Sansa: thanks, now please give me a 16GB Clip (Black) or even better, put an SDHC Card Slot in it

ari · June 16, 2009, 5:42am

Dear Sansa: I’ve heard some noise on the net about the next clip, it appears it will come with a micro sdhc card slot. I’m hoping it will accept 16GB cards, and in the future 32GB. I’m hoping the battery will last a little longer - I don’t need 60 hours, but I wouldn’t mind getting 25 or 30h. No pitch thingy please. And yes, paint it black (matte black).

Please don’t make us wait too long and get this out to the market asap. I’m ready to buy it.

neutron_bob · June 16, 2009, 6:47am

To add µSD capability, the Clip would need to be about 3mm thicker as a minimum. This will also allow a larger battery in the bigger case.

Interesting thought…

Bob

marvin_martian · June 16, 2009, 6:56am

@neutron_bob wrote:

To add µSD capability, the Clip would need to be about 3mm thicker as a minimum. This will also allow a larger battery in the bigger case.

Interesting thought…

Bob

I have been wondering about that…3mm is negligible. Now that would be just for the physical demands of the slot, right? Then again, the Fuze is thinner than the Clip…so I’m confused.

neutron_bob · June 16, 2009, 7:25am

I’m thinking in three dimensions. You can’t shift the scroll wheel, OLED display, or headphone jack, so the only real estate available for the addition of a µSD tray is below everything. Essentially, you have to increase depth a wee bit. By doing that, the overall size looks the same, but the Clip would be thicker.

There are four possible areas along the outer edge that are wide enough for the socket, but the device would have to be thicker. And increasing from the current battery size would be possible. The trick is to find the right compromise.

Bob :smileyvery-happy:

marvin_martian · June 16, 2009, 7:35am

@neutron_bob wrote:

I’m thinking in three dimensions. You can’t shift the scroll wheel, OLED display, or headphone jack, so the only real estate available for the addition of a µSD tray is below everything. Essentially, you have to increase depth a wee bit. By doing that, the overall size looks the same, but the Clip would be thicker.

There are four possible areas along the outer edge that are wide enough for the socket, but the device would have to be thicker. And increasing from the current battery size would be possible. The trick is to find the right compromise.

Bob :smileyvery-happy:

I would sign up if it happened. I never use the video on the Fuze anyways…but I love the 12Gb of capacity I have on it.

pickmorel · June 16, 2009, 9:07am

@bobsco60 wrote:

The battery will die someday, and since it is not replaceable… that means the Clip dies forever.

Naw… just buy a 1GB Clip for $9.95 and use it as a parts donor. For ten bucks, you’ll get a new battery, a spare “ez-fall-off clip” as well as a spare OLED display (plugged in on this model rather than soldered), plus a nice new case, screen window, switches, earphone jack, etc. etc. etc. Next time Woot is unloading them at that price, grab three – the $5 shipping will be divided by three, making your net cost per unit less than $12 each.

The hard part will be KEEPING them, rather than using them, or giving them away as gifts. At least, if my own experience is any indicator.

BTW, although these are sold as refurbs, EVERY Clip I’ve bought there (more than I can recall, literally) has seemed to me to be brand new, most likely overstock/overrun, pulled from the line before the pretty (and expensive) retail packaging is applied. They have NOT had ANY evidence of being used or “worked on” – I’m sure that SOME refurbs really are refurbed (the very first Sansa I got – a refurb, NOT a Clip – was definitely a refurb – it was broken, had beta firmware on it, and had to be RMA’d, but the process was quick and painless – they fedexed me a replacement along with a call tag to return the dead one).

If you’re not inclined to go that route, I’ve read that the Clip uses the same battery as the small no-display Ipod (“Shuffle”?) – it’s the one that’s about the same size, but with less memory, no display, poor controls, and WAY overpriced – but, they made a lot of 'em (in a nation of sheep, stuff like that happens), so, there is a large third party aftermarket in batteries. You can probably pick up a battery for ten bucks or so (hmm, about the same as an entire Sansa Clip), and there ya go.

@bobsco60 wrote:

Only serious problem I have enountered is frequent error messages when transferring files to this player. Messages telling me that the player is not connected, etc…

You may be having USB port issues, i.e., a passive (unpowered) USB hub, or an underpowered USB port on your computer. (Standard advice in the latter case is to try one of the USB ports on the rear panel of the computer rather than the front panel – apparently many computers provide significantly lower current to the USB jacks located on the front panel.)

The Clip NEEDS to have sufficient power when transferring files. I’ve noticed those problems when using a USB hub that could be used in passive or powered mode. In passive mode, it was error-city, but once I turned on the power, no problems at all. Some other Sansa models will work just fine with a passive hub, but the Clip definitely needs to be fully powered when transferring files.

