Woot’s got the 30gb Zunes for $85 again.
Yup, rockbox lets you browse by folder or database (id3 tags). I also much prefer to organize everything with folders so I always browse by folder on the Sansa with rockbox. Grab a Sansa e280 8gb, install rockbox, toss in this 6gb microsdhc card:
and that should give you a 14gb flash mp3 player for under $200 total.
I love my Sony NW-A3000, but they don’t make them anymore. Far and away the best looking MP3 player and (in my opinion) a better equalizer and shuffle than the iPod (Intelligent Shuffle ranks tracks by how many times you play them in addition to the personal ranking and can be turned on to give a personal ‘Top 100 shuffle’). [blatantrubbish]It sounds better to my ears, too [/blatantrubbish].
As I said, they don’t make them anymore (try eBay, largest size is 20GB), but I hear good things about the new A-series ones. 8GB maximum size, 'though, and I don’t know if that’s in your price range.
I checked it out and it does look amazing. I am always impressed at how freeware products consistently outperform their commercial counterparts. It looks like it could save a lot of work. But it still means I have to pre-process my mp3 files before I move them to the media player and I would rather avoid that if I could.
Wow. I never saw that before. It looks amazing. I really need to reconsider my options now. I previously disregarded this player due to the crappy firmware. Custom firmware changes everything. Thanks for the heads up. I also heard there might be a 16gb version of this coming out soon. I wonder what that’s all about.
Wow, that Sansa with rockbox could pretty much replace my 20GB H320 with something near-nano size instead of something bigger than an iPod classic, expecially if it gets a 16GB model soon. Ooooh shiny…
You’re a big help.
ARogan: Have you actually installed Rockbox on a e280? I did this a couple of weeks ago when I got mine, but after about ten song playbacks Rockbox would simply stop playing the mp3s. (As in I’d hit play, and Rockbox says it’s playing, but nothing comes out of the headphones.)
Also note for anybody buying a Sansa: mine has a backplate that says it’s a e280R, but it really ain’t. It’s a regular e280. The “R” has something to do with Rhapsody music service. This is important if you’re trying to install Rockbox and you, like me, end up installing the wrong flavour first.
I only have the e250 but the only difference should be the amount of internal memory (2gb vs 8gb). I’ve been using it all day and have gone through maybe 50 songs by now and not a single issue. I’m using the latest rockbox current build: r15567-071111.
The rockbox site mentions the install process is different for the “R” version so that might have something to do with it. Mine is a plain e250 (no R).
I saw the Sansa View at best buy today:
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1364)-SanDisk_Sansa_View_MP3_Players.aspx
16gb, 2.4" 320X200 screen, microsdhc support in the original firmware.
I wonder how long before they get rockbox running on this thing.
Retail price is $200
Also 35 hour battery life. It looks awesome. I wonder when it will come down in price to say, under 150.
So I just tried doom on the sansa:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/PluginDoom
Rotate the screen 90 degrees and then remap the direction keys. Turn on sound. I’m really impressed. It actually runs at an ok speed, and it looks pretty impressive on the tiny screen.
update: seems they are already hacking away at the view: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=13562.0
sansa view has video output: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2007/10/sandisk-sansa-view-video-out.php
it seems the battery isn’t user removable anymore which sucks.