I never said I was an easy sell. I am a difficult and demanding consumer and expect the best in the products I choose. Maybe if more consumers were a bit more vocal in their likes and dislikes of products, companies would make units that people actually want. I don’t want to sound cold, but I don’t really care if the Clip+ is popular; or that it suits the needs of most people. Quite frankly, the only person it needs to please is me. If my needs are too lofty for Sandisk to meet, it’s their loss, not mine…
I’m pretty particular in what I want as well and would like the best–it’s just that the Clips generally meet my needs (or I’m willing to adapt where they don’t). I actually think that the Clips in fact meet many people’s needs and that is why they are popular. It’s just that your needs may be different, from what SanDisk believes it should offer/what the majority of people want, in the size/battery capacity tradeoff; and in the commercial world, what sells the most (or, perhaps better, what is believed to) is often what wins out, combined with commercial realities. I don’t think it’s a case of “lofty” needs–just different ones.
Well, I just bit the bullet and ordered one of those Duracell USB battery extenders; which will make the Cllip+ a bit more flexible for my use. Battery life is also a pretty important feature for my players because the area in which I live (in the heart of Indiana Amish Country) is 95% electricity-free. So, electricity isn’t always available (or a computer) to charge my portable devices. My wife and I take 3 or 4 week-long local vacations at a nearby Bed and Breakfast where the entire facility is 100% electricity free (the family who runs it is Amish) and that’s where I have my biggest charging issue. The last time we were there, I had to make a mad dash out to the car to charge a unit at 2:00 AM…Not necessarily a great situation where the owner’s family isn’t used to “city folk”…:smileyvery-happy:
It isn’t a perfect solution, but will at least make the Clip+ usable.
The battery extension devices don’t have a power gauge on them, so you don’t know where you stand. They might be a help, but not a perfect solution. Of course these devices are also much larger than the Clip+ itself, and another thing to have to remember to recharge. How long does it take to charge the Clip+ fully from a very low charge while listening to the player using the Duracell battery extender? Will the Duracell battery extender when full charged charge an almost depleted Clip+ battery 3 times per cycle, or is this process inefficient and only 2 or fewer recharges possible?
While Lithium ion batteries have a higher energy density than nimh batteries, they are much more expensive, and take much longer to charge. A 4 battery AA nimh battery pack(using 2900 mah batteries) has around 4 times the power of the Duracell battery extender. Those batteries can also be charged in just 15 minutes with a 16 minute charger, and spare sets of batteries can be carried to offer as much power as one wants. The 2-3 hour charging time of lithium ion batteries is a nuisance.
" don’t know why, but it seems like all the device producers think that the public wants super thin units, over battery performance. Myself and most (if not all) of my colleagues would gladly accept a slightly thicker player, if it meant more playing time per charge."
The point is that the mp3 player market is large enough for Sandisk to offer both very thin models with shorter battery life, and thicker models with 40-60 hours(or even better 60+ hours) of battery life, or that use inexpensive, easily swappable batteries(either AA or AAA or low priced common model lithium ion batteries that can easily be charged outside player(preferably more than one at a time). I have thought about buying other brands of players besides Sandisk that do offer 40-60 hours of battery life, however these other players don’t offer the podcast support that the Clip+ and Fuze have, and most don’t have a card slot. I like the card slot not just as a way to expand the player memory, but also as a way to add content to the player without connecting the player to a pc. Ideally it would be nice if one never has to connect a player to a pc(or a wall charger), and if firmware updates could be accomplished by having the new firmware on the root of a card placed into the player.
JK98 wrote:Ideally it would be nice if one never has to connect a player to a pc(or a wall charger)
You’d have to invest in a solar charger, or one of those models with a hand crank then.
I can understand not wanting to be tied to a computer to recharge a player, but what’s wrong with a wall charger, unless you are somewhere off the grid?
“You’d have to invest in a solar charger, or one of those models with a hand crank then.”
No. I am referring to a player that uses easily swappable batteries that are charged outside the player. Canon uses this approach for most if not all of their current digital cameras. The Canon digital cameras use either AA batteries(nimh rechargeables, or in an emergency alkalines) or lithum ion battery(the camera comes with a wall charger to charge a Lion battery outside the camera).
