Battery Pack 2002

[Evee Ev]

I've had battery pack for a while now and i'm just now trying to figure out how the automatic backlight feature works. when you tap the little red "a" it goes into automatic mode. does that mean that if the lights become dim the ipaq becomes brighter and if there's more light in a room the screen is darker? i'm in my office and i can't really tell what's happening when i go under my desk to make everything darker. thanks in advance.

[Kati Compton]

I've had battery pack for a while now and i'm just now trying to figure out how the automatic backlight feature works. when you tap the little red "a" it goes into automatic mode. does that mean that if the lights become dim the ipaq becomes brighter and if there's more light in a room the screen is darker? i'm in my office and i can't really tell what's happening when i go under my desk to make everything darker. thanks in advance.

I'm guessing it means that the backlight goes off when you haven't used the unit in a while, and back on when you tap the screen or a button. I don't think any PPC has a light sensor for adjusting the backlight to the ambient light.

[Rirath]

does that mean that if the lights become dim the ipaq becomes brighter and if there's more light in a room the screen is darker? i'm in my office and i can't really tell what's happening when i go under my desk to make everything darker. thanks in advance.

:lol: Oh come on... you can't be serious? I can just picture you sitting under your desk with your pocket pc trying to see if it's adjusting the backlight. I mean, this is Dilbert material. Geesh.

That said, my guess from the description "Adjust you backlight brightness (iPAQ only)" is it adjusts your backlight based on battery level to conserve power.

[Evee Ev]

ok...i wasn't sitting under my desk but i was holding my ppc under it to see if it became brighter. and i must say that i am so proud to be mentioned in the same sentence as dilbert!

now onto the discussion...what is the feature really doing?

[dannyoneill]

The automatic backlight is a feature on the iPAQ 3900 series. on the top of the ipaq there is a little clear hole, this is the light sensor.

The backlight is adjusted to suite the background light in the room. More info is in the manual but its somthing like as the room gets darker the light gets dimmer cos you dont need so much light, as more background light it gets brighter and if its in total sunlight it turns the light off.

But again, this is for 3900 only ipaq.s

[Evee Ev]

i have a 3835 and i have that little clear hole off to the left of the top of the ipaq. could this be the hole you're referencing?

[umichboy]

The iPaq 5450 adjusts its backlight to suit ambient lighting as well.

[jutae]

The 3800 series has the little hole too.

Jutae

[TheBacklash]

I think this was a standard on all Ipaqs... My old 3635 has it.

[Kati Compton]

Interesting. I wasn't aware of it. How well does that work?

[marlof]

The ambient light sensor works pretty good. In the first series of the iPAQ, some people put some tape on it to change the settings more to their liking, but right now if I set my 3870 to auto, it adjusts pretty good to the ambient light. That said, still I prefer manual selection of backlight brightness, as I prefer to have it on the lowest brightness in nearly all situations to save battery power.

[dannyoneill]

I wasnt aware of it on anything less thank a 3900 or the 5400's. It works quite well. Dont use it much though as it can get it wrong, only when I need to save battery.

[Doug Rausch]

I've used it just enough on my 3635 to see that it worked, and it actually works quite well if you don't care about battery drain. It tends to set the level higher than necessary (by my estimation) -- good backlighting, bad on battery. I go with manual.

[Bob Anderson]

The ambient light sensor works pretty well, although I agree with a previous poster that it tends to set the level a little too high.

[Janak Parekh]

Just to be clear, every color iPaq has had a light sensor, from day 1. I think it's the only Pocket PC brand to have a sensor. It works reasonably well with the reflective displays, not sure how well it works with the transflectives which generally need the backlight on more (although with the 5450 there's an adjustable setting for sensitivity). I keep mine on automatic about 90% of the time; unfortunately halogen lights confuse it and as such it tends to go off a bit too quickly.

The sensor is not affected by battery life, btw (although, as others have said, it may cause you to keep the backlight at a brighter setting, thus draining life). The easiest way to test it is to put your thumb on it. :)

--janak