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iPods will gain in battery life with new Wolfson audio chip

Wolfson Microelectronics, the company behind audio chips found in almost every iPod model, is unveiling a low power masterpiece, the WM8985. The new chip will give up to 70 percent more listening time according to Wolfson. This means if your current iPod can play music for 14 hours (a statistic for a typical 5G iPod), with the new Wolfson chip and a similar battery the same iPod would be able to play for 23.8 hours.

This type of statistic is rather unrealistic because each iPod upgrade means larger screens and a higher screen brightness and therefore a device that consumes more batteries. A 70 percent increase in battery life for this single chip is, however, quite a leap (most gains in chip power consumption are in the 20 to 30 percent range). It will be interesting to see if the WM8985 chip stays at a price point favorable to Apple with this new release.

[via Macworld UK]