It seems like most problems people have with Sandisk players are with getting it to connect to a pc or getting the built in battery to charge. A player that has no USB connectivity and card slot(or perhaps 2 card slots?) and that uses an easily swappable battery charged outside the player would imo be ideal. It would allow the player to omit charging circuitry and USB connection circuitry as well as a USB connector. Sandisk tried this with the Slotmusic player, however they also stripped away the display and advanced navigation features that the Clip+ and Fuze have, and decreased the sound quality. If they had put a display on the Slotmusic player, gave it the same sound quality as the Clip+, and gave it the same navigation features, then imo the Slotmusic player would have been a huge seller.
I know the duracell unit isn’t a perfect solution to the battery issue with the Clip+; I never said it was. But let’s fact facts. It is pretty unlikely that Sandisk is going to radically change the Clip+ for a period of time and I can’t find a buyer for the Clip+. At least this way, the unit will be usable and not spend it’s time in the bottom of my sock drawer, collecting dust. In those instances where I know I will be away from a power source for an extended period of time, I have an iAudio 7 and a D2+. A solution I’m prepared to live with.
Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 12-14-2009 11:01 AM
Just finished removign the ogg tags. I thought this would free up space in the MTABLE.SYS file… it did to an extent the songs are now reduced to just 2 bits of info per track as in the following snippet…
The majority of the files on the SD card are still invisible to the player in “file system” mode as expected. The MTABLE.SYS file cuts off at exactly where the files that are “missing” start as expected.
A quick grep of the ogg’s in the MTABLE.SYS file shows the following…
So thats a total of 6494 songs I can get into the player before hitting the hard limit of the 1.8MB Mtable.sys file.
Just to put that in context, on the Internal Flash there are 4369 songs and the required space for the database.
On the external SD card (16GB) there are 8544 songs. 12913 songs in total with 6419 missing as far as the player is concerned.
Again you might get marginally more files in the MTABLE if you didn’t have the directory structure I have but the saving wouldn’t be much more than a few songs at most and without TAGS navigating would then be a nightmare.
Conclusion.
The player was a complete waste of time and money for my needs. I wish someone like SanDisk had bothered to advertise these limitations properly before I bought the player. Again, it’ll do as a low capacity on the go player but I’m now back where I was before looking for something small and practicle that fit’s my requirements.
Bummer.
Again thanks for all the help. I hope this thread comes up when others are searching for information about this player so as to avoid their dissapointment if they are thinking along the same lines as me.
Cheers.
Rob.
Message Edited by the_real_frosty on 12-14-2009 08:01 PM
I see. I cannot lose sight of the fact that this wee machine is the size of a domino, and still has many thousands of tracks on it, many times more data than you could possibly play in one session.
Realistically, with swappable µSDHC cards, you can carry a ridiculously huge music collection.
The Clip+ is limited by its size, and its available power. The size is the trade we make for the ultimate in portability, yes? The file limitations will no doubt be updated in a future firmware release.
In the meantime, enjoy some of that music collection. Sounds like you have a lot to choose from!
I anticipate some tasty updates, if the recent past is any indication of what’s possible.
I see. I cannot lose sight of the fact that this wee machine is the size of a domino, and still has many thousands of tracks on it, many times more data than you could possibly play in one session.
Realistically, with swappable µSDHC cards, you can carry a ridiculously huge music collection.
The Clip+ is limited by its size, and its available power. The size is the trade we make for the ultimate in portability, yes? The file limitations will no doubt be updated in a future firmware release.
In the meantime, enjoy some of that music collection. Sounds like you have a lot to choose from!
I anticipate some tasty updates, if the recent past is any indication of what’s possible.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
As usual, you are correct on all points Bob. Sometimes I can’t see the forest from the trees. The Clip+ does an awful lot, especially considering it’s price tag. And now that I will have the Duracell Battery Extender in hand within a few days, I see many more enjoyable listening sessions using the Clip+.
“Consumer batteries would increase the size. Pretty clearly, SanDisk did not want that.”
While using a AA battery might increase the size somewhat and a AAA battery to a lesser extent, there would be some space savings from omitting the charging circuitry, USB connection circuitry, and the USB connector itself. If instead of a swappable AA or AAA battery they used a swappable inexpensive flat Lion battery such as the Motorola BR50 cell phone battery, then they probably wouldn’t need to modify the design that much from their current players that run at 3.7 volts. Going back to 1.2 volts though and designing the player to use a swappable nimh AA or AAA rechargeable battery would require more changes.
