Right now all I can do is hold down the power button to dim the screen. Can I turn it off somehow or will it save energy just the same?

what program are you using?
In WMP10 you have to go to settings/buttons. Then assign one of the buttons on the d-pad to toggle the screen.

   

I believe GSplayer allows you to do it easily.

---Steve-O

Check out Stevenator65 Weblog. It's back and worse than ever!

        

All the buttons are already so nicely laid out in WMP10. I want to do the "hold-button" but it just toggles it off then on when I release. So far WMP 10 looks nice to me and so I dont really have a reason to switch yet but when I do, I want to try some other mp3 players. Please give me some suggestions.

Windows Media Player 10 (mobile) you can toggle (turn off) the screen when assigning that function to a hardware button.
In Windows Media Player 10.1 (featured in WM5) you can also toggle the screen when assigning a button to the function, but stupid Microsoft made it turn on the screen again when the next track starts. Holding the power button doesn't work because no matter what, WMP10.1 turns on the screen + backlight.

TCPMP solved this problem for me.

New website! Click on signature.

does that for me too. so I remapped the down volume to be held down and screen off just press the down button. I wanted it the other way too, but I got use to it