Does the Clip Sport playback in “Folders” view work the same as on the Sansa Fuze (original)?
The Sport seems to get a lot of hate and I am not sure why. I will soon be retiring my Fuze and the Sport seems like an ideal replacment. However, I want to make sure that it will shuffle and play back songs the same way the Fuze does. On my Fuze, all my music is organized into folders and subfolders. Playing all songs in Folder ‘A’ will shuffle and play all songs in that folder as well as Folder A’s subfolders. I was unable to tell if it is possible to play songs back in this manner on the Sport.
I have been enjoying using my new SanDisk Clip Sport for the past 3 weeks. I think the Sport Clip has many user-friendly features and it is a lot of fun to use since I do enjoy learning the ins and outs of my new techie gadgets. The big advantage of Clip Sport is the use of external micro SD cards for playback of mp3 files. I recommend 16 GB cards for optimal use with this player (FirmWare 1.28).
The Sport Clip has 2 modes of music playback, “Music mode” and “Folder mode”.
With either mode, you will likely want to copy music files into subfolders in the 2 Music folders (internal memory or external SD card).
Folder playback mode is a good way to start enjoying your player without obsessing over the ID3 tags. However, Folder playback mode does not have a very useful shuffle mode (no subfolder shuffle). It uses your filenames to play music files in order in one subfolder.
Music playback mode is highly dependent on your curating your ID3 tags. You may want to download the free PC software MP3Tag (v271). Then you will want to optimize your ID3 tags on your music files in the music subfolders in your player. Music playback mode has excellent shuffle modes for all music, or one album, or one artist or one song title. All of this requires patient editing of your ID3 tags.
By the way, the Clip Sport has separate music databases for the internal memory and the external micro SD card. Each SD card will carry along its own music database (excellent for swapping while the player is off).
Thank you for the reply. It is a shame that the Sport does not shuffle folder-organized music like the Fuze. I do not use ID3 tags, so this player would not be much use to me. I will be getting a used clip+.
I have been able to shuffle inside folders except for the first choice when needing a podcast sub folder shuffled. In my case the subfolders are all one level inside.
