Sansa Fuze + micro SDHC, HELP!

MP3 players Sansa Fuze
1

Hello!

I bought a Fuze 8GB and i’d like to buy a micro SDHC too.

I don’t know which would be better:

(I’ve heard; a non Sandisk card can be inadequate for the Fuze, so I think I’ll buy a Sandisk card.)

I need 8 or 16GB.

There are 8Gb Class 2, 8 Gb Ultra (probably class 6), and 16GB class 2. (The 16Gb Ultra is too expensive.)

Would the class 2 too slow, 2MB/s min. speed? For only music. I dont know, but the 8Gb: under $20, and the Ultra is about $30.

The 16gb is almost $50, quite expensive not to mention Ultra.

I think 8Gb would be enough, but more space is better, just don’t know is the class 2 good, or rather Ultra?..

Would be better to buy a 8Gb Ultra and wait for 16 Ultra’s price will be low?

Thanks!

2

You don’t need the Ultra card for this purpose. Class 2 is fine.

Ultra cards are for photographers and videographers who need to write a lot of information onto the card FAST.  All you are doing is loading music onto the card via your computer’s USB port, and the writing speed on a class 2 card can easily handle that. 

So buy a slower, bigger card, depending on what you can afford.  It doesn’t have to be SanDisk, but stay away from no-name brands or suspected counterfeits (like suspiciously cheap cards on eBay).

3

The other cards’ price is similar, so a Sandisk will be fine.

I just heard with a Class 2 SDHC the skip is slow between the tracks, and you have to wait to refresh, it is not “gapless” (with Sansa Fuze).

It’s not true then?

Because in this way maybe the 16Gb class 2 would be the best…

MOD: I read in this forum: “The Class 4 & 6 cards will only make a difference if you are using them for instance, in a digital camera. The speed refers to how fast data is written to the card, not how fast a device reads from the card.”

But what does refresh is can be slow mean? Refresh the music list after I put on them from PC, or what?

Thx!

Message Edited by honfoglalo on 12-24-2009 07:13 AM

4

The Fuze software isn’t gapless with any kind of card.*  And if you add music to the card, it has to refresh when it powers up so it can find the music.

The more you put on the card, the longer it is going to take to refresh.  Bigger cards can hold more files to refresh. But it only refreshes after you add new material–so if you’re worried about that, turn the unit on after you load it, let it refresh, and it will be ready with no refresh when you want to grab it and go. 

You’re not going to accelerate the process with a superfast card because it’s reading, not writing. 

Someone HAS just suggested that video playback may be improved by a faster card (see the Newbie’s Guide thread nearby). I’ve asked if anyone has problems there with class 2 cards, since I don’t use video, so if you’re planning to look at videos on that little screen, you might want to take a look at that thread and see if there are any responses.  I don’t think it should matter for playback–that’s also reading, not writing–but I don’t know. 

I doubt that the gap between mp3s depends on the class of the card. I use a class 2, and while the gap is there, it’s not long–a fraction of a second at most. Less than the gap between typical album tracks, and only a hiccup between tracks that segue. 

What can increase the gap is bad tags that make the Fuze struggle  to read multiple versions of the same tag. Get mp3tag  and when you install it have it add itself to Context menus (a check as you install). Under Tools/Options/Tags/Mpeg set it to Read everything, Write only ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 and Remove everything else (IDv1, APE, etc.).

When you have ripped an album, right-click on it, open it with mp3tag, highlight everything and (under Tools) run the Auto-Numbering Wizard to get track numbers 01,02, etc. Get rid of anything in the Comments field ( choose <blank>  ) and any weird characters in any other field. The more streamlined the tags are, the faster the Fuze reads and loads. Save the tags (under File) and you’ll have shiny neat Fuze-loving tags.    

*(A v1 Fuze can play gapless with Rockbox, an alternate software from www.rockbox.org. Look in Settings/System Settings/Info to see if the firmware version begins with a 1.x  . If it begins with a 2, it’s a different piece of hardware that Rockbox hasn’t figured out yet.)

Message Edited by Black-Rectangle on 12-24-2009 07:31 AM

5

Thanks!

I will buy a 16Gb Class2, you helped me a lot.