SanDisk Developing 128 GB Micro-SD!!!!

I’m with you, Fifer.  There was no mention of the 4,000-song limit when I got in the market, either, so I bought an 8 GB Fuze with another 8GB on a microSD card and loaded them up with 12,000 WMA files – my entire CD collection – only to find it can only “see” a third of them.  To say I feel ripped off is an understatement.

And while I appreciate the fact that some work is being done to address this, the Q1 2009 firmware update announced by Sansafix will still only bring the capacity up to 8,000 songs.  If raising the limit any higher is a problem because reading the database causes the unit to run out of memory, then there needs to be an option allowing us more-advanced users to bypass the database approach altogether and simply navigate folders.

Otherwise we are stuck with these crippled machines, purchased with the understanding that their capacity is much higher than it truly is.  Let us get what we paid for.

Message Edited by dennisqwilson on 12-11-2008 05:07 PM

Message Edited by dennisqwilson on 12-11-2008 05:08 PM

Yes, you’re going to listen to all 4,000 songs at once. My heart goes out to you for not being able to load gargantuan amounts of music onto a simplistic MP3 player, it must be so terrible to be unable to load 90,000 songs on it. I can’t imagine the pain you must be going through. Do you need a hug?

@sansafix wrote:
This limit can be increased in Firmware.  We are expecting a significant increase (target is 8000 songs) by Q1,  2009.
Message Edited by sansafix on 12-11-2008 12:06 PM

Thank you, Sansafix.

@aircraftkiller wrote:
Yes, you’re going to listen to all 4,000 songs at once. My heart goes out to you for not being able to load gargantuan amounts of music onto a simplistic MP3 player, it must be so terrible to be unable to load 90,000 songs on it. I can’t imagine the pain you must be going through. Do you need a hug?

When choosing Play All + Shuffle, then effectively yes I am desiring to listen to any/all 4,000 songs at once.  Please advise on your listening habits so that I may be equally derisive and dismissive of your needs…

@dennisqwilson wrote:

I’m with you, Fifer.  There was no mention of the 4,000-song limit when I got in the market, either, so I bought an 8 GB Fuze with another 8GB on a microSD card and loaded them up with 12,000 WMA files – my entire CD collection – only to find it can only “see” a third of them.  To say I feel ripped off is an understatement.

 

And while I appreciate the fact that some work is being done to address this, the Q1 2009 firmware update announced by Sansafix will still only bring the capacity up to 8,000 songs.  If raising the limit any higher is a problem because reading the database causes the unit to run out of memory, then there needs to be an option allowing us more-advanced users to bypass the database approach altogether and simply navigate folders.

 

Otherwise we are stuck with these crippled machines, purchased with the understanding that their capacity is much higher than it truly is.  Let us get what we paid for.

Message Edited by dennisqwilson on 12-11-2008 05:07 PM

Message Edited by dennisqwilson on 12-11-2008 05:08 PM

12,000? in 16GB? Holy ■■■■!If you’re ripping them at that low bitrate, you’ve gotta be missing out on the sound quality that the Fuze is so well regarded for. A lot of people rip at higher bitrates once they become “more advanced users” because they learn to appreciate what sound the Fuze is capable of producing. I won’t debate tags vs. folders, because I have never had a player with folder navigation. However, I don’t feel the Fuze is crippled at all…I have definitely gotten what I paid for, and then some:smiley:

@aircraftkiller wrote:
Yes, you’re going to listen to all 4,000 songs at once. My heart goes out to you for not being able to load gargantuan amounts of music onto a simplistic MP3 player, it must be so terrible to be unable to load 90,000 songs on it. I can’t imagine the pain you must be going through. Do you need a hug?

Aircraftkiller, I’m happy that the Fuze meets your expectations.  It has not met mine.  In offering capacity we cannot use, it is a poor value, like owning a six-room house of which four are bricked shut.

You can use it depending on what quality levels you’ve chosen. God forbid you listen to only 2,000 songs instead of 40,000. I can’t imagine how long it must take you to even approach listening to 500 songs in a row, and if you aren’t listening to it all at once then you’ve got little reason to complain - go back to your computer and reload it with the songs you didn’t add, or replace the songs you aren’t as fond of in the player.

