I bought myself a Sansa View some time ago. Although the high storage capacity is great for me as I like to have my entire music collection with me, it’s not so great for podcasts.
Although it does recognize podcasts and will save their position, it’s so easy to loose the position. This wouldn’t be so bad if it had progressive seek (fast-forward, rewind) speeds, but in reality trying to find one’s place midway an hourlong podcast is so diabollically impractical that I find it’s quicker and less labourious to edit the audio file on my PC, cutting out the section I’ve already listened to and re-uploading the file back to the player!
To cut a long story short, I’d like to get a new player that is more suited for podcasts. I won’t need so much storage capacity this time round (1GB is more than enough) so I’m hoping I can pick up a bargain. I was looking at the Clip as it is a very cheap player. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Clip has, unlike the View, progressive seeking. Can anyone confirm this? Also, does it support podcast bookmarking that the View has?
Not got any podcasts on my Clip at the moment but just put a chapter of an audiobook on. The chapter is 30 minutes long and when I turn on the player - it commences from the exact timepoint I powered off the player.
If I re-play the chapter from the beginning and hold down fast forward, it does start off slow and then the forwarding speeds up to a blinding pace. I actually fast forwarded the whole 30 minutes in about 5 seconds - so I suppose that is your progressive forwarding answer.
I am surprised the View does not have this though, have you updated to the latest firmware maybe?
The Clip and the Fuze have autobookmarking for podcasts and audiobooks. When you play part of a file, do something rlse, then come back to it, it asks if you want to resume where you left off, or start from the beginning. A one gig Clip is around $30, while a 4 gig one is around $50. Expect around 12 hours or so battery life from the Clip in real world usage. If you want more run time, then get the Fuze, which has around 18-20 hours of typical run time on a charge. The Fuze also has a micro SDHC card slot.
I knew my Clip would start at the place I left off in an audio book, but didnt know I could actually go away - play music (etc) then when I go back to the book it would lask if I want to resume were I left off the book last time… thta is amazing!
I hope it does that for more than 1 book or podcast at a time - that would be something special.
The problem with this though is if an audiobook has many files, you need to remember which file you were in the middle of, and how to navigate there. I wish Sandisk would write new firmware that has a back to audiobook and a back to podcast function available when playing songs, that takes you back to the podcast or audiobook file you were in the middle of. I also want the audiobook and podcasts menus to be top levels menus, and not submenus within the music menu.
Thanks everyone for your advice. I went ahead and bought one and so far I am very pleased. So far the bookmarking has been more reliable than the View, so I’ve not needed the progressive seeking for real, but I’m glad it’s there just in case! I also like the fact that it can play Ogg Vorbis; one of the podcasts I listen to is available in that format.
