Rockbox Technical Forums
Rockbox General => Rockbox General Discussion => Topic started by: jdong on August 19, 2007, 02:56:40 PM
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I'm looking to purchase an inexpensive Rockbox powered player. It seems like the Sansa E200 is a good choice for that, at least from the wiki...
I just wanna know, for curiousity, from people who own these units how well Rockbox works on it. Is it stable/usable for day to day music playing? How's the battery life?
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Its pretty stable. I haven't had a crash anyway. Battery life is a little above 12 hours I think, maybe a bit more now.
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Thanks. As long as it works for playing music, I'm happy :)
Any other suggestions for a sub-$100 unit that runs Rockbox well?
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You could chose a Gigabeat F series. You'll have to buy it on eBay for ~100$ a F40. Used or new in the box.
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I wouldn't recommend the E200.. The headphone jack broke on both that I tried.. I just did a little research and it seems this is common.
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I wouldn't recommend the E200.. Â The headphone jack broke on both that I tried.. Â I just did a little research and it seems this is common.
Hey, interresting... It happened on the E260 of my wife, 2 months after I bought it...
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I wouldn't recommend the E200.. The headphone jack broke on both that I tried.
It is a common failure, but if you know how to use a soldering iron, it's a very easy repair. I've fixed quite a few. Add some epoxy it'll never break again.
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How's the background electrical noise in the audio?
What about screens breaking? I've read several reviews where the screen broke without even a drop.
I was almost going to buy one but I decided not to for those reasons. There are some very good deals now, like e280 (8GB) for $169 Canadian at Future Shop (http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&MSCSProfile=3C79F0C7EA3162B2658C9C3AEACAD76830ACD902FE5B105FB2EB6ABE5120AA65529593A3FB7E811A4D8EE18362D01F380F05846348393C1A00ED322BC13E8402DB5374F707D82379DFDA9796B3BB4536253C1043C37AC6A92F1E7E4FC23844156D5F4BA3CDB632DF238885C5F3B792674A8EA8DE882EB602&sku_id=0665000FS10079592&catid=10205).
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I have had mine for over 6 months and I have no problems with it.
Charles
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I'm not sure the build quality of e200s is that great, mine has a couple of annoying issues.
You can activate most of the buttons by pushing the case around them. For instance pressing the bottom quarter of the screen activates the play/pause button. I often pause it when bumping into something with the player in my pocket.
It also has issues turning on. The wheel light comes on and nothing else happens. Most of the time holding the power button will turn it off and it starts up correctly next time its turned on. Occasionally it fails to start up and won't turn off requiring the battery to be removed for a short while.
Perhaps I just have a lemon. Ignoring the issues with the hardware rockbox runs fine.
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I've had my sansa for going on 9 months now and I haven't had any problems. I also heard that the screen was susceptible to cracking so I invested in a case with a hard plastic screen protector insert; however, for the few months prior to that the unprotected screen was perfectly fine.
As for the firmware... Rockbox works great on the Sansa, I find that it sounds better than the stock firmware. Under the normal use its stable and gets fairly good battery life. Overall I'm very happy with my Rockboxed E280.
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I got my E250 on the 21st, and put Rockbox on it that day. The only times I've booted into the original FW since then is to put music on it. I've found being able to flip the screen 180 VERY useful.
I just wish Doom wasn't so squished...
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I have to say, I thought my e250 was OK before rockbox, but now, it's fantastic!
I am using the following:
cpchan's sansa build (http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12583) with the KratoGlass theme.
The e250 stock firmware was clunky, unintuitive, crash prone and frankly had less than stellar audio quality. With rockbox, I was able to adjust the audio output to the point of frankly sounding better than any other portable player I have ever tried. I use mine with a pair of shure e5c's, and the sound quality is now stunning.
The interface is simple, clean, fast and works well. WAY better than the clunky sandisk firmware.
One of the other big factors that lead me to rockbox was support for the SDHC cards. It really peeved me that Sandisk themselves did not offer support for this even though the hardware is capable... But rockbox does! Sandisk swears at some point microSDHC capacity will hit 32Gb, but in the meantime an additional 4-8gb is sure going to be nice.
I could go on and on about how much rockbox offers for this player, but I think you get the point. Just get it and try it - it's fantastic.
P.S. make sure you get a theme - the interface is VERY "functional" without one. :)
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Sandisk swears at some point microSDHC capacity will hit 32Gb, but in the meantime an additional 4-8gb is sure going to be nice.
If I understand well, there will have 32gb cards enterring the micro SD slot in that player?
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I've been using the Sandisk Rockbox port on my e250 for the last couple of months... it's been of limited use to me in the past but now that it supports WMA, I've been using it exclusively. Very stable.
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If I understand well, there will have 32gb cards enterring the micro SD slot in that player?
Eh, no. Today you can buy 4GB microsdhc cards, with 8GB ones announced by Toshiba and Samsung (and god knows how long it'll take until those actually are available to buy).
But sure, in a future I'm sure there will be 32GB microsdhc cards, if the form factor survives.
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I have e200 fo about 10 months and never had a problem with it. Rockbox works fine with it and has significantly better sound than the stock firmware has.
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If I understand well, there will have 32gb cards enterring the micro SD slot in that player?
Eh, no. Today you can buy 4GB microsdhc cards, with 8GB ones announced by Toshiba and Samsung (and god knows how long it'll take until those actually are available to buy).
But sure, in a future I'm sure there will be 32GB microsdhc cards, if the form factor survives.
Yep, the form factor is one component. The other is a question of how long your player lasts/appeals to you. It will likely be a timeframe on the order of a year plus to see anything approaching 32Gb for an SDHC card (if not longer) and by that time, newer players will surely entice most users.
