View Full Version : whats with the battery life
beemanreturns!
12-17-2007, 18:08
i really get this player - it appears to be simple to use. is able to play a huge variety of video and audio file formats. seems terrific. ...and if i really was a believer in the great audio quality fallacy i would love this player even more. in fact it seems that q5w owners who dont mind the fact that their do anything mp3 player, that doesn't actually do half the things it says it does, would love this player even more. Here is, an honest to goodness, audio player for "the audiophile".
but one thing confuses me - 7 hours for video (Thats great!!!) 10 hours for audio ... eh? what's that all about.
because the thing that it immediatly says is - THIS ISN'T AN AUDIO PLAYER. ITS A VIDEO PLAYER. - and this was the stupidest thing that Cowon could have done ... because who needs a video player. - i know someone who flies a lot and ...someone who has commutes that last as long as a movie. But thats about it. Where mp3 players are ubiquitous - due to the nature of the task (listening) , watching a video requires more effort and time. My guess is that most people who buy this will spend the majority of their time listening to mp3s and will then realise that their battery just ran out!
pathetic
Kylearan
12-17-2007, 19:57
I travel a lot and want more video life than audio, so the fact that I can get close to 7 hours of video with tha A3's screen size, resolution and format options pretty much seals this as the player to get.
If you want major battery life in an audio player, you're obviously looking at the wrong product.
Wow I didnt know it was that low, the a2 was 20plus audio and 9-10 video, deal breaker for me
because the thing that it immediatly says is - THIS ISN'T AN AUDIO PLAYER. ITS A VIDEO PLAYER. - and this was the stupidest thing that Cowon could have done ... because who needs a video player. - i know someone who flies a lot and ...someone who has commutes that last as long as a movie. But thats about it. Where mp3 players are ubiquitous - due to the nature of the task (listening) , watching a video requires more effort and time. My guess is that most people who buy this will spend the majority of their time listening to mp3s and will then realise that their battery just ran out!
pathetic
guess what? you're right. this is primarily a video player. i thought that was obvious.
ZetastreaM
12-18-2007, 11:01
I think its kinda inane to say the A3 is primarily a video player. It's a Portable
'MULTIMEDIA' Player. I mean look at the audio codecs this thing supports, it just screams, *AUDIOPHILES OVER HERE!!* :-)
Personally I'm wondering if Cowon primarily concentrated on getting as much battery life for the video codecs for the initial release and we'll see improvements via firmware updates for the audio codecs later.
I can't think of any reason why the A3 or any player would draw more power decoding plain audio rather than video AND audio! Of course I'm not technically minded at all. [toungue]
Indeed it is a portable media player which centrally focuses on it's video playing capabilities rather than it's audio codec abilities. It is primarily a portable Video player, and secondarily a portable Audio player, as is demonstrated by the rather weak by comparison Audio battery life.
I can't think of any reason why the A3 or any player would draw more power decoding plain audio rather than video AND audio! Of course I'm not technically minded at all.
indeed.
the fact is, this is the only pocket-size player that supports so many codecs, at high resolutions, and in order to do so it needs a CPU which eats a lot of power. So the trade-off is battery life.
but according to you AustinV, in your other posts, you are finding that it does NOT actually support the higher resolutions that Cowon claim to be supported.
I think Cowon delayed the release of the A3 for this very reason - trying to get it right with HD support, and failed as yet to achieve it. and nevertheless they released an unfinished product to the world before the end of the year to try to get as many sales from this device as possible (obviously this is the time of year when most gadgets are purchased) and perhaps they may or may not finish the job via firmware updates in the future. But the A3 could not wait any longer in the pre-production line.
however my guess is that if they didn't succeed yet with this new devinci processor then they probably won't ever get it to work 'properly'. but Cowon must have realised that they gotta move on and make the next revolutionary DAP or PMP or whatever in order to continue competing in this growing market.
and in which case (if i am right) the power-hungry devinci chip is a mistake to trade off against reduced battery life and hence reduced portability!
thats my guess...
guess what? you're right. this is primarily a video player. i thought that was obvious.
