I’ve thought about getting a portable audio player for awhile, but I was only going to get one that works with Rockbox—a free firmware replacement for portable media devices that supports a wide range of audio formats and includes a lot of advanced features. Unlike the default firmware on some portable audio players, Rockbox doesn’t force you into using specific software, nor does it encrypt or hide your audio files from you. As far as I know, it also doesn’t support files with DRM… but this is a useful feature, not a missing one. 
After doing some research, I finally gave in to temptation and purchased a refurbished SanDisk Sansa e250 online for $40. It was a little risky buying an e250 with the intention of immediately replacing its original firmware with Rockbox, since there are two versions of the device—v1 works with Rockbox, but v2 doesn’t. They look exactly the same on the outside, but supposedly the v2 models have different hardware. The only way to tell whether you’ve got a v1 player is by checking the Info page in the device’s Settings menu—v1 is named 01.xx.xx, while v2 models will start with 03.
I thought it would probably be safe to get a refurbished model, since they’re cheaper and more likely to be older and therefore (hopefully) v1. I was right about this one, but I obviously can’t guarantee you’ll have the same luck. Notice in the picture on the left that SanDisk (or whoever refurbished it) permenantly stamped REFURB on the back… what a perfect way to ruin the sleekness of the device. It’s not an issue for me though, but I thought I’d point it out—since I was given no indication by the seller that it would look like this. UPDATE 2008/06/09: It turns out the letters are not permanently stamped on, you can scrape them off. They’re sharp, tiny pieces of metal though—I managed to cut my finger on one. I still think it was a stupid way to label the device as refurbished. How about using just a sticker on the package?
I had tried Rockbox a few years ago on my sister’s iPod Mini and I didn’t find it too difficult to install. It’s even easier now though, as the developers have released an automated utility to download and install all the necessary files straight to the device. Rockbox doesn’t actually replace your device’s original firmware—you can still boot to the original firmware by holding down the left button as it starts up. Also, when you plug the device into a computer with a USB cable, Rockbox boots into the original firmware and uses it to communicate with the PC.
Although I can understand why people would want to be sure that they could revert to the original firmware if they wanted, I would’ve preferred Rockbox to overwrite the original firmware and have its own USB connection function. This actually does become an issue with one particular Rockbox feature—while SanDisk’s original firmware doesn’t support the higher capacity microSDHC cards (only microSD), Rockbox does support microSDHC. Unfortunately though, you can’t connect the device to a computer with a USB cable and have access to your microSDHC card, since Rockbox relies on the original firmware to connect via USB. You’d have to remove the microSDHC card and connect it separately using an adapter. This isn’t a major issue of course, but it proves that there are some problems with relying on the device’s original firmware.
The Sansa e250 itself is a pretty nice device. Unlike the similarly-sized iPod nano (which costs about a million times more), it has a built-in microphone, an FM radio, and the previously mentioned microSD slot—all of which work perfectly in Rockbox. The only “major” flaw I’ve found is that it uses a proprietary USB cable. I have no problem recommending the e250 to anyone looking for a cheap portable audio device—as long as it’s clear that you need to find a v1 model, otherwise you can’t install Rockbox.
Now that I have a portable media player that uses and benefits from free software, I’m looking for other affordable equipment that I can use with free software. I’ve got my eye on the CHDK project for Canon PowerShot cameras—it allows you to shoot pictures in the RAW format and gives you more control over shutter speed, exposure, etc. It still seems to rely on Canon’s original firmware, it just gives you more options than Canon’s own software layer does. I would love a cheap camera that could take RAW photos—there is no real reason cheaper cameras don’t allow this (they are capable of it), its just that RAW is a major selling point for high-end cameras that cost several hundred dollars more.
Note: This is my first post on this weblog, thanks for reading! Expect more articles of about this length. I don’t plan on posting anything very short (I’ll probably stay in the 500-1000 word range for the most part), so I’ll most likely only post a few times a week. You can read more about me and my interests on my About page.
