What do you think the next Sansa player will be like?

[Burning_October]

I know this is a bump, but this part of the forums is pretty dead so i'm gonna post anyway.

Seeing as how Sansa has seemingly followed Apple's trends for the last generation, i'd imagine we'll see (in the successor to the Fuze) a tall screen as opposed to a wide one (like what we had with the e200). Other then that, maybe a metal backing this time, though to be honest I doubt that beyond that and a few internal tweaks (and of course more storage) that they'd change much about their current line of players. They've found a good spot where the devices are cheap to produce and sell, but not ugly and glitchy.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Burning_October

... Seeing as how Sansa has seemingly followed Apple's trends for the last generation, ...

Personally I disagree; the clip blows the shuffle away, has a screen to boot and can be rockboxed along with it's bredrin the fuze and e200 series. The fuse is in no way similar to the nano and I hope they don't produce anything similar to them and continue to do their own thing.

BTW the e200 series did have metal back plates, I'm not sure they'd go back to that with the quality of plastic polymers today, plus metal would only add weight and possibly cost more ...

[glove4]

I'd like to see a higher capacity Fuze and a touch screen player with really good video support and 64gb. I doubt its going to happen though.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by glove4

I'd like to see a higher capacity Fuze and a touch screen player with really good video support and 64gb. I doubt its going to happen though.

How about the same without touch and tactical buttons like the Clip +

[lestatar]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

How about the same without touch and tactical buttons like the Clip +

I second that! Fuze with D-pad and tactile volume controls in a 16gb main mem configuration would be excellent, retaining of course uSDHC and Rockbox-ability

[Burning_October]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Personally I disagree; the clip blows the shuffle away, has a screen to boot and can be rockboxed along with it's bredrin the fuze and e200 series. The fuse is in no way similar to the nano and I hope they don't produce anything similar to them and continue to do their own thing.

BTW the e200 series did have metal back plates, I'm not sure they'd go back to that with the quality of plastic polymers today, plus metal would only add weight and possibly cost more ...

I totally agree, but the form factor of the Fuze seemed very much inspired by the (at that time) new iPod Nano, and of course the clip-shuffle comparison. But Sansa totally blows Apple out of the water with both players.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Burning_October

... the form factor of the Fuze seemed very much inspired by the (at that time) new iPod Nano ...

I still don't see similarities aside from the "look" of the UI and if it was inspired by the fruit company, sansa outdid them with the expansion slot alone. Even if they were both the same I'd still prefer the fuze form factor over the nano ...

Nano 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.26

Fuze 3.1 x 1.9 x 0.3 in

[lestatar]

Maybe he meant this Nano model/design?

[glove4]

Originally Posted by lestatar

Maybe he meant this Nano model/design? ...

Yeah, when the Fuze was released, that was the current Nano available. Sure does make you realize how old the Fuze has become at this point.

[EggyCuppy]

funny part is, from what i have been reading, it wouldnt take much to update the fuze internally to make it a "modern" pmp.

amoled screen(would also save power)
possibly a higher end cpu(to possibly support higher end video formats, such as webm/h264)
more memory/storege.

Hell I think if the rockbox guys could get the needed info they could enable cpu scaling on the clip and fuze units allowing them to drop the clocks to minimum levels needed for what your doing at the time rather then running the cpu at 240mhz all the time.

One thing that would be nice is if sandisk would pre-coat their players with the stuff thats used on bestskinsever/zagg invisible shields at least on the screen, would make the player more durable and keep it looking nicer!!!

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by lestatar

Maybe he meant this Nano model/design? ...

I see a little resemblance, although from that picture I find the nano wider. It’s possible I just keep apple products on my /ignore list and had forgotten about that fat/wide one

[lestatar]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

I see a little resemblance, although from that picture I find the nano wider. It’s possible I just keep apple products on my /ignore list and had forgotten about that fat/wide one

Since getting to know you, probably.

Though not sure you missed it - like you said, it probably didn't register too heavily in your brain.

And yes, in real life, that particular Nano was a touch wider than the Fuze, though not as much as the pic might suggest. I don't exactly recall the size specs, but for sure remember that that Nano and Fuze were close enough in design/form factor IMO to be considered first cousins.

[JK98]

64 GB? I would like to see Sandisk make player available with 16 GB or 32 GB memory built in and a full sized SDXC card slot. It would also be nice if such a 16 GB player would retail for $100 or less. I would also like to see a player with a full sized SDXC card slot and HD radio that retails for under $150.

If Sandisk wants to help promote the new SDXC card format, they should at least make some mp3 players that can use use.

[Burning_October]

I'd say that we'd be looking at maybe a 16 gig player next time for around $150. An AMOLED screen is definitely a possibility, and better battery life in general. I'd also like to see a UI refresh that puts album art front and center (much like the old Zune's).

