Is it possible to improve the Creative Zen Vision:m battery life?

[christiani]

Hi everyone.
I've just bought a Zen Vision:m, which is fantastic apart from one thing. The backlight for the main screen doesn't turn off after a few seconds, only the lights behind the buttons do. You can reduce the brightness of the screen, but that's about all.
I just wondered if there's a way to get it to turn off after a few seconds, or if there's an option that I've missed somewhere?

[BEANFro Elite]

Try going to Sytem > Display Settings

The setting you might be after, is "Backlight Time" this can be a minimum of 5 seconds and a maximum of 30 seconds, in incriments of 5 seconds.

Also, to further increase battery life, you can encode ALL audio files at say 128kbps prior to uploading them to your ZEN, theres no need for anything higher than that assuming you are using average quality earphones or the ones supplied with the ZEN.

The lower bitrate is easier on the ZEN's battery as well as listening to the music at lower volumes so when buying earphones, be sure to check the impedance rating of the cableing on the earphones, something like like 64 ohms is a no no but something around the region of 14 and 25 ohms is acceptable.

Unfortuneately, with the ZEN, and you may have noticed, there is no way to replace the battery when it dies completely without voiding your warranty, the whole lot has to go back Creative.

[christiani]

Yeah, I tried reducing the backlight time to 5 secs, but even after 5 secs, the light in incredibly bright. On my Zen Touch, the screen turned off completely. I do have good quality headphones and 192kbps quality music or higher as I'm a musician, but this was never a problem with my Zen Touch. I know it's a different device, but being able to turn the screen off completely would increase the battery life so much. It seems odd that they would have ignored something like this. Do you know of any fixes or mods that can be downloaded?

[BEANFro Elite]

When you put the ZEN on the "Hold" the screen switches off in about 10 seconds after being enabled.

Its located where the power switch is but is activated by sliding the switch in the opposite direction from the on position, so when looking at the ZEN face to face, you slide it to the right-hand side to enable the hold function.

[hibby]

If you think that it's bright when it fades the backlight out then switch the brightness to 10%, which is the level it fades down to. I only ever need to adjust the brightness up from this level on mine due to direct sunlight. Otherwise, as has been said already, put it on hold if you don't need to look at the screen.

[christiani]

What an idiot!. I didn't realise that it turns off whne you put it on hold lol
Thanks for the info!

[BEANFro Elite]

Glad to help someone else who has a ZEN and not an iPod