Customer Reviews

Belkin TunePower Rechargeable Battery Pack for iPod

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm not sure how long this will last. Had it on for nearly ten hours straight and never saw the battery bar on the iPod dip below full charge. Used it for the next three days on and off for a total of maybe 6 hours and still didn't see any change in battery level. Would be nice if it came with a car charger if your traveling to the outdoors and won't have a pc to charge it through.

I recently purchased the tunepower, even after reading the above reviews, as I do have firewire on my laptop, and, I have the ac wall charger (THAT COMES WITH YOUR IPOD WHEN YOU PURCHASE IT!) I have yet to test its full capability for holding a charge, but I have high hopes, as everyone who seems to have followed the instructions for this item, apparently gets good power from it. Read the instructions! They explain that if you plug your ipod into the tunepower (4gig and mini models) and it's internal battery is low, you will only get 4 or so hours from the tunepower, but your ipod will then be charged. Once again, read the instructions! And as for all the people complaining about the firewall charging, did you throw away your apple issued ac charger for your ipod, when you bought it? Or do you just not realise that it has a firewall port on it? And besides that, if for some reason you just never got an AC charger with your ipod. THE PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS CLEARLY STATE THAT IT REQUIRES A FIREWALL PORT ON YOUR COMPUTER, OR THE AC CHARGER THAT CAME WITH YOUR IPOD! Stop writing bad reviews for reasons that don't warrant a bad review!
And no, I don't work for Belkin, I just like most of their products.
I will follow up this review with results on how long my tunepower battery lasts with my ipod mini.

1 week later.

Ok, so I ran my ipod mini using the tunepower for 5 hours, and the ipod battery is still full. Also, for 3 of those hours, I used my iTrip. The indicator light on the tunepower went red after about an hour and a half, but has stayed there since.
So, 5 hours, with 3 using iTrip. No bad. Will have to see if it makes 8 hours.
Great product! Remember to read the hardware/system requirements before purchasing!

I was just browsing around and thought I'd see what others thought of this item. I was expecting rave reviews from everyone. Man was I wrong.

I bought one of these about a year ago or more, and couldn't live without it. I work a 10 hour shift and my 4th Gen iPod (click wheel model with b/w lcd screen) would give out on me by about 6.5 hours. Using this, my power meter will barely drop below full after 10 hours of fairly high volume listening.

Great product, took my iPod camping for over a week and it was still going strong. Not sure why all these dummies gave it one star because they can't read the specs!!! Requires IEEE port... that is firewire!!! Oh well their loss as this is a high quality battery that I've owned for several years now and it is still going strong. You get what you pay for!

Belkin replaced my F8E464 Backup Battery Pack on warranty, after it failed, with the F8E490 TunePower. I routinely got more than 12 hours of video on my iPod using the F8E464, but I had to carry 4 AA PhotoLithium batteries, 4 spares, and the iPod recharger as well. I only do carry-on baggage on flights, and every ounce and cubic inch makes a difference considering all the gear I need to take. The TunePower offers at least 7 hours of video (with the iPod brightness turned down to about 20% - this is more than adequate for in-flight viewing) before switching over to the iPod's batteries. More important, the TunePower with its charger makes for a more compact and lightweight solution than before eliminating the bulk and weight of 8 AA batteries and the iPod recharger. The ability to operate and charge both the TunePower and iPod from a single AC adapter is a benefit. The cradle is a good solution for packaging the TunePower and iPod together, and protects the power cable and jack. But, I have to take the iPod out of its protective case to use it because it offers no protection for the screen and click wheel. No big deal. Finally, the manual creates confusion about a FireWire recharging scheme - there was no FireWire cable in the box, but I don't care: there's no FireWire jack on my laptop. Overall, I am very pleased with this Belkin product and think it is a real improvement over the earlier solution.

Must have firewire AC wall charger and/or six-pin firewire on computer to charge this unit. I have neither.
Also found 30g vidpod didn't fit properly in plastic sleeves and the dock connector seemed to want to unseat it as well.
Returned unit to shop and purchased Belkin 4 x AA battery unit with suction cups. Much better. You can use rechargeable batteries or simply buy them when needed.

I bought one of these and returned it a couple days later (from an electronics store - much more expensive than @ Amazon). While it had many qualities I was looking for, like the thick, protected connector for the ipod instead of a dangling wire, this unit just didn't do a good job of holding a charge. I followed all the instructions, charge it overnight, etc. but still it would only give and extra hour or so battery life to my 40 gig ipod. As tempting as this one is, I'd say pass and find one with proven ability to hold a charge.

I just bought one of these for my video ipod, and it is totally unusable because it uses a firewire connector for a power source. If you don't have firewire on your computer, you're out of luck. Plus how would you have access to power when you are travelling?