question on battery life of mp3 players

Quote:

Originally Posted by streetcar 

what I mean is what is the lifespan of the actual battery before it dies for good and thus requiring me to buy a new player?

It depends on battery chemistry (Ni-Cd, Ni-MH, Li-Ion, Li-Pol etc), profile of use, cells manufacturer, and what do you call "dies".

On average, Li-Ion cells capacity will decrease on 10% after 100 power cycles.

Up to a handful years.

Example - My 1G iPod nano is still running quite fine after 5 years. Battery capacity dropped to about 60%, but it still last 4-5 hours of playback.

If you take care of it, it should be fine.

My 1st gen ipod touch's battery lasts about 40 minutes on straight playback but that's because I rarely ever turned it off since the 2 and something years I had it. I just put it to sleep even when I went to sleep because I didn't get into the habit of turning the touch off. The fact that my speaker dock was always charging it when it was playing didn't help either.

On the other hand, my sony walkman, NW-E505, still last around 30 hours after 3 something years.

As far as i understand it, in terms of power cycles, Li-ion cells are known to have very high power cycle ability. Unless overcharging occurs, it will retain its battery lifespan for a very long time