I am surprised you couldn’t make it to 8,000 songs. Perhaps your filenames might be long, or there is something special about OGG. Perhaps it might be easier to get to 8,000 songs on the Clip+ using mp3 files? There is a similar thread on the Fuze board about the Fuze, and I think I remember seeing someone make it to over 9,000 songs being recognized by using ridiculously short filenames. The Fuze might have much more ram than the Clip+. I haven’t seen any documentation about the exact hardware contents of these players.
“Consumer batteries would increase the size. Pretty clearly, SanDisk did not want that.”
While using a AA battery might increase the size somewhat and a AAA battery to a lesser extent, there would be some space savings from omitting the charging circuitry, USB connection circuitry, and the USB connector itself. If instead of a swappable AA or AAA battery they used a swappable inexpensive flat Lion battery such as the Motorola BR50 cell phone battery, then they probably wouldn’t need to modify the design that much from their current players that run at 3.7 volts. Going back to 1.2 volts though and designing the player to use a swappable nimh AA or AAA rechargeable battery would require more changes.
It’s pretty evident to me that most media player manufacturers, don’t want to produce units with user-replaceable batteries, sad to say. Maybe we are just the oddballs and are more concerned about battery life and user-replaceable batteries than the normal consumer. I dunno.
If a unit came to market that had the features of a Clip+ and had an easy to replace battery or had a battery life of 25 hrs per charge(and was still close to the size of the present Clip+); I would jump on a product like that…BUT…I don’t know how many consumers, in the grand scheme of things are concerned all that much with the batteries in their units.
“The issue seems to me to be that there is not a “standard” swappable small high-power battery”
There are very popular inexpensive cell phone Lion batteries like the Motorola BR50. Building a player that uses a BR50 and is designed for easy swapping of the battery would be great. There are also chargers available to charge the most popular cell phone batteries outside a phone. Using an inexpensive easily swappable battery means the consumer can choose battery life by deciding how many spare batteries they want to have. A BR50 battery is just slightly smaller than the Clip+ in 2 dimensions and half the thickness of the Clip+ without the Clip. If a version of the Clip+ could be designed to take a swappable BR50 battery, it might need to be only around 50% thicker than the current Clip+. The BR50 itself has around two and a half times the power of the Clip+ battery, and allowing one to swap those batteries would be great. If not, then a version of the Clip+
with a BR50 battery built in might allow almost 30 hours of battery life for the typical user, vs the current 12 hours.(will some people be tempted to make this mod themselves? I am not up to it). For a player the size of the Clip+ in two dimensions but perhaps 50% thicker(not including the the size of the clip) having 30 hours of battery life would be great!
The battery in the Clip+ is 290 mwh. A 1,000 mah AAA nimh rechargeable battery like the ones made by Sanyo has more power than the Clip+ battery. To accomodate it, they could make a player like the Clip+ but around 33% wider, and perhaps just a tiny bit thicker. Having a player around 33% wider than the Clip+ and a tiny bit thicker that takes an easily swappable AAA nimh battery would be great! One could carry as many charged spares as they want and have an much battery life as they want. A AAA battery version of the Clip+ would be superb! The issue though would be going from the current circuitry designed to accept 3.7 volts to the ability to use 1.2 volts. I am wondering what voltages the Clip+ circuitry runs on? What happens to the 3.7 volts from the battery? Is it decreased or stepped up for use in the Clip+'s circuitry.
“But again, that’s changing the form of the player and increasing its size (if using AAA batteries).”
Am I missing something? Are the the dimensions of the Clip+ holy and not allowed to be deviated upon? Why can’t a player be 33% wider or 50% thicker than the Clip+?
“But again, that’s changing the form of the player and increasing its size (if using AAA batteries).”
Am I missing something? Are the the dimensions of the Clip+ holy and not allowed to be deviated upon? Why can’t a player be 33% wider or 50% thicker than the Clip+?
Unfortunately, it seems like basic size of the Clip is indeed engraved in stone…at least for now. I still believe in my heart of hearts, that they are placing all factors of the Clip+s performace aside for the sake of size.
“But again, that’s changing the form of the player and increasing its size (if using AAA batteries).”
Am I missing something? Are the the dimensions of the Clip+ holy and not allowed to be deviated upon? Why can’t a player be 33% wider or 50% thicker than the Clip+?
Unfortunately, it seems like basic size of the Clip is indeed engraved in stone…at least for now. I still believe in my heart of hearts, that they are placing all factors of the Clip+s performace aside for the sake of size.
@miikerman wrote:
Phillips just came out with a new player with a form factor of the type discussed about here. Unfortunately, its functioning has received less than stellar review.
