Friday, March 17, 2006
Flawed tests on battery life
Several sites, including Engadget and CD Freaks, and bloggers have picked up on MP3 Insider: The truth about your battery life that was pushed on MP3.com.
The article claims that DRM is killing the battery life of portable media players. As much as I hate DRM, this test isn't valid because it isn't an apples-to-apples comparison.
The tests look at battery life when playing MP3s versus battery life when playing WMA with DRM. The codecs used for each are already recognized as requiring different amounts of power from the device. A real test would be comparing WMA against WMA with DRM.
So, again, while I am not a fan of DRM, invalid tests don't really help.
Several sites, including Engadget and CD Freaks, and bloggers have picked up on MP3 Insider: The truth about your battery life that was pushed on MP3.com.
The article claims that DRM is killing the battery life of portable media players. As much as I hate DRM, this test isn't valid because it isn't an apples-to-apples comparison.
The tests look at battery life when playing MP3s versus battery life when playing WMA with DRM. The codecs used for each are already recognized as requiring different amounts of power from the device. A real test would be comparing WMA against WMA with DRM.
So, again, while I am not a fan of DRM, invalid tests don't really help.
¶ 10:10 AM 
About Shawn Morton
Married father of 4, social media strategist at Nationwide, consumer electronics enthusiast, hair metal aficionado.
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