I replaced the battery in an old iPod Classic yesterday, because the original battery only lasted about an hour or so before it died.
I charged the new battery up and now I'm letting it drain to 0, as per the instructions. I set the iPod to play a long playlist on repeat yesterday and went to bed.
It's been playing music nonstop for about 13 hours and the battery is still only half empty at this point. And it's a 650mAh battery! How ridiculously efficient are these things? A smartphone has upwards of 3000mAh battery capacity and barely lasts a day...
Btw, the iPod still has the mechanical harddrive installed. With flash storage it would last even longer I guess...
@mavica_again
I know it's not a perfectly fair comparison, like you say, smartphones have a lot more hardware on board.
If you only played music through headphones on a smartphone on airplane mode and only occasionally turned on the screen, it would probably last equally as long as the iPod. But it would still drain a 3000mAh battery vs a 650mAh one.
Might be interesting to see which lasts longer actually...