(It’s also possible that the cable you’re using for file transfer has a bad connection to one or both of the power lines; there are two data wires and two power wires – if one of the wires has an internal break, or has come unsoldered from the connector, or, if there’s dirt or corrosion on one of the contacts, you’ll have the same kind of problems. If all else fails, try a different cable.)

robisan · June 16, 2009, 9:34pm

Look, 32gb Sandisk flash drives retail for under $70 and the wholesale/production cost of that memory must be less than half that price. There’s simply no reason why reasonably priced 32gb flash players shouldn’t be available right now.

…Adding, in addition to adding a uSD slot, for as little as doubling the size they could incorporate a Fiio E5 type amp into the Clip. A Clip/E5 combo in one compact form-factor unit would be sweet…

marvin_martian · June 17, 2009, 4:18am

@miikerman wrote:
Going a slightly different route, I don’t understand, similarly given the fallen price of memory, why a high capacity flash player is not yet out. Like 64 (which is still a bit low for this), 96 or 128 gb. My first MP3 player, an iRiver 40 gb hard drive player, retailed at $400-$500 5-6 years ago, which then was the going price for the high capacity iPod. I can’t but imagine that people gladly would pay $300-$400 now for a modern flash high capacity player. Whoever comes out with it first will have a corner on the market; only Apple and Microsoft even offer hard drive capacity DAPs right now (plus Archos, in a slightly different area).

People are paying that now for 32GB flash players, example the Touch, Sony X-series.So I wonder if some other company would willingly offer a lower profit margin 64GB flash player for that price, and I’m inclined to doubt it, unfortunately.

marvin_martian · June 17, 2009, 6:10am

I don’t know how big the memory chips are dimensionally, but the Fuze certainly would seem to be big enough to hold 32GB onboard, plus a slot. That would be pretty sweet, given that my collection is currently 32.7 GB, and 95.9% of that is lossy. I’m unsure about the Clip. I am inclined to think they’d be more likely to increase the Clips internal memory and not add a slot, so as to not cannibalize Fuze sales…but I could be entirely wrong too.

pickmorel · June 18, 2009, 8:40pm

@marvin_martian wrote:
I don’t know how big the memory chips are dimensionally

Look at it this way – if they can fit 16 to 32 gigabytes onto a thumbnail-sized MicroSDHC card, then they can fit 128 GB or more into something with the Clip’s form-factor without breaking a sweat.

promisedplanet · June 18, 2009, 9:30pm

But how long would it take the processor to read the contents of 128GB?

The database design would have to be pretty clever, at least.

pickmorel · June 18, 2009, 10:05pm

@promisedplanet wrote:

But how long would it take the processor to read the contents of 128GB?

Who cares?

That wasn’t even close to related to the question I answered, which had to do with physical size of flash RAM. All I pointed out was that there’s no realistic limit (note the word “realisitic”).

As to performance, a few tweaked algorithims would definitely help, but the easiest solution IMO would be to go to a hybrid methodology – use tree-navigation as first-level browsing, then, within each folder, read the tags. Keep a separate database table per folder if necessary for performance, and buffer most-recently-used folders to speed up ops.

This kind of stuff is childsplay for any halfway competent coder. (former coder speaking)

pickmorel · June 18, 2009, 10:10pm

PS: If you’ve used a Clip, you know that the infamous Sansa Database Update ONLY occurs when the device is actually updated – there’s NO need to update the database when powering-up, since there’s NO possibility of the user having slipped in a MicroSD card while powered-down. The lack of SD support on the Clip has this as a very positive side-benefit.

marvin_martian · June 18, 2009, 10:15pm

Give me a 32GB Clip, (at 1.5x size for bigger battery) and I would sell my Fuze in a heartbeat, given that I never watch video. Who knows what they would charge for Clip like I describe though?

robisan · June 19, 2009, 7:20am

@marvin_martian wrote:
Give me a 32GB Clip, (at 1.5x size for bigger battery) and I would sell my Fuze in a heartbeat, given that I never watch video. Who knows what they would charge for Clip like I describe though?

Precisely – I prefer the Clip form factor but 8gb of storage is completely inadequate. They’re selling 32gb memory that fits in a USB thumb drive for under $70 – a 32gb Clip really shouldn’t be too terribly expensive. People spending $300-$400 for a Touch or a Sony are paying for features and capabilites, not storage. And as I said up-thread, they could double the size to include an E5-type amp onboard and it would be perfect.

ari · December 3, 2010, 2:40pm