Battery Life

[Me0w]

On a full charge on my ZEN, after about one hour of play with the screen on for maybe a total of 3 minutes at 10% darkness, my bar will drop to 3/4. I have yet to time it, but it seems my zen pretty much has a life of only 3 and a half hours or so, as on my last trip my nintendo DS's battery actually outlasted the zen without evening going into the red alert.

So uh, what's the deal, is my battery defective? I've heard that it may take time for the chemical cells of the lith-io to begin properly functioning - I've charged my zen at least 6 or 7 times now, fully...

Gah, this sucks =(.

[CrowdAds]

[ZenChick]

What sort of files are you playing? Higher bitrates will eat up a bit more battery than lower bitrates, and WMA files eat considerably more power than MP3's, even at identical bitrates.

Other than that, you may need to let the battery fully discharge, then charge fully. Do this a couple of times to recalibrate the battery meter.

Lastly, make sure you've got the latest firmware available for your player.

[Me0w]

I play mostly all MP3s at average bitrates of maybe 128... I'll try to do the full discharge thing a few more times, though. I have the newest firmware, 1.6.x

[JohnnyR]

What volume do you use ? At 22 i get about the same 3-4 hours (with screen on).
JR

[Raiders757]

I found a few weeks ago that my player had extra juice in the battery when it was cutting off on me for a recharge. The player would show it was in the red, then cut off. I would cut it back on, and it would be back in the green again by just a little bit, and I would get just over an hour of extra playing time out of it.

Maybe yours if way off, and you should try to recalibrate the battery meter as ZenChick mentioned. My player has a hell of a lot more battery life than you seem to be getting, and I use a much higher bit-rate. I know I am getting around 12 hours of audio at the very least. I hardly use it for video.

Take note that I do use a wall charger to juice my battery up. Are you using a wall charger, or the USB cable? I swear it seems people with battery issues, are those using the USB cable to charge their players.

[driguez]

that used to happen to me at the beggining bc the first couple of charges weren appropiate, i let my Zen go dead and fully charge tqice, that took care of the problem, also a wall charger is a must, im using a PSP charger

[JohnnyR]

I use the wall charger and play Yahoo subscription tracks but only get about 4 hours. Do subscription tracks suck up more juice ?
Johnny

[Jebus]

DRM tracks take up more battery, as do any WMA files.

[iCeD00D]

Originally Posted by Jebus

DRM tracks take up more battery, as do any WMA files.

Courious -- How would DRM tracks and WMA files take up more battery life??

[ZenChick]

The extra processing required to decrypt the DRM will eat the battery right up. Also, decoding WMA's is more processor-intensive than decoding MP3's. As for why - I don't know. It's down to the encoding algorithm used.

[iCeD00D]

ZC -- Ahh never thought of that.... Tks for clarifying it...

[ZenChick]

No problem.

[Me0w]

I tried letting it die out completely, and recharging it. I'm using a wall charger I bought from ebay, and it charges for about 2 hours each time until it's complete. On my most recent charge, I got nearly 6 hours of play on it, I think. But it's not exactly what I'm expecting...

More recalibration needed?

[ZenChick]

Six hours definitely isn't right. I get nearly three times that much. I can't help but think you've got some sort of processor hog in there, but you might want to contact Creative and get their advice on the matter.

[skippyg]

yeah i play files at around 160-320 kbps mp3 at 17 and i get about 13-15 hours

[Me0w]

Alright, it seems as if I leave my zen on continously without shutting it down, it can go on for up to 10 hours. BUT, if I turn it on and off maybe once or twice, as soon as I do that, the bars and power levels drop significantly. What the deuce?

[Jebus]

spinning up the drive, loading the User Interface, reloading songs and reloading the Database all consume more power than simply running the player. The most energy used by most devices are when you first start them up

[Me0w]

So I would be better off actually to just leave it on hold, screen off?

[Jebus]

If music isn't playing, the ZVM will turn it self off - After (default) 5 minutes.
You can change that setting going to - System -> Player Settings -> Idle Shutdown.