I’m currently on my second rockboxed Clip+ that I mostly use for listening to audiobooks. Rockbox is great from a features perspective, but is far clunkier to use than the stock firmware. Not a problem if I’m sitting someplace, but very inconvenient and potentially dangerous if I’m driving and trying to switch to where I left off in another book. I’d like to go back to the original firmware because of it’s simplicity (which sound like it has been enhanced by the new menu customization), but there are 2 things that keep me on rockbox, which if implemented would make me buy whichever model of clip I needed to in order to get them.
- Variable speed playback with pitch correction. I know that the hardware can handle it because rockbox on the clip does it, and does a very good job of it. I really like the way that Sansa implements their speed control as a setting that applies to all audiobooks, but not to music, but I find the whole chipmunk voice thing to get really annoying, and only having slow, normal, and fast as options to not be particularly helpful. For different books I will vary playback speed from about 110% to 190%, with most around 145%
- Speed up refreshing the media. A 16gb sd card leaves me without listening enjoyment for way too long. With rockbox there is no refreshing of the media when the player is unplugged from the computer or when an microsd card is inserted.