@aircraftkiller wrote:
You can use it depending on what quality levels you’ve chosen. God forbid you listen to only 2,000 songs instead of 40,000. I can’t imagine how long it must take you to even approach listening to 500 songs in a row, and if you aren’t listening to it all at once then you’ve got little reason to complain - go back to your computer and reload it with the songs you didn’t add, or replace the songs you aren’t as fond of in the player.

That’s a good point…divide the 12,000 songs into 3 folders, and sync-swap as necessary…doesn’t seem like rocket science:wink:

I am glad the limit is being raised to 8,000 songs by the end of the year. I have reconsidered the matter, and now I feel that  the song limit should have been printed on the box, and listed in the specifications, even though I haven’t seen this publicised for any other players with a card slot. 8,000 is a reasonable limit, which will support 24 gigs of music averaging around 3.25 minutes per song at 128 kbps. those who want to use less than 128 kbps and have an average song length that is short still won’t be happy though.

Look, while I admit that SanDisk could have been more up-front with the song limit, you still have to applaud their efforts.  I can certainly understand what sansafix is trying to say, that at the time this was designed, 4,000 songs for any flash player is insane.  Even now, the largest flash Ipods are only 16GB, and they’re both new and expensive.  Such capacities were unthinkable last year, and 16GB cards didn’t start showing up ANYWHERE until about 2 months ago.  So, short-sighted as it may be, a 4,000 file limit seems quite reasonable, given the times.  Now that flash memory has gone up in capacity and down in price far more quickly than anyone could have expected, SanDisk is working hard to DOUBLE that limit very soon.  That should be plenty of space for the vast majority of users, at least until 16GB Fuzes or 32GB cards start showing up, and I’m guessing a larger Fuze would have an external RAM chip anyway.  And its quite possible that they could increase this further, though of course I don’t understand the limitations of such a large database as well as the people who designed this player do.

I’m not saying that SanDisk shouldn’t have made the knowledge public, but we should still be happy about the support we’re getting throughout this.  Most other owners of flash players seem to like their players fine, and they don’t even have an expansion slot at all, much less interactive support and useful FW upgrades from their companies. 

@aircraftkiller wrote:
I can’t imagine…

So far, spot on…

@aircraftkiller wrote:
…how long it must take you to even approach listening to 500 songs in a row, and if you aren’t listening to it all at once then you’ve got little reason to complain - go back to your computer and reload it with the songs you didn’t add, or replace the songs you aren’t as fond of in the player.

And if I’m away from my computer and it turns out that what I want to hear isn’t among the 500 (or 4,000) on my player? If capacity and song limit allow storage of all files owned this becomes a non-issue.

@marvin_martian wrote:

12,000? in 16GB? Holy ■■■■!If you’re ripping them at that low bitrate, you’ve gotta be missing out on the sound quality that the Fuze is so well regarded for. A lot of people rip at higher bitrates once they become “more advanced users” because they learn to appreciate what sound the Fuze is capable of producing. I won’t debate tags vs. folders, because I have never had a player with folder navigation. However, I don’t feel the Fuze is crippled at all…I have definitely gotten what I paid for, and then some:smiley:

Actually, 64 kbps tracks using the newer WMA 10 Pro codecs sound about the same to me as the original wave file (especially when I’m out mowing the lawn).  But my ears are pretty old…

Does the Fuze support WMA 10? I didn’t think it did.

You’re right, in a sense, that it becomes a non-issue. I’m just treating you with the same attitude you’ve copping when you cry about being “deceived” by SanDisk, as if their track record as a company could ever support anything similar to that kind of claim.

@marvin_martian wrote:


@aircraftkiller wrote:
You can use it depending on what quality levels you’ve chosen. God forbid you listen to only 2,000 songs instead of 40,000. I can’t imagine how long it must take you to even approach listening to 500 songs in a row, and if you aren’t listening to it all at once then you’ve got little reason to complain - go back to your computer and reload it with the songs you didn’t add, or replace the songs you aren’t as fond of in the player.


That’s a good point…divide the 12,000 songs into 3 folders, and sync-swap as necessary…doesn’t seem like rocket science:wink:

Sorry, guys, but I shouldn’t have to.  The box it came in touts its expandability, with no mention of its limits (and that’s a little misleading, to say the least).

I bought it for a purpose, and it doesn’t achieve that purpose.

