[ken830]

How long does it take to fully charge the battery initially? Does it charge faster via the AC adapter vs USB? I guess this depends if you have the unit on or not as well... Any insight would be good...

 

[DanGilbertTX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ken830 How long does it take to fully charge the battery initially? Does it charge faster via the AC adapter vs USB? I guess this depends if you have the unit on or not as well... Any insight would be good...

The batteries have a small charge in them when they arrive. Only took me about 45 minutes to wear it down though. After that I put it on the wall charger. That is the best way to charge them (using the wall charger that is). Takes anywhere from 6 to 8 hours to fully charge from what I have seen. As noted already in this thread, the battery life is not all that great. Much less than their claims. I would even say that if you get half of what they claim you are doing better than I am.

 

[WhoCares]

This is from a thread at nomadness.net regarding a possible solution that Creative Support sent:
Quote:

Firstly run down the battery until the unit will not power on. Try turning it on a number of times just to make sure that the battery is dead. Now connect the unit to the power supply and allow it to charge over night for 12 Hours. Then run down the battery the next day, and when the battery runs down just charge it as normal. Then your battery should be fine.

For some ppl it worked, for others it didn't.
http://www.nomadness.net/modules.php...13174&start=15
(Post: Nov. 23)
..and read the posts that follow... if you want..

 

[andreasperez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanGilbertTX The batteries have a small charge in them when they arrive. Only took me about 45 minutes to wear it down though. After that I put it on the wall charger. That is the best way to charge them (using the wall charger that is). Takes anywhere from 6 to 8 hours to fully charge from what I have seen. As noted already in this thread, the battery life is not all that great. Much less than their claims. I would even say that if you get half of what they claim you are doing better than I am.

Thanks a lot DanGilbert for the feedback. It seems that Creative still has some things to work through in their ZM.

Remember anyway that it is best for the battery to carge it completelly and use it till it "dies out" the first couple of times. This way the ZM will gain more battery life in the beginning and last longer.

I have a question regarding the radio. How good is it? How good is the antenna? By this I mean how clearly it tune in to the radio stations.

 

[DanGilbertTX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by andreasperez I have a question regarding the radio. How good is it? How good is the antenna? By this I mean how clearly it tune in to the radio stations.

The range is decent. I live about 30 miles outside of Austin and have trouble tuning in stations from there. I get some stations but not others. If I had to guess I would say it has half the range of a normal stereo or car radio. If you live in the city itself then you should have no problems picking up a signal. Just don't expect the reception to be as good as your car or home stereo.

 

[becca.morgan]

Mine has just arrived (not expecting) with 2 batteries. Did I hear somewhere that they were different and which one should i use?

 

[Reem]

They are the same. It's a gift from Creative with the first 35,000 players as an introductory special.

 

[DanGilbertTX]

Went to Fry's today (in Austin, TX) and Creative had a booth setup there showing off their stuff. The ZM was the centerpiece. Finally got to see a Black and a Dark Blue in person. All things considered, I am glad I went with Silver. The Black doesn't look as good as I thought it would. Also, they were selling for $249. They were are still in the original 35,000 "bonus" run. Anyway, just thought it was interesting that Creative had a booth there in FRONT of the Apple computer section.

 

[DanGilbertTX]

As a note, I did about 5 charge/discharge cycles through each of my batteries and it improved things. I am getting about 6 or 7 hours or so of battery life with moderate backlight usage (changing songs and volume and stuff). I can get about 9 or 10 hours of just straight playback now if I just set it and leave it. Not too shabby. Not the 13 hours some others are getting, but still better than the 4 or so I was getting before.

 

[becca.morgan]

Is it a good idea to have a battery left fully charged as a spare for long periods?

Will it do anything to the life of the battery?

 

[DanGilbertTX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by becca.morgan Is it a good idea to have a battery left fully charged as a spare for long periods? Will it do anything to the life of the battery?

Well, a battery will slowly discharge while sitting around. Kind of like a car battery. If you leave it for a year you will come back to a dead battery. It slowly loses juice. So, if you charged it up and left it for a month it definitely wouldn't have full power in it. As for anything bad happening, there should be no problems leaving one of the ZM batteries laying around.

 

[becca.morgan]

Thanks for the reply cause knowing me i will forget to charge it

 

[becca.morgan]

There is a good forum at Nomadness for Zen Micro owners with advice from creative support included. Have a look

 

[andreasperez]

Are there any European members in this forum? I have reserved my ZM 10 days ago and the order status is still "red". This means between 7 and 10 days before I get it. Have some of you also experienced this? It seems that the American market doesn't have this problem... my pacience is running up, especially when I visit this forum!

 

[bartholomew]

hey i was wondering is zm only avaailable from online sotores or do u know any electronics stores that have it, im thinking fry's might but im not sure