Brand-new Fuze, normal for battery to be pre-charged out of box?

A few days ago I purchased a brand new (black) Sansa Fuze 4 GB unit. It was never opened, the plastic blister pack still sealed, however the battery was already CHARGED right out of the box. It was fairly weak, probably below 25-50%, but is it normal for the battery to come pre-charged from the factory?

I’m a little concerned because even after re-charging it, I noticed the battery seems to drain pretty fast. I’m going to try charging it uninterrupted and from a rear USB port this time (instead of the front one) and see if that makes any difference. I’m also wondering if the 24 hour battery life is with the screen off, I’ve been playing alot with settings, etc and so the screen has been lit during most of this time. Haven’t used it for anything but music so far…

Message Edited by Apple2gs on 05-07-2009 08:46 PM

Yes, the Fuzes come with a small charge. You should however, give it a nice long drink to fill’er up before using it to any extent though.

Your plan of giving it a full un-interrupted charge from the rear USB ports is definitely the right course of action. The ‘up to 24 hour estimated playing time’ though is with using 128kbps and backlight off and no button-pushing or settings-changing. Kinda like the EPA estimated gas mileage on a new car. You’ll never see that in real life.

@tapeworm wrote:

Yes, the Fuzes come with a small charge. You should however, give it a nice long drink to fill’er up before using it to any extent though.

 

Your plan of giving it a full un-interrupted charge from the rear USB ports is definitely the right course of action. The ‘up to 24 hour estimated playing time’ though is with using 128kbps and backlight off and no button-pushing or settings-changing. Kinda like the EPA estimated gas mileage on a new car. You’ll never see that in real life.

Is there really a difference between the front and rear USB ports, is the voltage generally lower in front?

Here’s a question, can you actually turn off the blacklight completely? You can lower the brightness of the backlight, but not turn it off. If there is an OFF option I’d definietly like to know about it to save battery power. 

On some computers, it does make a difference whether you use the front or rear ports. On others, it doesn’t seem to matter. I, for example with my system have no trouble at all using the front ports, but it has made the difference between charging and not charging, or connecting or not connecting for others.

No, you can’t turn the backlight off completely, but you can set it to go off after a variable amount of seconds. You need to have it on to be able to see what you are doing in manipulating the controls, but you can minimize the time it stays on after the last button press. :smiley:

Any computer bought within the last, I’d say, 2 years should be no different front v rear USB ports. In the “old” days (3-5 years ago) many companies put USB 1.1 on the front and USB 2.0 in the back. Lame, I know…