Just Found Rockbox, Shopping for Good MP3 Player

[eepok]

Hello,

I just found Rockbox via a comment in response to an Amazon product review.

I currently use a Creative Zen X-Fi 16GB w/Wi-Fi (though I never use the wi-fi). I think the battery is on its last legs, so I'm in the market for a new (preferably better) MP3 player. I would prefer one with actual buttons so I can use it while cycling or with my hands in my pockets but, as you may know, buttons have all but gone the way of the dodo with personal electronics.

I've started looking at a variety of lesser known brands (Sandisk, of course, iRiver) and found your 3rd party software. I'd be intrigued to try it on my own MP3 player to breathe some new life into it (maybe make playlists easier to create, get a working shuffle, etc.), but I'm not sure I want to install something that you wouldn't label as stable yourselves.

So I'm back to shopping for a new MP3 player and I am looking for your advice. Which MP3 players have turned out best after installing Rockbox (in your opinion)? Do they have buttons for volume, track control, etc.?

Thanks for any direction you can offer.

[gomezz]

I recently replaced my old Creative Zen V MP3 player partly because I wanted a Rockboxable model but like you I needed one with physical buttons to be make it easy to use hooked up to the van radio during my job as a multi-drop delivery driver.  Looked around and decided on the Sansa Clip+ which may be an oldy but is still a goody.  I modded it by gluing an extra blob of plastic to the Play/Pause button which is the one in constant use and needs to be easy to find and use by touch alone and still looks good in a silicone case.  Got the 8GB model and added a 32GB SD card.

(I also attached a lanyard off a USB memory stick I had to hand as I don't trust the clip and like to have back-up and can use it hang the player from the van sun-visor clips so it hangs near the van radio controls)

[404_user_not_found]

I used Sansa clip+ for two years. Is generally a good choice. Cheap, good sound quality, you can easily install rockbox by using rockbox utility and you can still order player from amazon. I broke first sansa clip+ because of corrupted internal memory after one year. I broke second sansa clip+ because of broken buttons after one year but I successfully fixed that. But I use player very often and sometimes in bad weather so they dies quickly.

Disadvantages:
1) With some players there are a bug with background noise)
2) Sometimes player freezes but at most time player works stable.
3) With some microSD cards player can freezes very often. It's a strange weird behavior but it's still exists. You can fix that only by changing microSD card.
4) You can broke buttons. In my second sansa clip+ I broke UP, HOME, DOWN and RIGHT button. I temporarily fixed that by remapping but after some time I broke too many buttons making the device unusable. So you need sometimes to open sansa clip+ in order to fix broken button.

[rna023]

you can have look at sony nwz-a17/a15.