Battery only lasting 6 hours after just listening to audio

[Ellie]

Hi, I wonder if someone here could advise me what to do. Sorry if I sound a bit thick anywhere in this post or I've made some obvious mistake, as I'm not particularly technically minded. I got a Zen Vision M a few weeks ago off ebay. Everything's been fine so far apart from the battery life, which only seems to last for about 6 hours. Having said that, I haven't actually worn the battery down completely yet, only until the symbol is red and says it's nearly empty, as I've heard that it won't charge from a USB cable (which is all I've got) and that if you do that, you need a wall charger. I don't know whether this is actually true.

Anyway, my brother says the reason for the battery not lasting may be because, not knowing any better, I turned the Zen on as soon as I got it, before charging it or anything. Apparantly I was wrong to do this, as it may have confused it so that it thought the battery was fuller than it actually was, and therefore will now not charge the full amount. I do remember when I turned it on that first time that the battery symbol said it was almost full, which I thought was strange, as I hadn't charged it at all yet. My dad also says that it may be just the battery symbol that's wrong, and it may actually last longer if I try. I don't want to run down the battery completely to test this yet though for the reason I mentioned in the first paragraph. The battery still takes about 4-5 hours to charge, even though it seems to go down so quickly.

Any sort of help or advice on what to do about this would be really appreciated

[XJ3F3Y]

Your Vision:M will charge through USB via the computer, but it has to be recognized first. It will recognize as soon as you plug it in with vista, but with XP you will have to install either Windows Media Player 11 or the creative software which you will have hopefully got along with the MP3

[BobbyRS]

It doesn't sound like you've done anything wrong. To me, it sounds like the battery may be going bad. Eventually it will begin taking even longer to charge and lasting even less. I would look into replacing the battery. I believe you can pick them up on places like EBay and Amazon. Changing them can be a little technical, but pretty easy; especially if you follow a guide.

You should be able to replace it using this guide (up to step 3):
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archi...n-vision-m.php

Here is a YouTube video of the battery being replaced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfBRE8osFGQ

[Ellie]

Thanks a lot for your replies so far and the helpful info on changing the battery . The player is actually brand new, I've only been using it for a few weeks and the battery has never lasted for longer than 6 hours. Is it possible that the battery was already bad when I bought it?

[BobbyRS]

Yes it is possible. The battery could simply be defective or since the ZVM has been discontinued for a while, there is a good chance that you could have bought a new one that has been sitting for a long time in storage somewhere. If you just bought it, check to have it returned/replaced.