Battery Journal
How does the PSP battery hold up? Click.
December 12, 2004 - The biggest question people seem to be having about the PSP concerns its battery life. And, now that we have the final system in our hands along with a bunch of games, we're sure you all want to know how long can you play games before the system dies?
Unfortunately, we can't answer that question for you exactly. Why? Because we haven't had time to sit down for four or five hours straight with a game and play until the system died.
The PSP is meant to be a multimedia device. You can play games on it, you can play music on it, you can play movies on it, along with god knows what else. Playing through Ridge Racers until the battery dies is probably not a good indication of how long the battery will last when you end up getting your PSP system and putting it to use for a variety of things.
However, you're still probably hoping for some way of grasping the battery's performance, and so we've created this little journal story. After opening up the PSP, we initially let the system run until the battery lost all its residual charge, and then charged it up completely to full charge. From that point on, we made notes of the usage of our system and the remaining battery life.
The PSP interface screen has an option which lists the remaining battery life both as a percentage and as a time. The percentage should be a reasonable measurement of the amount of charge left in the battery (at least while the system is new), but the remaining time is just an estimate made by the system based on your current operating environment, with the brightness of the screen seeming to play the biggest role. What we've done here is listed the remaining time setting while the screen was at max brightness and when it was at minimum brightness.
We'll be updating this story as we continue playing with our PSP throughout the coming days. Be sure and check back to see what kind of juice you'll be able to get from your system.
All times given below are American west coast times. We're actually running this test in Japan, so you may see some strange things where we refer to it being very bright during the middle of the night.
DECEMBER 12, 2004
12:54AM: Turned System On
Following full recharge
12:54AM: Status Report
- Battery remaining: 100%
- Full brightness time remaining: 5:49
- Low brightness time remaining: 7:35
12:54AM: Played Games
Ridge Racers, Vampire Chronicles, etc., using system speaker set to full blast and screen alternating between minimum and maximum settings (videos look better when the screen is set to minimum)
1:54AM: Stopped playing games
1:54AM: Status Report
- Battery remaining: 89%
- Full brightness time remaining: 4:52
- Low brightness time remaining: 6:21
1:54AM: Turned System Off
3:30AM: Turned System On
3:30AM: USB and MP3
Transferred about 200 Megabytes of MP3 files to the PSP and used it as an MP3 player as I went to pick up another PSP unit. Had remote control and headphones attached to system. Listened to such artists as Prodigy, Utada Hikaru, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana, skipping tracks frequently as I determined that the PSP remote control and headphones suck.
4:30AM: Stopped MP3 use
4:30AM: Status Report
- Battery remaining: 76%
- Full brightness time remaining: 3:43
- Low brightness time remaining: 4:42
4:30AM: Turned System On
6:00AM: Turned System Off
6:00AM: Played Games
Played Minna no Golf and Armored Core at full brightness.
7:00AM: Stopped Playing Games
Noticed that remaining battery marker had fallen to two marks for the first time, so I wanted to check what the remaining battery was.
7:00AM: Status Report
- Battery now at two marks
- Battery remaining: 58%
- Full brightness time remaining: 2:35
- Low brightness time remaining: 3:05
7:00AM: Played Games
Continued playing Minna no Golf and Armored Core (low brightness for making videos)
7:45AM: Stopped playing games
Realized that you don't actually control mechs in Armored Core, so decided to stop playing.
7:45AM: Status report
- Battery remaining: 45%
- Full brightness time remaining: 1:39
- Low brightness time remaining: 2:07
7:45AM: Turned System On.
9:15AM: Turned System Off
9:15AM: Played Games
Played Armored Core just to make sure that you really don't control the mechs (low brightness for making videos)
9:30AM: Stopped playing games
Realized, once again, that you don't actually control the mechs in Armored Core.
9:30AM: Status report
- Battery remaining: 38%
- Full brightness time remaining: 1:43
- Low brightness time remaining: 2:19
(hmm... the battery time went up after we played Armored Core more. Maybe playing games where you don't have direct control over in-game characters results in energy being given back to the battery).
9:30AM: Turned System Off.
6:00PM: Turned System On.
6:00PM: Status report
- Battery remaining: 34%
- Full brightness time remaining: 1:35
- Low brightness time remaining: 1:58
6:00PM: Played Games
Played Lumines at high brightness (really bright outside) in order to try and "get" game.
6:30PM: Stopped Playing Games
Noticed that remaining battery marker had fallen to one mark for the first time, so I wanted to check what the remaining battery was.
6:30PM: Status Report
- Battery now at one mark
- Battery remaining: 25%
- Full brightness time remaining: 1:02
- Low brightness time remaining: 1:24
6:30PM: Played Games
Completed addicted to Lumines, so wanted to continue playing (this time, I accidentally played at low brightness without realizing it).
7:10PM: Status Report
- Battery remaining: 14%
- Full brightness time remaining: 0:30
- Low brightness time remaining: 0:40
7:10PM: Played Games
Lumines is toooooooo much fun (this time, I made sure to play at high brightness).
7:20PM: Stopped Playing Games
Noticed that remaining battery marker had fallen to zero mark for the first time and power meter had started flashing, so I wanted to check what the remaining battery was.
7:20PM: Status Report
- Battery now at zero mark
- Power meter now flashing
- Battery remaining: 10%
- Full brightness time remaining: 0:23
- Low brightness time remaining: 0:31
7:20PM: Played Games
Lumines is still toooooooo much fun (again, at high brightness).
7:45PM: Battery died
And I was right in the middle of a huge score in the Industrial skin on Lumines! It's okay, though, because the PSP goes into sleep mode when the battery dies, allowing you to continue play exactly where you left off, once you've gotten more power to your system.
7:45PM: Began recharge
So we've at last played our way through a full battery charge cycle. In case you don't feel like counting, the battery died after about four hours and fourty-five minutes of five different games and one hour of MP3 play. We didn't use the WiFi features of the system at all during this time.
Keep in mind that we avoided charging the system a number of times that we could've easily plugged it in (in particular, as we slept). Unless we plan on playing games for more than five hours in a row, the battery seems like it'll be okay to us. Of course, for long trips, we may find ourselves picking up a spare just in case (they're about $40 at retail).
We'll continue to track our battery use as we play around with more of the system's features over the coming days. From here on out, we're going to start charging whenever we feel like it, as this will be a better way to get an idea of how long the PSP will last when you're actually using it.
Stay tuned for updates in this space shortly.
-- Anoop Gantayat
The lowdown on Sony PSP's battery life...