In the meantime, whatever capacities are offered will help stretch my happiness with the sansa at least for the short term.
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Sandisk swears at some point microSDHC capacity will hit 32Gb, but in the meantime an additional 4-8gb is sure going to be nice.
If I understand well, there will have 32gb cards enterring the micro SD slot in that player?
There is a big difference between Gb and GB. Make sure you are using the correct term.
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Sandisk swears at some point microSDHC capacity will hit 32Gb, but in the meantime an additional 4-8gb is sure going to be nice.
If I understand well, there will have 32gb cards enterring the micro SD slot in that player?
There is a big difference between Gb and GB. Â Make sure you are using the correct term.
What is it, then?
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Gb is "gigabit" and GB is "gigabyte". Bits are 1/8 of a byte.
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Yes, thanks for informing me ;)
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Gb is "gigabit" and GB is "gigabyte". Bits are 1/8 of a byte.
Yes, correction duly noted. Thankfully, in the context of discussion, it was pretty clear that we were talking about Gigabytes. :)
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Thanks for the feedback everyone. I say buy.com had a refurb e260 for 79.99 and went for it. Figured I'd try my luck with a refurb at such a bargain price.
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Ok, an update: I have a Sansa e260 in my hands now, and I put Rockbox on it, and it's fantastic! This is quickly becoming my favorite music player.
Surprisingly, Sandisk's OF isn't bad either -- just lacks flat-file-browsing that I like so much. Boots very fast, easy to shut down too (with iPods you get the feeling you're holding that play button forever....)
Overall, looking at boost ratios and overall performance, I get the feeling that the Sansa is a bit faster than my iPod video 5G.
Battery life... haven't been able to drain it yet, but it looks solid, even with constant usage.
Thanks for everyone's help and keep up the good work!
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Just got my e250 in the mail today. Rockbox works outstandingly well on it. Nice work, folks!
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Is there an issue with low volume on the e200 series players on Rockbox. I just got an E280 and Rockbox'd it. I played some music and noted that I had to crank up the volume to at least 75% to get it to a comfortably high volume. For the same songs played back using the original firmware, I need to get just above 50%. Am I doing something obviously wrong or just missing something? TIA.
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What do you mean by 75%? Rockbox volume is measured in decibels relative to line level and the decibel scale is non-linear.
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What do you mean by 75%? Rockbox volume is measured in decibels relative to line level and the decibel scale is non-linear.
Well, it should be perceptually linear, not energy-content linear.
;)
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Well, it should be perceptually linear, not energy-content linear.
;)
That's as maybe, but we don't display as a percentage :)
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Well, it should be perceptually linear, not energy-content linear.
;)
This is very true, there goes me getting confused again :)
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Either way, 50% in the original firmware isn't the same as "halfway between mute and maximum volume" in Rockbox, and should not be expected to be.
For one, our range is quite different (we go a LOT quieter than the original firmware) and for another the original firmware has two different scales I believe (loud and normal or some such) so it's quite difficult to say what one level is roughly equivalent to in the other firmware.
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Whoa. Asked what I thought would be a simple question. Sorry for not being more precise.
LLorean, I had forgotten that I'd just reflexively switched the music volume level to "High" on the Sansa even before plugging in any headphones to it. I switched it back to normal.
Now the volume levels at the higher end of the scales roughly match up for both Rockbox and the Sansa. I've used Rockbox on an iPod nano before with two different headphones. It just seemed louder to me because I used to listen at a level somewhere much further down the scale, versus somewhere from -15db and higher like I am now. Oh well, could just be me. Sorry if this was a silly question, thanks for the responses.
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Now the volume levels at the higher end of the scales roughly match up for both Rockbox and the Sansa. I've used Rockbox on an iPod nano before with two different headphones. It just seemed louder to me because I used to listen at a level somewhere much further down the scale, versus somewhere from -15db and higher like I am now. Oh well, could just be me. Sorry if this was a silly question, thanks for the responses.
I think that, given reasonably high impedance (32-64 ohm) headphones, and reasonably similar DACs (comparable output impedance) you should get nearly the same volume on both devices for a given rockbox setting.
The reason I think this is because 0dB is line out voltage (I think), which should be the same on all DACs, which would mean that ignoring differences in current supply from different DACs, you should get the same loudness.
Obviously, if the DACs have different impedances, or different headphones are used, you will not get the same volume level.
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I just received my e280 a couple of days ago. Initially the OF didn't didn't seem to be too bad. Now that the beast is rockboxed it's no contender anymore. Though having experienced some problems in RB the overall stability and usability is great.
I previously owned a 2nd gen. Nano and I quite liked it. Anyway, now I own a DAP in which I am of full control again ;).
The only really flaw I experienced is the hiss noise you can hear when the flash memory is accessed.
Overall e280 and RB is a really great combination!
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I actually almost like the Sansa better than my Gigabeat, in spite of having 1/10 the storage space -- there's something about the ergonomics of the Sansa that's really appealing, might be the scroll-wheel versus the cross. The only thing I don't like is the placement of the play button versus the menu button, which feels like a "see! this isn't an iPod!" move.
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omg, the E200 series is the best
I got one last christmas, and have had little (if any) problems with the little thing. it runs rockbox fast without loading it to ram and the technical staff at sandisk.com will actually help you with problems with your player. I've had mine since xmas 06 and continues to work like new to this day.
only thing is (not sure for all sansa's or builds) mine makes this weird noise sorta like a scratched CD makes with some hip-hop songs, but rock sounds better than it does on the sandisk firmware though so Im happy with it.
I totally recommend it, its better than any mp3 Ive used so far :-)
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I travel a lot, so my e260 is my best buddy. Rockbox is great--I use the one of the themes with a large font and it works well. It boots up fast and shuts down fast.