Looking for a great Rockbox-powered DAP

[zaphee]

Hi guys,
My 1st-gen iPod nano has finally begun to show some death signs (battery doesn't hold charge for a long time), I'm now looking for a new device which would match the following :
- works on a removable AA/AAA battery (the ipod has disappointed me about this)
- has all the standard ports : standard mini-jack for earphones and a mini-USB port (i hate the expensive and often hard to find proprietary cables)
- if possible, a flash internal memory (because i'm quite messy, and my ipod has fallen a lot of times)
- AND, if possible, external memory support (SD, microSD, USB...)
Of course, the greater capacity the better, except with external memory support, in which case it wouldn't matter. Radio is preferred, but not required. Neither screen size nor color depth does matter, but I suppose a smaller screen will save battery life, right ?

PS: I once had a Creative MuVo TX that worked on a single AAA battery with 512 MB of internal flash. It has fully satisfied me at the time (with stock firmware), but has died since then. I'm now looking for something similar, with a greater capacity and/or an external storage support. And of course it must be Rockbox-capable, or soon-to-be

PPS: by the way, is that normal for a Li-Ion battery to die after 1 year and a half of use, considering that I charged it about every 24 hours after a nearly complete discharge ?

[eyeball226]

I'm new to Rockbox myself and don't have answers for most of your questions but I have a little insight for the last bit.
As far as I know, complete discharges are very bad for Li-Ion batteries so that might be your problem...

[Chronon]

The hardware or firmware should detect low battery and shut down to prevent this.

[zaphee]

The hardware or firmware should detect low battery and shut down to prevent this.

The iPod does shut down brutally because of complete discharge, because after that the screen still shows a fading interlaced picture of what it was showing while being on.
So I suppose nor the hardware nor Rockbox did detect low battery. Otherwise, the screen would be shut down properly, right ?

[torne]

That means it didn't shut down cleanly, no, but just had the power cut. That doesn't mean the battery is completely discharged to the point that it causes damage, though: the battery itself has a cutout to stop that happening. It probably didn't make any difference.

If you were using your player enough that you were having to recharge it from a very low level every single day, then that in itself would've shortened the life of the battery somewhat

[nls]

The only flash based player with external storage that runs off of a standard AA battery is the archos ondio, it's an ancient player but afaik fills all your criteria.

[zaphee]

The only flash based player with external storage that runs off of a standard AA battery is the archos ondio, it's an ancient player but afaik fills all your criteria.

Yeah, I saw this one in the Buyer's Guide, but it doesn't accept SD cards, does it? And MMC cards are no longer sold, at least I've seen none in France in the past years. And all the cards I have are SD or micro-SD.

That means it didn't shut down cleanly, no, but just had the power cut. That doesn't mean the battery is completely discharged to the point that it causes damage, though: the battery itself has a cutout to stop that happening. It probably didn't make any difference.

If you were using your player enough that you were having to recharge it from a very low level every single day, then that in itself would've shortened the life of the battery somewhat

Moreover, this is a 5-year old player that I got from eBay, the battery lost its efficiency in several years.

I did some googling about the currently RB-capable players, and the sansas seem to be very interesting, especially the 8-gig Clip+ (despite the internal battery) and the 4-gig m260 (even though there is no external storage). Is there much left to do before Rockbox can be considered as "stable" on these targets ? Is the progress going fast ?

[torne]

If it's a 5-year-old player then it didn't die after a year and a half of use, it died after being five years old
That's perfectly expected for lithium battery tech.

[zaphee]

OK.
So what about the sansa Clip+ and the sansa m260 ?

Is there much left to do before Rockbox can be considered as "stable" on these targets ? Is the progress going fast ?

[cBc]

This topic interests me also ( I have two Sansa e200 V1s that work fine but suffer from that noise problem during quiet parts/ between tracks inherent to the chip design) Would love to find another DAP that offers the e200s options, but without that dreaded noise.

[zaphee]

Up!

Does anyone know where can I find the Sandisk Sansa m260 ?? Currently nobody seems to sell it even on eBay...

[soap]

Does anyone know where can I find the Sandisk Sansa m260 ?? Currently nobody seems to sell it even on eBay...

This would not be a "great Rockbox-powered DAP".
It wouldn't be a "Rockbox-powered DAP" or even reasonably considered a "great DAP" 
 

[seani]

Just a quick +1 for the Clip+ - great little Rockboxed player

[BigPapi]

Just a quick +1 for the Clip+ - great little Rockboxed player

I'll +1 that too....I have two of them!

[zaphee]

Does anyone know where can I find the Sandisk Sansa m260 ?? Currently nobody seems to sell it even on eBay...

This would not be a "great Rockbox-powered DAP".
It wouldn't be a "Rockbox-powered DAP" or even reasonably considered a "great DAP" 
 

Why so ? It has all I need (except the microSD slot, but in the end it doesn't matter that much), Rockbox runs unstable on version 4 this player afaik, and it's subject to improvement, right ? And the reviews just love this device ! So I thought it would be awesome to find it somewhere...