[JK98]

$150 for a 16 GB player is quite high. Many people refuse to pay more than $100 for an mp3 player. Some might pay $150 if it has HD radio, 32 GB built in, an SDXC card slot, and long battery life.

Album art? I would greatly prefer a very low power monochrome LCD or e- ink display that is on all the time the player is on than having prettier album art. I don't need album art at all. I just want a player that doesn't need to turn off the display while playing to save power.

[EggyCuppy]

apparently first gen sdxc cards are 100% hardware compatible with current sd/sdhc readers/devices, main dif being they want/expect exFat as the filesystem rather then fat32.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by EggyCuppy

apparently first gen sdxc cards are 100% hardware compatible with current sd/sdhc readers/devices, main dif being they want/expect exFat as the filesystem rather then fat32.

Where did you hear that?

[dfkt]

The SD Association says SDXC cards are not compatible with older readers, but who knows what a reader's firmware update (or Rockbox on an MP3 player) can do about that, if it's only about the exFAT file system (which I'm not sure about, and haven't found conclusive answers)... http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdxc/using_sdxc/

On the bottom of that site is a download for a Windows SDXC driver, which presumably makes older readers SDXC compatible... so they do contradict themselves a bit, or I'm just not reading it right.

[no9]

Yea, totally looks like all you have to do is download a driver and it'll work on your computer. 256gb flash mp3 player here we come?

[EggyCuppy]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

Where did you hear that?

Originally Posted by dfkt

The SD Association says SDXC cards are not compatible with older readers, but who knows what a reader's firmware update (or Rockbox on an MP3 player) can do about that, if it's only about the exFAT file system (which I'm not sure about, and haven't found conclusive answers)... http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdxc/using_sdxc/

On the bottom of that site is a download for a Windows SDXC driver, which presumably makes older readers SDXC compatible... so they do contradict themselves a bit, or I'm just not reading it right.

can hit these 2 posts with one reply.

that drivers for older windows versions and is from what I have read an exFAT driver, just gives xp (and 2k) exFAT support.

as to where I read that they are the same, good old wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_...ibility_issues

SDHC and SDXC compatibility issues

In the 3.0 specification, the electronic interface of SDHC and SDXC cards is the same. The decision to label cards with a capacity greater than 32GB as SDXC, and to use a different filesystem, is due solely to the limitations in creating larger filesystems in certain versions of Microsoft Windows. Other operating systems, such as Linux, make no distinction between SDHC and SDXC cards, as long as the card contains a compatible filesystem.

SDHC and SDXC cards and devices have these compatibility issues:
SDHC devices will only support the SDXC cards which use UHS104 speeds;[32] SDHC devices will not recognize the SDXC cards which use the faster (SD 4.0), final specification of SDXC.[47]
SDXC devices are backward compatible with SD and SDHC memory cards.[47]
Linux (with a proprietary driver for the exFAT filesystem[48]), Microsoft Windows 7/Vista SP1+[47]/XP SP2+ (with exFAT update)[49], and Mac OS X Snow Leopard (on the Mac Mini released in June 2010 & iMac released in July 2010)[50] are the only operating systems to currently support SDXC.



Devices that support SDIO (typically PDAs like the Palm Treo, but occasionally laptops or mobile phones) can use small devices designed for the SD form factor, like GPS receivers, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth adapters, modems, Ethernet adapters, barcode readers, IrDA adapters, FM radio tuners, TV tuners, RFID readers, digital cameras, or other mass storage media such as hard drives.

A number of other devices have been proposed but not yet implemented, including RS-232 serial adapters, fingerprint scanners, SDIO to USB host/slave adapters (which would allow an SDIO-equipped handheld device to use USB peripherals and/or interface to PCs), magnetic strip readers, combination Bluetooth/Wi-Fi/GPS transceivers, cellular modems (PCS, CDPD, GSM, etc.), and APRS/TNC adapters.

SDIO cards are fully compatible with SD Memory Card host controller (including mechanical, electrical, power, signaling and software). When an SDIO card is inserted into a non SDIO-aware host, it will cause no physical damage or disruption to device or host controller. SPI bus topology is mandatory for SDIO, unlike SD Memory. Most of the SD Memory commands are supported in SDIO. SDIO cards can contain 8 separate logical cards, although at the moment this is at most a memory and IO function. SD slots will take SD cards only. SDIO slots will take SD cards and SDIO cards.

So as I read it, if rockbox could support exFAT or another large file system then CURRENT first gen sdxc cards would work(from another site i was reading there arent any sd4.0 devices out yet)

infact, the fuze may be able to read current sdxc cards if formated with fat32.

Part of the move away from fat32 is due to file size limmits, part is due to fat32 having some reliability issues, as volume size gets larger the problems get worse.

Its a big part of why windows wont let you format or install to a large fat32 partition(well it wont let you format to fat32 if the partitions large that is)