Rockbox

with the original H300 firmware, when the backlight
switches off you must first press any button to turn
the backlight on before you can actually perform any
operations, ie. enter menu, skip song, change volume.
So if i wanted to change the song i would have to
press the next button twice pretty much.

This is very annoying for me personally and a lot of
other iriver users i think.

Here are some ways of overcoming the problem.
In the options menu you could have 3 different modes
for the button behavior while backlight is off.

First option; obeys the normal rules as described in
first paragraph, normal iriver firmware operation of
backlight and key presses.

Second option; Completely ignores the state of the
backlight when a key is pressed. If the backlight is
off and the user wants to change song they can press
the forward or reverse arrow button and it will turn
the backlight on and change the song in one key
press, same goes for the other buttons.

Third option (and most important); Basically when the
backlight is off you can perform the basic
opterations such as change song, and volume, without
the backlight turning on and wasting battery. Then
there is a special button, which is the only button
that can turn on the backlight, for example the NAVI
button (which is nice and central).
So to sum it up you could change the song or volume
without having to waste precious battery by the
backlight switching on. If you wanted the backlight
on you just press say the navi button and then you
could continue normal key operation with the
backlight on.

The third option in my opinion would be ideal because
I know i change songs excessively sometimes and every
time the backlight comes on to change the song it has
a big impact on battery life. Think about how much
battery life some people would save.