I said that about the a2 a few years back and got shouted down[surrend]
Still no excuse for the half audio battery time of that of the a2, devinci cant be blamed for that? Can it?
Kylearan
12-18-2007, 14:29
The lack of life on the audio end is a bit perplexing, no doubt. The LCD shuts down after a few seconds, so it's not drawing power on that end.
As for supporting higher resolutions, I've actually had luck with 720 DivX files in AVI containers, converted from MKV with a little program called MoKgVm2DVD on my G5. The original file played, but with a stutter. No such problem once I converted it.
So ... I'm not sure how problematic HD files truly are. Certain formats, yes. But HD itself? Seems the A3 can handle some of what you throw at it.
but according to you AustinV, in your other posts, you are finding that it does NOT actually support the higher resolutions that Cowon claim to be supported.
I think Cowon delayed the release of the A3 for this very reason - trying to get it right with HD support, and failed as yet to achieve it. and nevertheless they released an unfinished product to the world before the end of the year to try to get as many sales from this device as possible (obviously this is the time of year when most gadgets are purchased) and perhaps they may or may not finish the job via firmware updates in the future. But the A3 could not wait any longer in the pre-production line.
however my guess is that if they didn't succeed yet with this new devinci processor then they probably won't ever get it to work 'properly'. but Cowon must have realised that they gotta move on and make the next revolutionary DAP or PMP or whatever in order to continue competing in this growing market.
and in which case (if i am right) the power-hungry devinci chip is a mistake to trade off against reduced battery life and hence reduced portability!
thats my guess...
you don't seem to understand how the A3 performs at all. educate yourself and then if you specific questions that haven't already been answered, I will assist.
sorry, but i'm not at all clear where i've got it wrong.
perhaps you can enlighten me.
i've been reading these forums alot and i got the impression that HD is bringing the A3 to its knees ie choppy visuals.
and yet virtually everyone here would expect the battery life of audio use to be alot more than video, after all the screen is hardly being used .
hence, it makes no sense to people that A3 can only manage 2 extra hours for audio when most other PMPs can do about twice as much (or D2 for a huge amount more- 10hrs vid, 52hrs audio !!!)
so how do you, AustinV, explain what everyone else seems to be missing here ?
ps. really looking forward to reading your review and hope you mention A3's ability to display documents (pdf and doc etc) - as 7 hrs is still better than pocketPC.
beemanreturns!
12-18-2007, 19:29
i think an interesting thing to come out of this is the realization that the A3 is not really an upgrade of the a2. Unlike one of the former posters i do think that the 2 can be used effectively as a straight mp3 player due to a battery life of 18-20 hours. On the other hand the A3 is not designed to be an all round media player and at its core, is a fantastic video player. But i don't think you will see a throng of a2 owners selling them in order to pick up an a3. so questions like - will we see a significant price drop of th a2, aren't really appropriate because ,due to the battery life, cowon has scaled down the possible section of consumers who would buy this machine. the a2 remains in a class of its own and its a shame that cowon missed the boat on this one.
chauncy_the_dog
12-18-2007, 21:17
While your concerns over battery life are justified... you just can't continue making these blanket fallacious comments. So let's look at a few shall we?
THIS ISN'T AN AUDIO PLAYER. ITS A VIDEO PLAYER. - and this was the stupidest thing that Cowon could have done ... because who needs a video player
1) Archos, apple, iriver, cowon, creative all make combined video/audio players. And they are selling well so obviously lots of people like watching video on their player. If all you want is straight audio, get a G3, it has 50 hour battery life. An a2/a3/q5w aren't really meant to be all that portable- I'd point out that they all have hard drives, and running around with a hard drive isn't the brightest thing one can do.
