Annoyingly, I haven't been able to find my mp3 player, a Sandisk Sansa e280 running Rockbox, for about two and a half weeks. This probably means it's either lost forever (i.e. someone's nicked it) or that it'll turn up tomorrow because I've got a replacement.

Annoyingly #2, Sandisk changed the internals of the e200 series so that Rockbox isn't running on the later models, or indeed the View that's meant to be the e200's replacement (the View has a larger screen, but early models had problems with its firmware).

So… what to get. Not an iPod, obviously – I want something that doesn't have a vendor lock-in fetish – and not a Sony, obviously – they make Apple look nice and open.

A look around revealed the Sansa Clip+, an updated version of their iPod Shuffle-basher – it has a screen, works with anything, and a radio amongst other features – is now available in the UK.

Annoyingly #3, Rockbox won't run on it either, but given that it already plays FLAC files, I am not so fussed. No running Doom on that tiny screen 🙂 It does accept microSDHC cards, so with an 8Gb card lying around, I currently have 16Gb of space being filled… I can't remember what the card cost, but the Clip+ was £49.99, about half what I paid for the e280.

Update: Rockbox now runs on both the 'new' e200's and the Clip+ – thank you developers!