Sansa Clip Zip 8GB on Sale for $40 at Costco

[Athens80]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I would buy this over the ipod.

We have five Clips in the family. The iPhone has a better screen; the Sansa is a better portable audio player. The nano doesn't rate at all. The Clip is much smaller, it is much easier to load with media, and, with a cheap memory card, has the capacity of the largest and most expensive iPhone. I use these around the house, exercising, at the gym, in the car ....

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Draculaa

If money was not an issue, would you buy this or ipod nano?

Sansa Clip+ - hands down. I keep my music in FLAC format, in a simple folder organization. (Each artist has a folder.) It is infinitely expandable, just swap chips. I keep a 32 GB in it, and another 5 32Gbs in a little zipper folder. (Roughly 100 hours music per chip, and at full CD quality - no lossy compression for me.) Just swap and go. I keep my music library with me, all of it. Can't do that with an Ipod, Nano or otherwise.

Don't want a touch screen. I had an e-book reader with a touchscreen (CYBook 1st gen), I prefer buttons. Don't want a little color screen, just play music, and play it well.

Finally, money is always an issue. I only have so many resources, I want to get the most enjoyment out of them. What I save with a Sansa, I can spend for something else (like music or e-books...)

I'm a classic geek, function and efficiency mean more to me than style and status...

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I use the Sansa Clip + (previous gen - they work, why spend more when you don't need to.) Great players. There is alternative firmware (Rockbox) for the previous versions, the Clip Zip is under construction as we type.

Plus. if you are the "outside the box" types you can format a 64 GB micro SD chip to SDHC with a free Windows utility called GUIFormat. It'll work on Rockbox firmware, I'm going to test it on Sansa CLIP + firmware tonight. It ought to work...

I will post with results later.

(Note, I own 5 of the puppies...)

And the answer is...64GB reformatted to SDHC works just fine in a Sansa Clip+...

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by dreams

I don't have apple anything, but my son has all ithings.

I would buy this over the ipod.

Agreed.

We have a pair of Fuze's that have worked beautifully for trips and such.

I did run across the Clip in Costco today and we picked one up for the kid to use on road trips. He complains about not having music, so now he has plenty.

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by cromag

My original Sansa Clip (no "+" ... no "Zip") is still plugging along. [...] Not a bad lifetime for a Lithium battery.

Same here. Years old already and still runs like it was brand new. And I use it a lot, using PC speakers, when I want music (while reading) without the PC itself on.

Only problem I have with it is that if I charge it while playing, the speakers must not be connected to PC at the same time (even if the PC is off), as otherwise all I get is a loud buzzing noise. Some kind of electrical problem there I haven't been able to track down - replacing the speakers with a different brand didn't resolve the problem so either the player or the PC have a problem with grounding or sth.

[dreams]

Your mention of speakers reminded me that I also use them when I don't want to use the earphones.

I had some old external PC speakers and had packed them away. I found them when cleaning out the closet and set them up in the bedroom and in the garage. Now, I can just plug in the Clip to the speakers.

[Draculaa]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Sansa Clip+ - hands down. I keep my music in FLAC format, in a simple folder organization. (Each artist has a folder.) It is infinitely expandable, just swap chips. I keep a 32 GB in it, and another 5 32Gbs in a little zipper folder. (Roughly 100 hours music per chip, and at full CD quality - no lossy compression for me.) Just swap and go. I keep my music library with me, all of it. Can't do that with an Ipod, Nano or otherwise.

Don't want a touch screen. I had an e-book reader with a touchscreen (CYBook 1st gen), I prefer buttons. Don't want a little color screen, just play music, and play it well.

Finally, money is always an issue. I only have so many resources, I want to get the most enjoyment out of them. What I save with a Sansa, I can spend for something else (like music or e-books...)

I'm a classic geek, function and efficiency mean more to me than style and status...

Where do you buy songs in FLAC format from? Google shows no good sites.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by Athens80

We have five Clips in the family. The iPhone has a better screen; the Sansa is a better portable audio player. The nano doesn't rate at all. The Clip is much smaller, it is much easier to load with media, and, with a cheap memory card, has the capacity of the largest and most expensive iPhone. I use these around the house, exercising, at the gym, in the car ....

....def'nitly !