Then you should do research before you purchase goods, or look at the words “expandability” a bit closer. Regardless of limits, your player is expandable. That is an accurate advertisement. However, if you bought the Fuze thinking it’d be a replacement for a hard drive player, you’re looking to get gold out of a silver mine. The Fuze wasn’t designed for that kind of functionality. It’s a basic MP3 player with frills.


@aircraftkiller wrote:

Then you should do research before you purchase goods, or look at the words “expandability” a bit closer. Regardless of limits, your player is expandable. That is an accurate advertisement. However, if you bought the Fuze thinking it’d be a replacement for a hard drive player, you’re looking to get gold out of a silver mine. The Fuze wasn’t designed for that kind of functionality. It’s a basic MP3 player with frills.

 


I’ll thank you to refrain from drawing conclusions about my research practices – the due dilgence, as it were, was done – and from any further personal attacks, mild or otherwise.

 

“Expandable” may well be an accurate description, but a misleadingly incomplete one.  The Fuze’s limit is relevant, and should be stated on the packaging.  If that limit were some number that was beyond the ability of today’s memory cards to hold, it would be different, but the commonly available microSD cards of today – a large percentage of which is made by SanDisk itself! – make it easy to exceed the limit even at 256 kbps encoding.  There is simply no reason for prospective buyers to assume they couldn’t fill up a microSD card, pop it in the Fuze and then for it not to play.

 

I will agree with you however that the Fuze is pretty much just a basic MP3 player with frills.  Sadly, I will now agree with you about that.

When “ipods” list their 4,000 song limit on the packaging too, I’ll agree with you. They haven’t, I see no reason why SanDisk should either. If you need more than 4,000 songs, wait for the next firmware update. Either that, or start finding ways to optimize what you listen to. 4,000 songs is roughly 12,000 minutes of playback, call me when you finish that and then we’ll see how urgent getting the other 4,000 is.

Let’s be realistic here.  SanDisk designed the Fuze with the µSD High Capacity card when the cards were at a price point making a super high capacity combination cost-prohibitive.

Simply stated, a device listing at about $100 for the highest capacity unit would double in price with the projected cost of the 8GB card.

Production has made the price of these devices, both the players, and µSD cards, fall significantly.  There’s a colossal market for the µSD cards in mobile phones and cameras, a far larger market than audio players, and we benefit from that.

SanDisk has passed the savings on to us in the new 4 and 8GB Fuzes, and we’ve all seen how reasonable the prices are.

We’re losing sight of the tremendous benefits afforded us in such a great sounding player, in such a small size, with quite impressive capacity both in data storage and hours of playback.  Take one long look at how much you are really getting for the price.  Most impressive.

I for one couldn’t in clear conscience accuse SanDisk of dropping the ball, they’ve simply uncorked the genie!

Nobody would have dared think we’d have such an affordable player with such capacity.  These machines are no slouch either, they’re the first generation of DAPs to actually win the admiration of audiophiles.  They’ve ruffled more than a few feathers.

The problem of the file lookup table was difficult to anticipate, as these machines were designed with a reasonable RAM capacity given the initial design parameters.  The net price of the device had to be kept within reasonable limits, and this decision on SanDisk’s part has been to our collective benefit.

The flash memory of these machines gives us peace of mind, compared against mechanical hard drives.  They’re robust little guys.  And they’ll keep getting better, just wait and see.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that the Sansa gives you tremendous value for the money.  By quality alone, they would be a deal at many times their current price.

Now get those earbuds back on and have a good listen!

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

@aircraftkiller wrote:
When “ipods” list their 4,000 song limit on the packaging too, I’ll agree with you. They haven’t, I see no reason why SanDisk should either. If you need more than 4,000 songs, wait for the next firmware update. Either that, or start finding ways to optimize what you listen to. 4,000 songs is roughly 12,000 minutes of playback, call me when you finish that and then we’ll see how urgent getting the other 4,000 is.

Whether anyone feels anyone “needs” to carry that many tunes is immaterial, as is what information Apple chooses to disclose in connection with the iPod.

To restate, there is no reason to assume from the packaging or elsewhere that the Fuze has any such limitation.  It is a simple matter to calculate, however, that an 8 GB music player with a 16 GB expansion card holds 16,667 3-minute tracks encoded at 64 kbit/s.  Nowhere is there any indication that, when full, the Fuze can’t play all the tracks it can hold.