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iPod HELP! 2nd gen. mini battery strange!

muffinman

muffinman

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 1, 2005
394
0
San Diego, California
I got my 2nd generation, 6 gb. mini about 5 days ago. I found out that the battery only lasted for 8 hours while the box said it lasted for 18 hours. I turned off all the backlights, EQs, and charged it all the way. I ordered it off apple.com with an educational discount. Everything is fine, but the battery does not last. What should i do?
 
the same thing happened with me. now i keep the backlight off and alls well. usually lasts me a week before a recharge. i use it 3 hours a day, 3 times a week, as well as the natural battery discharge time when turned off. although im a frequent track skipper.

hardly the claimed 18 hours from Apple or 26 from iPodLounge.

maybe they stuck a 1G battery in by mistake?
 
Call up AppleCare! You have 90 days of free tech support, use it! (and 1 year of warranty)
 
raggedjimmi said:
the same thing happened with me. now i keep the backlight off and alls well. usually lasts me a week before a recharge. i use it 3 hours a day, 3 times a week, as well as the natural battery discharge time when turned off. although im a frequent track skipper.

hardly the claimed 18 hours from Apple or 26 from iPodLounge.

maybe they stuck a 1G battery in by mistake?
Click to expand...

i seriously think that they put a 1G battery in mine. I dont usually skip tracks and i never turn on the backlight. And no i didnt get applecare. so what should i do?
 
muffinman said:
i seriously think that they put a 1G battery in mine. I dont usually skip tracks and i never turn on the backlight. And no i didnt get applecare. so what should i do?
Click to expand...

You have warranty support even if you didn't buy AppleCare, for the first year. Call them.

It may be a bad battery, but it's pretty unlikely that you have a 1G battery so long after the switchover...even if a mfg plant doesn't have a good stock quarantining process, having one slip after such a long delay is pretty hard to believe....
 
you know..

18 hours is not at all realistic no company tells the truth about battery life id say that 8hours is all youll really get.

the truth hurts.
 
AP_piano295 said:
18 hours is not at all realistic no company tells the truth about battery life id say that 8hours is all youll really get.

the truth hurts.
Click to expand...

ipodlounge said that theirs went to about 25 hours. My friends with the same model get arround 18 hours.

What number do i call? where would i find the number?
also, if i take my mini to an apple store, could they replace it there (if found defective) even though i bought it off the website?
 
its probably too late for that now, i ordered my mini as soon as they appeared in the online Apple store. i think that was about Feb? its certainly an improvement from my 15Gb 3G battery, that'd last me 2-3 days whereas its 7 days now.
 
my 2nd gen iPod Mini gets awesome battery life, and i skip tracks all the time too. i use it everyday for about three hours and i charge it about once a week which adds up to about 21 hours of battery life a week, not counting the battery loss when its not being used either.....

if you guys are seriously experiencing less than 18 hours of continuous playback with everything off and no skipping then i would talk to apple, you have one year of warranty, and three months of phone support. take it to an apple store if thats convenient, although there will probably be a line for the genius, they may not do anything, but then again you never know
 
apple support will cover it
on their list of faults low battery life is one and if it only lasts about 8 hours you should defintily get it sent off or take it in to your apple store
 
Alright, time to clear up some stuff.

AppleCare covers you for 1 year from date of purchase, with 90 days of phone support. This is standard. The AppleCare you buy bumps each one of those up to 3 years.

1-800-SOS-APPL is AppleCare's phone number. You should be able to find that in your stack of manuals.. the one that says AppleCare on it... that you mail in/fax in.... etc.

If Apple claims you get 18 hours of battery life, then you must be able to get 18 hours of battery life! Look at what is happening with the 3G iPods. Apple said 8 hours, and there was no way in hell people got 8 hours. Now, if you had no backlight and didn't skip tracks and got 8 hours, it would be different. But that didn't happen.

If you aren't getting 18 hours of battery life, call Apple. They will probably be able to help you. And then you can drive to an Apple Store and they may be able to swap batteries there, or you can send it in to Apple and they will send you a fixed/new one.
 
hate to take over the thread from Muffinman but cheers guys, gonna get onto Apple about this.
 
muffinman said:
ipodlounge said that theirs went to about 25 hours. My friends with the same model get arround 18 hours.

What number do i call? where would i find the number?
also, if i take my mini to an apple store, could they replace it there (if found defective) even though i bought it off the website?
Click to expand...

You ARE aware that all lithium batteries need to be conditioned to reach maximum efficiency, correct? To properly condition a new battery you want to take it out of the box, completely kill the battery, charge it up completely, and kill it again. Rinse and repeat for about the first 2 weeks. You can't use it for a little while and charge it when it's low. You have to wait until it's so dead it turns itself off from low battery, then try to turn it on again until you can't anymore, then give it a full charge.

Try this for another few weeks. You have 90 days of warranty. Make SURE it's defective before you try to bring it back.
 
selloutvixen said:
You ARE aware that all lithium batteries need to be conditioned to reach maximum efficiency, correct? To properly condition a new battery you want to take it out of the box, completely kill the battery, charge it up completely, and kill it again. Rinse and repeat for about the first 2 weeks. You can't use it for a little while and charge it when it's low. You have to wait until it's so dead it turns itself off from low battery, then try to turn it on again until you can't anymore, then give it a full charge.

Try this for another few weeks. You have 90 days of warranty. Make SURE it's defective before you try to bring it back.
Click to expand...


i charge my batteries to the maximum, then kill it until there are no more bars on the battery indicator. I have charged and killed it for now a week, and still no improvement. I think i will call apple, and then take it to the apple store. This really sucks. I also asked for a laser engraving, and it didnt work also. Looks like apple is losing its touch
 
selloutvixen has a point..

i thought my ipod was screwed a week after i got it, even had it sent back to apple and there was nothing wrong, i just hadnt broken her in..
 
raggedjimmi said:
hate to take over the thread from Muffinman but cheers guys, gonna get onto Apple about this.
Click to expand...


hey so what did apple say about it? I called after 6:00 pacific time, US, so they wont pick up, and i cant wait to hear the news.
 
wilmor42 said:
i thought my ipod was screwed a week after i got it, even had it sent back to apple and there was nothing wrong, i just hadnt broken her in..
Click to expand...

how long was the battery when it wasnt broken in, and how long did it take to break it in (how many charges)
 
well i had a few weeks off work and i used it near on all day everyday for that time and charged it when i needed (ran it right down)..
its almost 2 years old and i still get a good 6 hours..and some
and i skip like a maniac
(not literally) :D
 
You do NOT need to "break in" a Lithium-Ion battery. Linkety should give you all the data you need to know.

A lithium battery needs to be fully charged, and then discharged completely. This will give the battery's circuitry the data it needs for total capacity. You don't need to do this continuously.
Linkety for iPods, specifically.

Linkety for AppleCare
 
I'm glad to see this thread; I thought I was alone on the crappy mini battery life. I got my mini back when they came out in February, and I only get about 5 hours of play time out of it. I always run it in shuffle and I do skip tracks quite a bit, but I never use the backlight or equalizer.
 
Xeem said:
I'm glad to see this thread; I thought I was alone on the crappy mini battery life. I got my mini back when they came out in February, and I only get about 5 hours of play time out of it. I always run it in shuffle and I do skip tracks quite a bit, but I never use the backlight or equalizer.
Click to expand...

use your warrenty and let apple fix it. or, after shopping arround, i found websites where you can get 25hour++ mini batteries for as low as 50 dollars.
 
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