My brand new Archos 2 - poor battery life

[zeroaxe]

Hi all,

I would like to use this post to introduce myself at the same time. So "Hallo, I am a newbie"

I did some searching on the net and then here on the forum specifically regarding the battery life of the Archos 2. I have only found 'answers' that refers to 10hours(some up to 12) of battery life playing MP3s. Even on the Archos website, they mention 10hours. Now here is my problem....

I bought the Archos new, middle of August. I took it out of the sealed box and hooked it up to the PC to charge just like they mention in the user manual. Didnt touch it until after it charged for more than 4 hours. the thing is, only get 4 hours 'in return' too. I can not for the life of me get more than 4 1/2 hours playing time on the player at 25 Volume and the original earphones. I have a 1Gb Micro SD card in the player, but even tried only playing from internal memory. I have registered my product on the Archos website and also sent a contact message to the Tech support, and awaiting their reply.

If any of the seasoned Archos users/owners can advise or help, it would be MUCH appreciated.

I thank you in advance,
Zeroaxe.

[IHlEI]

Ok ... u should hav readt the manual entirely dude... it says to do a full charge.. not to leave it 4hours...
Cuz see .. thing is with Li-Ion batteries ... they dont like overcharge... i made the same mistake with a low price 1gb mp3 player once and it refused to work for a while then started again- so if ur battery is new it shouldnt suffer from this mistake ... other thing is ur product comes already charged at almost full capacity -u could have seen it if turning it on before pluggin it to ur pc...

I advise u to read som about lithium accus & how to prolongate their life because they quite the opposite of classical accumulators we all been acustomed to in the past. briefly : *dont over or undercharge em * if u gonna "stock" it leave it at 40% of charge .. try never "full-empty" it... it is also ill-advised to use them while they are charging albeit firmware strangely allows this...

I agree they should giv better explanations on this.

Another issue is that their life expectancy is not more than 36 months for little units -even if some satellites uses 12y mega lithium batteries- so they start depleting as soon as they r built... u could then argue that the unit u received was an old one -since this is a china made oem they cant really verify - and if u play wise they could exchange u to a new one -excuse my froggy english- then u'd apply on this new unit what they should hav taught u in the manual ...

[zeroaxe]

Thanks for the reply.

I am sorry, I think I should have put it that I did actually leave it to fully charge. I did what the manual said to "safely unplug it from the Computer" by clicking on the USB devices icon in the System tray. The battery showed "Full".

I will read up about the batteries like you mentioned. But I can not resist asking the question.... Is there something I can do to get this thing to function properly(the claimed 10hours playing time)? Or, as I understand from your post, I should get this replaced under warrenty?

This leads me to another question..... In the future, how would one go about sourcing and replacing the existing battery? I am wuite happy with the Archos 2(although it lacks HUGELY from playing Play Lists and by Genre! ), and dont plan on changing it *soon*. Unless something happens to it obviously.

Thank you in advance,
Zeroaxe.

[rokero]

Also, if the screen backlight is on the whole time it will kill the battery much sooner. Make sure it's set to go off automatically while listening to music.

[zeroaxe]

Thank you also for your input. I have just checked and can verify that I have the setting to go "off" after 15seconds.

I had a look at Wikipedia regarding "lithium accus" (actually the article is about Lithium-Ion cells). And there what they mention about how to go about charging the battery is completely out of our control. They mention how the cells need to be 'balanced' , and how the charger needs to reduce the charing to 10% initial charge etc etc. Thing is, we(I) Cant control that, it is all done by the Archos 2. So I am a little at a loss about how to go about this problem, other than to have to try and return the player and hope for a battery replacement

Thank you in advance,
Zeroaxe.

[IHlEI]

re... since it's unadvised to do a full discharge of the device regarding its lithium battery -btw the user manual says those are li-ion batteries - i never went past 2 bars without recharging so i cant inform you on its real capacity.
On many independant french testing sites they say : 10h45 reading in loop a 320kbps mp3 with sound volume @ 15 & screen off... 4 hours time is mentioned if playing only videos the whole time.

they also say the battery is unremovable.

here is a traduction from the french wiki -who for once seems to hav a better article than the english one hehe- :
"Extend the life of a battery Li-ion (lithium - ion)
* Do not deep charge/discharge.
* Do not stock batteries too much for a long time without using them.
* keep the battery at room temperature (many constructors recommend the stocking in 15 ┬░C) : try not to charge it in a case that could heaten it up
* Stock the battery around 40 % of load.
* Not to charge compl├®tely the battery before stocking it.
* Not to empty compl├®tely the battery before stocking it.
* Do not make supply of batteries of spare.
* During the purchase of the battery, prove the date of manufacture, its wear beginning from its exit of plant.
* Do not use during the time of load.
also : The depth of discharge: these batteries wear out less quickly when they are recharged every 10 % of discharge that when they are every 80 % "

Anyway archos got a good aftersale customer policy : back when i had the old jukebox recorder 20gb i had a charging issue- i got it back to the supermarket where i bought it - they sent it back to archos - who sent me a new model with a spare full new set of aa batteries for free... it was still under warranty

The other question "u'v been led to" is the same i'v been askin myself... post warranty what would happen if i want to replace the li-ion accumulators.. it seems according to the cheapness of the product no1 has tught of this and maybe they consider it as sort of a "throwaway after use" device... which considering the ecological issues of li-ion is kind of a bad .. consideration... any1 could tell more about this ? i readt about apple macbook & Iphones and their new unremovable batteries which goes against new european ecological rules ... so i guess i'll throw a complaint to the DGCRF (french consumer protection agency) when the moment comes.. i'll get a refund & i would have been offered 2-3 years of free archos 2 use...

So anyaway if u only got less than half the battery life on mp3 readng just after buying it u r entitled to a replacement - u should also consider the Gold warranty extension Archos plan if it's available for this product- it extend the warranty 2 years with free battery replacement.

[IHlEI]

Oh another idea that came to me : the warranty by default being one year : the bright thing to do seems to be to send it back after just before the warranty expires so u get a new battery & spare one free-year of battery life... if everyone was to be doing this- we 'd surely get longer delays but we'd be supporting postal services around the worlds- & they'd probably think of a better way to handle their consumers needs towards high mobility items electrical-autonomy.

look at dem iphones exploding on dem poor users lol are they service providers or multinational terrorists ? bahahaa

[EdT]

Also, if the screen backlight is on the whole time it will kill the battery much sooner. Make sure it's set to go off automatically while listening to music.

You can shut off the screen backlight when it is charging by simply clicking the Windows USB icon on the bottom right hand corner or your screen ! Do this after you updated or uploaded any new media or else you would have to unplug and replug the unit again to access the player's memory again.