Sandisk Sansa Question

[mt_100]

I heard about Rockbox after reading that the 4GB Micro SDHC card my loving girlfriend bought for my birthday would not work in my Sandisk Sansa Express.

I love the player, as a 1GB player with a 2GB card in it it works great, but I wanted just a little more storage. Low and behold the SDHC cards aren't supported in it.

I know there is no Rockbox port for the Sansa Express but I saw there was one for the E200 series. I was thinking of picking one up and then using my card in it to have the storage I needed even though the player would be a bit larger. (Love the tiny sive of the Sansa Express!)

I read around but didn't see a few items so forgive me for asking if it is indeed listed somewhere.

1. Will I be able to use the Sansa E200 with Rhapsody To Go? I use the subscription service to get all my music from so that is VERY important. And, should I get the normal E200 series or the special Rhapsody version? I was thinking of just the normal one.

2. Currently when I hook up the Sansa it shows two devices in Rhapsody, internal and external memory. Does Rockbox allow it to be seen as one or will it still show as two?

3. Last question. I know the Sansa Express is a very simple player compared to the others so will there be a Rockbox port for it in the near future?

Basically, I am bummed that this new card won't work and my girlfriend spent $68 for something I cannot use, broke her heart to find out. I want to use it as I need more space on my player and it looks like getting a new player is going to be the only option.

[LambdaCalculus]

1) I recommend the regular e200 model, since the R series just got supported and still doesn't have a simplified install process for Windows users.

2) Rockbox will show the SD card as MMCx (replace x with a number) in the file view, I believe. But it'll still show up as two devices in Windows. So Rockbox will not change how it shows up in Windows.

3) If there are interested developers, or people who own the device and would like to help it become a reality, then yes.

And the card is very much supported by Rockbox, all 4GB of it.

[Chronon]

It appears that the Rhapsody-To-Go service uses DRM, so Rockbox will never support tracks purchased from that.

[mt_100]

The tracks I am playing are the Rhapsody To GO or Unlimited ones. Yes they are DRM but it is a subscription service same as Yahoo and Napster have.

So it is my understanding that if I put Rockbox on a Sansa e200 series it will no longer work with the subscription service music? Can anyone confirm that?

[LambdaCalculus]

You can still use the subscription services from the Sansa firmware. Rockbox will not read any DRM files. It's similar to iPods and songs purchased from iTunes: Rockbox won't read the songs purchased from iTunes, but the Apple firmware can be used to listen to these songs.

[mt_100]

OK, doesn't sound like a good idea since the Sansa firmware can't recognize over 2GB of micro sd in the player and Rockbox can. Thank you though.

[LambdaCalculus]

No problem, but there's an easy solution:

Get the Sansa e280. 8GB of main storage for some Rhapsody songs, and then add a larger SDHC card in the slot for music for Rockbox.

[mt_100]

That is a solution and workable, but my whole music collection is only 2.1GB at the moment and I don't want to spend $$.

Right now it looks like I will keep the Sansa Express with it's 1GB internal and 2GB card in it and continue to have to manually load music into different sections of memory and sell the 4GB MicroSD card that my girlfriend bought me that the store won't take back.

Ugh.

[greggh]

Just to let you know, the e280 price is now down to $113.88 at Amazon with free shipping.