How many watts does a average mp3 player use?

Answer 1

The exact watts used will depend on the type of MP3 player you are asking about. Unfortunately, most portable players specify their power consumption in terms of "up to X hours of playback", which will depend on the capacity of the battery and the drain the unit places on that battery. Therefore, it is relatively hard to gauge this answer.

However, it would be fair to assume that since a clock radio consumes approximately 1 watt, that a typical MP3 player would use somewhere between 2-10 watts, depending on CPU speed, average CPU load, and backlight brightness/duration settings (if any).

For example, an "Apple iPod Shuffle" probably uses 1-2 watts during normal operation, as it has only a low-end CPU, and no backlight, while an iPod Classic probably runs closer to 10 watts.

Note that this answer does not include those systems that contain additional features, such as cameras, WiFi/3G/4G/Bluetooth networking, etc. Those features will use additional power while in use. Most devices turn off physical power to unused devices to prevent excessive drain.

Non-portable devices will have different requirements; car-mounted versions may use 10-20 watts, while a "boombox" version may use up to 1000 watts; the speakers count as part of the unit's usage in this case.