Not too surprising a review, consideing it was located at one of the sites I dislike the most. Since I like to try out and see for myself new players, I’ll probably pick one up and make the decision if it’s a player I could lve with. It’s rated battery life alone will make it worth at least a look.
EDIT: Just saw a video review on the player. While this may not be the greatest player out there, it was quite evident that the reviewer had already made up his mind that he didn’t like the player. All he did was click around the menus at a fairly fast pace, and listed eveything he didn’t like about the player. One of the worst video reviews I have ever seen on any product.
Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 12-17-2009 04:56 AM
I have the 8GB Clip+ and recently bought a 16GB microSDHC card. I transferred 7,140 songs to the player and memory card and was dismayed to find that only 5,921 songs showed up in the library. I thought that the unit might have switched itself off during its insane 2 hour “media refresh” process and never finished the indexing but alas, there is a limit to the amount of files this device can handle. I’m very disappointed.
I may be able to live with a ~6,000 song limit but I just can’t get over how long it takes to re-index its tag/file database. The Clip+ rebuilds it from scratch every time; it’s not smart enough to perfom an differential update.
Yes, I was excited to think: here’s a device that could eventually support 40GB of storage…that’s enough for a 10,000 song collection encoded with Vorbis -Q 4. Great. But that’s not going to happen. Even if the “file limit” is lifted, the drawn-out indexing process is a major operational issue.
And I agree with you: sub-128Kbps encodes are desirable. I don’t understand some people’s fascination with lossless FLAC, 320kbps MP3 or Q8+ Vorbis files for these portable units. The utility gained from any perceived increase in sound quality is not enough to overcome the huge loss of convenience by not being able to carry a large collection of music. I’d much rather carry 5,000 Vorbis -Q 2 tracks than 2,000 256kbps MP3 or 500 lossless tracks.
I see. I cannot lose sight of the fact that this wee machine is the size of a domino, and still has many thousands of tracks on it, many times more data than you could possibly play in one session.
Realistically, with swappable µSDHC cards, you can carry a ridiculously huge music collection.
The Clip+ is limited by its size, and its available power. The size is the trade we make for the ultimate in portability, yes? The file limitations will no doubt be updated in a future firmware release.
In the meantime, enjoy some of that music collection. Sounds like you have a lot to choose from!
I anticipate some tasty updates, if the recent past is any indication of what’s possible.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
Of course I can’t listen to all of the 7,000+ tracks in my library in one session. That’s not the point. Some of us want to keep everything on their DAPs so there’s none of this back-and-forth sync’ing nonsense and deciding “what to transfer to the DAP” and “what to remove in order to make room”.
I still have my Creative Zen 40GB HDD player from 2004. That handled 10,000 tracks without issue. But it’s old and the size of a tank.
Everything…on one portable device. That’s what I want. I thought the Clip+ could fill my requirements (with the appropriate memory add-on and judicious bitrate selection) but apparently I’m too sly for my own good.
I could handle swapping SDHC cards…but the Clip+ will take a couple of hours each time to re-index! It’s not a solution.
I see. I cannot lose sight of the fact that this wee machine is the size of a domino, and still has many thousands of tracks on it, many times more data than you could possibly play in one session.
Realistically, with swappable µSDHC cards, you can carry a ridiculously huge music collection.
The Clip+ is limited by its size, and its available power. The size is the trade we make for the ultimate in portability, yes? The file limitations will no doubt be updated in a future firmware release.
In the meantime, enjoy some of that music collection. Sounds like you have a lot to choose from!
I anticipate some tasty updates, if the recent past is any indication of what’s possible.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
Of course I can’t listen to all of the 7,000+ tracks in my library in one session. That’s not the point. Some of us want to keep everything on their DAPs so there’s none of this back-and-forth sync’ing nonsense and deciding “what to transfer to the DAP” and “what to remove in order to make room”.
I still have my Creative Zen 40GB HDD player from 2004. That handled 10,000 tracks without issue. But it’s old and the size of a tank.
Everything…on one portable device. That’s what I want. I thought the Clip+ could fill my requirements (with the appropriate memory add-on and judicious bitrate selection) but apparently I’m too sly for my own good.
I could handle swapping SDHC cards…but the Clip+ will take a couple of hours each time to re-index! It’s not a solution.
It would re-index faster if it had fewer, larger files on it. Database refresh time is related to total number of files, not total amount of memory used. Take two cards and fill one with 2000 tracks, and one with 1000 tracks that use the same amount of space…the smaller total number will refresh faster.
