Niggly problems with Vaio Pocket 40GB

[surfymark]

I have a couple of annoying problems that I thought I might share with you guys and see if you have the same!

1. Battery runs down quickly on its own (i.e. while switched off) If I leave my VP switched off for more than 3 days or so, the battery is dead. Even if it was fully charged when I last used it!

2. When battery dead, forced to reset all settings. This is especially annoying given the above problem! I mean once I have charged it and switched it on I have go through all the rigmoral of resetting the clock etc.
Because of the above problem, I have to charge it almost immediately I notice the battery is getting low to avoid this! Surely it would not be hard to store the settings on the disk rather than some memory that is lost when there is no battery left??

3. When selecting songs, it does not remember the selection I made before the last one. There are two examples of this:
1. I have a lot of albums recorded by "Various Artists". If I choose the Genre Rock, followed by the artist "Various Artists" it lists all the albums on the device with the artist "Various Artists" It should just list those within the Genre Rock.

2. I have several albums with the same name by different artists i.e. Northern Star by Mel C and Groove Armada. So if I choose Genre Pop, Artist Mel C, album Northern Star; it lists all the tracks within the albums Northern Star by both artists. Most annoying!!

So anyone else noticed these problems? Other than this I love the player and I certainly will not swap it for any other player!!

Hope you can help!
Mark

[febs]

Hi, that battery problem of yours is very intresting.Are you sure that you turn the VP off properly, and i agree with you having to keep resetting the time and date is very bloody annoying.

[microbat]

I had same problem with battery and took it back to the shop I bought it from as i thought it was a fault with the battery. They contacted Sony who said the machine went into standby when you switch it off. That it was actually impossible to shut is down so it didn't drain any power. I thought this was a load of cobblers so I rang Sony myself, who repeated the above. Although relieved my machine wasn't knackered, I also thought it was a bit daft.
Nevermind I guess the next lot of fun will be when Sony extort my left kidney to pay for a replacement battery! When this one dies.

[the_real_gazza]

I had same problem with battery and took it back to the shop I bought it from as i thought it was a fault with the battery. They contacted Sony who said the machine went into standby when you switch it off. That it was actually impossible to shut is down so it didn't drain any power. I thought this was a load of cobblers so I rang Sony myself, who repeated the above.  Although relieved my machine wasn't knackered, I also thought it was a bit daft. 
Nevermind I guess the next lot of fun will be when Sony extort my left kidney to pay for a replacement battery! When this one dies.

But will your left kidney be able to store 13000 tracks? (at 132kbs).

On a more serious note, why can people just not enjoy the product. I know it has flaws, but hasn't everything? (except my wife apparently, so she tells me!!). Overall it is a well built, reasonably designed, fairly good looking , fantastic sounding bit of equipment.

Spend more time enjoying it and less time writing about it (says me as I finish this thread).

But in my defence, I am listing to tangerine dream on my VP as I write it.

[nickkr]

I have a couple of annoying problems that I thought I might share with you guys and see if you have the same!

1. Battery runs down quickly on its own (i.e. while switched off) If I leave my VP switched off for more than 3 days or so, the battery is dead. Even if it was fully charged when I last used it!

.........Hope you can help!
Mark

Simple solution ... always put it back in the charging cradle when you have finished with it. The VP is then in a permanent state of top up charge and always ready to go.
Think about a home cordless phone. Where do you put it when you have finished the call? That's right 9/10 times BACK IN THE CHARGING CRADLE!!!
Will this shorten the battery life? - who knows, but my money would be on SONY designing the product to work this way.
I'm fairly confident that you cannot overcharge the battery. In fact once the battery reaches full charge the unit goes "OFF CHARGE" and into "MAINS" operation.
Lithium Ion batteries (particulrly SONY ones) are quite robust and seem to thrive on abuse.:smileyhappy:

[grizedale]

But in my defence, I am listing to tangerine dream on my VP as I write it.


Wow, a fellow TD fan, excellent!

[surfymark]

Simple solution ... always put it back in the charging cradle when you have finished with it. The VP is then in a permanent state of top up charge and always ready to go.
Think about a home cordless phone. Where do you put it when you have finished the call? That's right 9/10 times BACK IN THE CHARGING CRADLE!!!
Will this shorten the battery life? - who knows, but my money would be on SONY designing the product to work this way.
I'm fairly confident that you cannot overcharge the battery. In fact once the battery reaches full charge the unit goes "OFF CHARGE" and into  "MAINS" operation.
Lithium Ion batteries (particulrly SONY ones) are quite robust and seem to thrive on abuse.:smileyhappy:

OK that is all very well if you are at home all the time. I go away for business a lot and I use the player for a couple of hours a day. If I go away for more than a couple of days I have to take the charging cradle even though I am only going to use the player for about four hours or so. Why would it do this!!

With my cordless phone I use to leave on the charger until after around 6 months, the batteries would run out mid-way through conversation (after about two or three minutes of talking). So I replaced the batteries and now only charge when it beeps at me to tell me the battery is low. Two years on and the batteries still last a good week and around an hour or so of talking.

As the Sony battery is going to be a hell of a lot more expensive to replace I want to do it right!

Oh and to whoever said just enjoy the product, I do! I love it and will continue up with these flaws. This is a forum to report problems and if it turns out that I have a faulty battery then I want to know so I can get it replaced and enjoy the project more!!

cheers
Mark

[the_real_gazza]

Oh and to whoever said just enjoy the product, I do! I love it and will continue up with these flaws. This is a forum to report problems and if it turns out that I have a faulty battery then I want to know so I can get it replaced and enjoy the project more!!

Actually, my comment wasn't directed at you, it was rebuff to microbat.

The issue you experienced with your cordless phone is due to it having nickel cadmium batteries installed. These batteries suffer from a memory effect if never allowed to properley discharge with use, and then will never hold a full charge. There are some battery chargers which can reverse this effect, but you are right to leave the handset off the charger untill the battery hits it's discharge level prior to charging again.

However, your VP uses the latest type of battery chemistry (lithium-ion). This format is not prone to the above, and in fact has the opposite effect, in that the more the battery is charged and discharged the stronger the charge will become, untill the battery reaches saturation. With use, you should notice that as you use the VP and reach empty, and then recharge fully (important), that the autonomy of the battery will increase over time. I did experience what you are currently seeing, but no longer.

Hope it helps, and idid not set out to cause you any offence.

[nickkr]

Exactly my response Mr. Gazza, but you got there first!

In fact I do think that my VP battery is holding charge longer the more I use it - It could be just my imagination, but I went to put it on charge yesterday(not having used it since Saturday) and it was still 3/4 charged.

I would suspect that a replacement battery would be relatively expensive. The shiny bit at the end with the screws in isn't a battery cover it IS the battery!!
I wonder if SONY would be able to quote a price for a new battery?
A lithion ion battery (LIP-8) for my MZR-50 minidisc is about £20
So I guess a VP battery would be more expensive as it is a unique design.

[surfymark]

No probs about the offence didn't take any and hope I didn't cause any!!

So what you say is that the more I charge the battery, the less it should do this? Interesting. Ok that makes some kind of sense and thanks for reassuring me. In fact I just switched on my VP having not used it for two days and the battery is nearly full. Weird! Ah well problem solved I guess.

So my other problem which is more a bug in the software. Is there any way to get this to Sony so that they may be able to include the fix in a firmware upgrade (if we ever get another one!!)

cheers
Mark