God, you really saved on the screen, SanDisk, don’t you… 96x96x65k dollar-a-bucket huge pixels oled. The Clip’s 128 width is (barely) enough for long titles, 96 is beyond enough, unless you’re a big fan of trading stocks.
Would be so nice to have a deluxe version, with a quality oled that takes all the space. Or at least the same quality oled, but 128x128, so we wouldn’t have to sacrifice width for height.
There’s a theory that there are parallel universes. I would like to use this forum to leave a message for myself in the universe where Zip has a border-to-border screen:
**** ***.
On the other hand, I am still all yours, SanDisk, a slave customer :). You got me with a quality AMS SoC, with the sd card slot, with flac, with the fact that you are the only major vendor who supports ReplayGain (no-bo-dy else does, even cowon).
So I’m yours SanDisk, even with your stupid crappy screens. But if you do a good screen and (Dear God!) open up your stuff to Rockbox, like you originally planned long time ago, I’d be screaming about your players at every forum like a cult zealot.
Found a serious flaw with the CZ. When track transitions happen and if you have imaged embedded in the mp3 there’s a burst of static (or pause) before the next track starts to play.
This happens no matter what size of image (I tried multiple albums with 8k and 60k images, 128k CBR and 320k VBR, MSC and MTP). Same thing each time.
This needs to be fixed guys. It sure does look like a firmware/software issue.
Yep, you are right–both the issue and the fix. Stay tuned.
Update: New firmware has been posted, which fixes the issue. See the firmware upgrade sticky thread at the top of the forum–
Thanks Mikerman (and to the admins/software coders).
Gapless is a whole lot better than with the Clip but not quite there; quieter passages (like the ones in Abbey Road) are imperceptible. The one between Sgt. Pepper Intro and “With A Little Help” is quite noticable (that one has some higher amplitdues) but the transition between “Good Morning” to “Sgt. Pepper Reprise” which melts into “A Day In the Life” is vastly better. Cover image size or even no image doesn’t seem to matter. Don’t know why one is fine the other isn’t but it’s there with some transitions within the same record.
BTW, is the CZ a bit brighter, bass shy or a little of both compared to the Clip? It might be my imagination but it sounds like it. I tried it with my Beyers and my Grados and they seem a bit brighter; when I try with my Sennheiser/Addias running 'phones I had to use quite a bit of EQ with my Clip. Not so with my CZ.
Bought a 4gb cz and a 8 gb cz, 32 gb class 4 in each.
Got these a couple days ago, formatted all and then loaded up the music; filled internal ~75% and ~ 29 gb on each card. The problem is that each time we power up either cz, it takes 25-30 minutes to “Refreshing your media”.
Bought a 4gb cz and a 8 gb cz, 32 gb class 4 in each.
Got these a couple days ago, formatted all and then loaded up the music; filled internal ~75% and ~ 29 gb on each card. The problem is that each time we power up either cz, it takes 25-30 minutes to “Refreshing your media”.
Why would you upgrade a great device and remove features that are part of what made the clip so great? I finally wore out my old Clip zsilver and bought the newest version and I found I had lost the display of track numbers, time remaining and the “play all” feature. It’s so frustrating I’m sending it back and buying the Clip+! This is a EPIC FAIL on Sansa’s part!
@miikerman wrote: @kevinfreels: I agree with you, that the missing info. (time elapsed and remaining, and track no./total tracks no.) on the Clip Zip should be brought back to the music screen. (I forgot about the “play all” option, which should be brought back as well.) But SanDisk has proven that it can be responsive to customer comments and pleas–make them know to SanDisk, here/otherwise!
I’ve got to also agree. After using a couple of Clip’s and Clip+'s with Rockbox for some time; and now getting a CZ…I do miss all the extra information on the screen. It certainly would be nice if it were brought back. Not a FAIL by any stretch of the imagination as the unit now stands; but would make a nifty little player even better!
Well it would be great if someone from sandisk would say that this is definitely going to be fixed. If so I don’t need to return it. But I only have 24 days left to do that.
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.
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.
You can change this by cleaning up your tags. Check out my refresh times. first for Clip Zip …
OK, player now loaded with MP3’s, 6.96GB on the internal, 14.8GB on a class 2 16GB card. Still flies through menus, and the refresh time just now was 2:53.6…two minutes, fifty-three point six seconds. Of course, YMMV with regards to the refresh time, depending on your tagging practices. That is 2,685 songs, average bitrate of the lot is 233kbps.
And then for Clip+…
OK, same tracks on the Clip+ results in a refresh time of 3:20.8…three minutes, twenty point eight seconds. I’ll let the engineers figure out why the new player would refresh faster.
The addition of the stopwatch is a nice addon. What would be more useful for runners is an interval timer that beeped while listening to music or podcasts. People pay $20+ for dedicated timers like the Gymboss (http://gymboss.com/). This type of function could easily be embedded in a player. This would make the Clip Zip a must-have player for runners in training.
+1 on the lap timer and audio cues for time and such. I’m still rocking along on my Clip+ which has been nearly perfect. Just repaired a broken clip. Two things would make me buy a Clip Zip today:
A metal case. The plastic (on the Clip+, at least) is fairly sturdy but I’ve got to believe that a metal case would be even more robust. The plastic case’s potential weakness was a concern when I bought the Clip+ but I didn’t think it would really be an issue. Now that I’ve broken mine I feel much more passionate about clip strength.
Audio cues for the stopwatch. A lap timer would be nice and I’d use it if I had one but I think I’d get even more use out of the audio cues. I had an old Phillips mp3 player with a stopwatch feature and a button that read the time when you pushed it. It was awesome. The player was total garbage otherwise but that feature kept me using it for years until it was replaced by the Clip+.
I do not use my Clip+ to its full potential. I’ll probably get a Zip sometime soon - even sooner if my clip repair fails - and I don’t expect to use it to its full potential either. I use my Clip+ almost exclusively as an exercise mp3 player. It goes running with me and it goes to the gym with me. I don’t care about the display because I rarely look at it. All I need are tactile buttons so I can turn it on, advance or repeat a track, or adjust the volume. I do very little else with it. I’m totally sold on the brand and model because it does what I want so well that I really can’t imagine getting anything else. Having said that, a Clip model incorporating my two suggested features would be purchased with little regard to price.
My headphones have a mic and a button. It would be nice to use the mic for recording and to use the button to control the Clip. On my Palm Pre, a single button press pauses the music, a double press skips to the next track. I know that this might involve a hardware change so I don’t have my hopes too high.
Hello tb. Welcome to the forum. I have been pleading for variable speed playback with automatic pitch correction for a long time. I have not used Rockbox since the display items with it look too small, and the interface seems too complex. Is it true that with Rockbox when you change the playback speed the pitch must be changed separately, or does Rockbox automatically correct the pitch when the play speed is changed? besides being worried about possibly bricking a player with rockbox, I am also worried that if Rockboxed it might not play Slotradio cards anymore. does Rockbox have the autoresume feature that the original firmware has?
I just edited all my tags to get rid of the v1 tags. It does significantly help speed up refresh rates. It was so easy to do with mp3Tag.
