I was getting increasingly frustrated with the shoddy physical and digital UI of my Coby MP3 player, so I got a Sansa Clip Zip - but quickly found that its firmware also had annoying quirks - most notably that the thing would not recognize folder names . . . WTF Did they do no usability testing before releasing this??!!?? . . . Instead it would rename folders to something weird like "New_C00000A78926342" so I'd have to open each folder to see what was in it. Googling the answer lead me to try switching the MSC/MTP modes (apparently nearly everyone with this gadget has this problem) but that didn't work, and one of them made the folders unreadable to my laptop. But one of the most common suggestions was to install Rockbox on it, which I finally did tonight - easier and way faster than I thought it would be! And it even saved all the music I'd put on it before (in folders with the messed up names, but that was easy to fix). Now all the folder names display properly, it acts just like a thumb drive when attached to the computer (no worthless Sansa interface popping up), and it has lots of nice features (like a battery indicator that displays the percentage and not just a tiny vague icon) the original stuff didn't have. The only quibble is that you have to find the setting to get it to resume playing automatically when turning it on - but now it's working like a dream!
Why don't you just use your phone to play MP3s? BTW, Coby is a horrible, cheap brand. Do yourself a favor and stay away from them.
I don't want to wear down the battery on my phone in case I need it for something important. And my phone is over three years old, so the battery barely lasts a day without using it. Plus I can use the MP3 player buttons without looking at the screen; helps when I'm using it while on the move.
