Portable Recorder
Battery Life Test Results

1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place
Sony PCM-D50 25.5 hours	Olympus LS-10 8.5 hours	Marantz PMD620 6.4 hours
4th Place	5th Place	6th Place
Zoom H2 6.3 hours	Tascam DR-1 5.8 hours	Edirol R-09HR 5.3 hours
7th Place	8th Place	9th Place
M-Audio MicroTrack II 4.8 hours	Zoom H4 4.6 hours	Sony PCM-D1 4.0 hours
10th Place
Korg MR-1 2.8 hours

Battery Life Contest Details

Rather than rely solely on manufacturer's claims, we wanted to find out for ourselves just how long batteries may last in our portable recorders.

We fully charged the Korg MR-1, MicroTrack II, and Tascam DR-1 and loaded the other recorders with Duracell Coppertop AA batteries - the kind you can find in almost any US retail store.

To minimize the possibility of running out of memory before running out of power, we set all units except the Korg and the Sonys to record in mp3 format at 128 kbps. We set both Sony units to record 16-bit/22.05 kHz wav files for the same reason. We weren't worried about the Korg with its 20GB hard drive, but we set it to record 16-bit 44.1kMhz wav files anyway.

We pressed "record" on each unit and left them running overnight. By morning, all the recorders except the Sony PCM-D50 had stopped, but the recorded files remained.

Even after stopping, each recorder except the Zooms retained from 30-60 minutes in reserve power. In contrast, the Zoom H2 and Zoom H4 batteries were fully drained.

Most surprising for us was the phenomenal performance of the Sony PCM-D50. We ran out of built-in memory space and had to add an 8GB memory stick to finish the test. If battery life is a big concern for you, the Sony PCM-D50 seems to be the clear choice.