonicstage software and select 'Transfer'
3. From you monitor display, select Transfer Mode' (in the centre of screen just beneath 'Automatic Transfer'
4. Now select 'Standard Transfer Mode' and click on 'Details'
5. Now you can click 'Convert Automatically and Transfer'
6. Click the down arrow, to the right of 'after conversion' and choose your preferred bit rate from the list.

I hope this makes sense to you. Remember that the best sound will be at 256kbs and the worst will be at 48kbs.
Ron West