The screen of your iPod nano has a wide range of screen brightness: when used outside in the sun, you may need to change to full brightness, but in most cases, you should be able to lower (dim) the display to the minimum brightness setting. Looking at your LCD screen in maximum brightness is nice, but has a noticeable impact on battery life (more, or less, depending on your current screen Backlight settings) - the brighter the screen, the more power it requires. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to access and change your screen brightness settings of your iPod nano, and what choice is best based on usage scenarios.
Make your iPod nano screen brighter / less bright
Here's how you access your nano's brightness settings:
- Click on the menu button (top of Click Wheel) until you reach your home screen ("main menu")
- Scroll down and click on Settings
- Choose the "General" settings
- Select and click on Brightness
- Rotate as needed to adjust to most comfortable screen brightness
You with see a sun icon on a medium slate blue background: move your finger (scroll motion) around the Click Wheel to adjust your preferred brightness. Rotate clockwise to increase the brightness (make the screen brighter), or counter-clockwise to dim the display (lower the brightness). Your iPod nano adjusts the brightness in real time, and thanks to the colored background, you will get a good idea of which brightness level best suits you.
Tip: You should adjust your screen brightness under the conditions in which you will (mostly) use your nano: inside if you stay at home / office / library, outside if you'll be under direct sunlight, or in the dark if you use your iPod in bed, etc. Minimum brightness level seems fine inside, but you'll squint outside.
Ideal brightness settings and battery life trade offs
In our experience, turning the screen brightness to the minimum is enough Backlight for inside environments, especially if you are in bed and don't want to be blinded by your iPod nano's display. The obvious advantage of a fully dimmed brightness setting is battery life. Since changing the brightness is so easy, we recommend using a fully dimmed brightness setting inside, and make the screen brighter when you go outside, if needed (unless the sunlight is directly hitting your display, you'll have no trouble seeing the display).
On the other hand, if you are scrolling through album covers in cover flow, or looking at pictures, a lower screen brightness will not make justice to the nano's amazing display quality; make the screen brighter to rich details and highly saturated colors.