2) in fact it seems that q5w owners who dont mind the fact that their do anything mp3 player, that doesn't actually do half the things it says it does
Let's see I surfed the net for 2 hours, read a comic book in the photo viewer, listened to music, watched "The Aviator". What is it it's supposed to not do exactly?
3) if i really was a believer in the great audio quality fallacy i would love this player even more
Huh? What's your point here? That their is no difference between mp3s at the same bit rate on different players or what? I have a G3, a zen vision m, a d2 an a2 and q5w. You're wrong. I can tell the difference between each of them- on the exact same settings. So can most people who care about their music quality.
I think the a3's ability to play aac is a huge deal. The a3 sounds like a terrific player. I know the q5w is a great player.
Why don't you actually use one for like a week before you make these huge sweeping statements?
Do you think you could make your point without taking unjustified potshots about things you don't know about?
beemanreturns!
12-19-2007, 05:16
the phrase that comes to mind is "more money than sense". im glad you could read a comic book and watch a movie and surf the internet - although clearly you did this at home as your q5ws battery life would not last long enough if you were not plugged into the mains.
i did similar things last night too, watched a movie and bought a christmas present. i did this on a computer - my eeepc infact. its cheap and very usable.
the thing about portable deices is that they need to be well - portable. And they are not if the battery life is so low that you have to keep recharging every few hours. but don't let me dissuade you from buying all the devices you can as its people like you who keep the industry going. Me, ill take a more measured approach , realize that there are easier , more practical ways of doing things (like surfing the web, or writing my thesis), and save my money until something that really fits the bill , comes out.
now back on topic - the a3 seems like a great device, but the battery life stops it from being something i would buy. Its a shame tha cowon sacrificed battery life for the use of a better chip and i believe this will stop many from buying this player. 10 hours for audio - come on man, you can't seriously tell me that that is acceptable.
and to put it into very simple terms:
the archos 605 has 5.5hrs for video and 17hrs for audio.. (thats over 3x more)
yet has the same screen resolution and even slightly bigger screen.
so i am led to believe that the devinci chip is the culprit - for being a juice-hungry inefficient disaster for Cowon.
tell me i'm wrong - but then please explain why
you're not, we've mentioned the chip as being the reason many time in other threads. Hardly a disaster when you get 7hrs of video playback :)
because the thing that it immediatly says is - THIS ISN'T AN AUDIO PLAYER. ITS A VIDEO PLAYER
If you want major battery life in an audio player, you're obviously looking at the wrong product.
guess what? you're right. this is primarily a video player. i thought that was obvious.
How would that explain then that the A3 supports the vastest selection of audio codecs of ALL players available (on par with Rockboxed players)?
How can it NOT be an audio player if it supports MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG Vorbis, OGG FLAC, Apple Lossless, AAC/AAC+, AC3, True Audio, Monkey's Audio, MusePack, WavPack, G.726, and PCM audio formats?
The A3 actually looks like the "perfect" audio player... too bad about the abysmal battery life.
The A3 actually looks like the "perfect" audio player... too bad about the abysmal battery life.
It is (nearly) the perfect audio player, but NOT for portable audio [laugh] given that Cowon made a choice to use the DaVinci chip for it's superior video abilities. This was Cowon's call and it's pretty clear that they chose video over audio for the A3. I really HOPE that Cowon can manage to optimise the DaVinci chip for audio playback.
Anyway like I have said already and Austin has said already, the A3 is a video player first and an audio player second.
i am so happy with my A2 that I would pay extra money just for a bigger hard drive in the A2, i do not need any more codecs or a more hard core processor. The chip is pretty sweet though, and the new features sound pretty appealing, i do hope the speed is much quicker. Perhaps the time saved in videos loading will compromise with the lose in battery life :-P. Or perhaps Cowon will do what they do best, and release a firmware that makes an already efficent device even more efficant and save oodles of battery life. I shall wait till after the holiday for later releases. I already waited this long, if one thinks they rushed the product then one should wait for the final. Cowon A4 FTW 2011 AD!!!!
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