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Draculaa

Where do you buy songs in FLAC format from? Google shows no good sites.

I'm a real buckaroo, I roll my own.

Buy audio CD, rip to WAV files, label by hand, run a FLAC conversion program for all the files from a CD at once. I use Audio-Transcoder ($19.95) for bulk conversions, just drag and drop.

Work? A little, but you do it once per track and you can use it as long as you live. Seems a reasonable trade-off to me. You mileage may vary...

(The CD acts as a tertiary back up, I back up my music files and store off-site. No worries about loss...) However, since you seem to be an Apple fan, (nothing wrong with that), I believe Apple has a lossless compression format. Audio-Transcoder will read/convert back and forth from Apple lossless to FLAC. (I've never done it, I don't know how well it keeps the metadata.)

Real audiophiles get vinyl records and a computer with real good DAC (Digital/Analog Conversion) chips and convert at 24 or 32 bits (much bigger file - think the audio equivalent of Blu-Ray) and use FLAC to compress those. I settle for CD quality - 16 bit, 44.1 KB bitrates. Plus I have the CDs...Just rip, compress and go.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Draculaa

If money was not an issue, would you buy this or ipod nano?

The Sansa. I use micro SD extensively, and it is not merely an optional feature.

[Greg Anos]

You see, it's a kinda philosophical issue. All-in-one (that do only one thing well, at best) or separate gadgets that are best-of-breed. Most of the people on this thread are "best-of-breed"ers.

We also firmly believe in keeping our data separate from our gadgets. That way, When our gadgets die, and they will, eventually, we just plug the separate data into the new gadget. No fuss. I listen to Apple iPhone users always complaining about their latest firmware upgrades...(The time it took, having to reload apps/data, ect..) But it is slicker to use, no argument. But not my style.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

And the answer is...64GB reformatted to SDHC works just fine in a Sansa Clip+...

I'm using 32gb cards now and I'm probably not going to go to 64gb until there's a price drop, but for future reference--why does the 64gb need to be refomatted?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I'm using 32gb cards now and I'm probably not going to go to 64gb until there's a price drop, but for future reference--why does the 64gb need to be refomatted?

Because the SD consortium are idiots....

Let me expand and revise my remarks..

The SD consortium has never been forward looking. The first kind of chips were in FAT 16 format, which limited them to 2 GB (if you ignored the sign bit). When this was first standardized, 32 MB was a big chip.

Chips got bigger and there was a need for bigger SD cards, but they were limited by their format (FAT 16). So they came up with a new format standard - SDHC, which was FAT 32. They (blithering idiots) then hobbled FAT 32 from 4 Terabytes to 32 GB max as a standard. At the time 4 GB was a big chip.

Now all the original SD devices can't read a SDHC chip, their firmware was written for FAT 16 only.

Chips kept getting bigger and you couldn't use more than a 32GB chip in a SDHC gadget...So they came up with a even newer format call SDXC, which will handle up to 2 terabyte chips. It is a heavily modified version of FAT 32, and it is proprietary, you have to pay $300,000 dollars for a license to use it in firmware. (Multiple words omitted for decorum).

A SDHC reading device can't read SDXC format...But...FAT 32 itself was not limited to 32GB, just the standard. So many devices did not code the 32Gb limit in the firmware, but just read FAT 32 files, period. So, with 3rd party reformatting software, you can reformat a SDXC (officially a ex-FAT format) to a FAT 32 format, good for 4 terabytes, max. I use one called GUIFormat, there are others.

But you don't know if it will work until you actually stick on in the device in question and see if it will read it. I checked Sansa Clip+ firmware, it, will read it. Rockbox will, I already tested it. So this extends the chip size for many, many devices, if you go to the bother of reformatting the chip. (It's really easy, run the program, set the file type to FAT 32, and click the reformat button, 20 seonds and you're done. Only have to do it once..)

[Catlady]

Thanks so much for the info--I hadn't noticed that the 64gb cards say SDXC and not SDHC. As a nontechie, I can't say as I follow all the specifics, but I get the gist!

[frostschutz]

SD cards come preformatted; with one of FAT16, FAT32 or exFAT. If the filesystem does not match your device you have to reformat it. But reformatting won't help you if the reader can't handle the capacity/type of your card. Some readers/cards just aren't compatible and there's nothing you can do about it.