IRiver HP-120 (1 Viewer)

[KyleC]

I just got one and I have questions for those who have it:

1) Does bitrate of song affect battery life?
2) Should I upgrade the firmware from 1.3 to 1.4?
3) Should I only charge the battery when it's completely dead?

Thank you.

 

[Jonathan Smith]

1. Yes. All of my music is ogg vorbis at quality 5 (roughtly 180kbit/sec), and my battery gets closer to 8-10 hours rather than 16.

2. I didn't know 1.4 was out yet. I'll have to check it out.

3. No. It is better to charge the battery regularly before it is dead. I forget the science behind it, but I think it's well accepted that draining this type of battery reduces battery life.

 

[KyleC]

I charged my batter Tuesday night when I first got it and it was almost completey dead by tonight (down to 1 bar). Most of my MP3's are 192. Ah well. Is there an adapter I can use for the airplane?

 

[KyleC]

Is it ok to pass the HD Mp3 player through the x-ray machine at the airport?

 

[Chris-V]

I've never had a problem with the X-ray machine. I have a Creative Zen, not an Iriver, but the technology is basically the same.

Is the battery a lithium polymer? I know lithium-ion batteries should be conditioned (run dead and then recharged once or twice when you get the player and then periodically after that), but I'm not sure about the lithium polymer batteries that I think Iriver uses.

 

[KyleC]

According to IRiver's site:

Q. How much playback time can I get from a full charge of the battery?
A. The H100 will playback music files for 16 hours before needing to be recharged. The player works by spinning the hard drive, loading songs into a buffer, then stopping the drive. Please note that any activity that increases the amount of time the hard drive spins will cause the playback time to be reduced, including: Adding and deleting files from the H100, playing back files or higher quality such as WAV files, and creating / updating the DB file.


I guess because I just got it and I'm adding/deleting so many files right now that could be why the battery drained so fast. I just dont see why a higher bitrate would affect battery life?

 

[Jonathan Smith]

A higher bitrate means that the files are bigger, which makes the player's buffer fill up faster. The hard drive needs to spin more often to refill the buffer, which reduces the amount of time the player can run before the battery dies. I'm not sure if that's the only reason, but it's one I could think of.

There's no problem running one of these players through the xray.

 

[KyleC]

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