This article was originally published on 08-oct-2024 on the Ruizu x52. Now it is expanded and mostly about the Ruizu x62.
See also
Updated Ruizu x62
The updated Ruizu x62 improves upon, stays the same, and has degraded from the previous Ruizu x52 in a few ways:
- USB-C instead of Micro USB
- File limit is still 4,001
- Standard storage is now 32gb + sdcard
- Approximately the same price as the x52 (~25 USD in Thailand)
- Interface buttons are improved
- Dimensions have increased somewhat
- Ugly green (x62) vs. classic black (x52) color
So we see there are:
- some improvements: (USB-C), interface buttons, onboard storage
- some things stayed the same: File limit, price
- some things have degraded: weight and dimensions increase, color choice
Comparison of SD Clipjam, Ruizu x52, Ruizu x62
| Sandisk Clipjam | Ruizu x52 | Ruizu x62 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight | 23g | 24g | 27g |
| Storage | 8gb | 16gb | 32gb |
| Dimensions | 3.5x 5.5 x 1.5cm | 3.5 x 6 x 1.5cm | 3.6 x 6.5 x 1.8cm |
| Colors | black, orange | black | green (teal) |
....
Note see also Sandisk Clipjam and Portable Music Players and Linux
Because the Sandisk Clipjam appears to be no longer manufactured, the most approximate portable MP3 player (with clip, suitable for running/bicycling) is the Ruizu x62 mp3 player. It is about $25 USD on Lazada and Shopee (among other locations).
The unnecessary
- The large earbuds have improved a bit for the x62, though still unnecessary in my opinion, as people will already have earbuds, and these produce mediocre sound, and are generally a waste. People, please stop including crap earbuds with audio players.
- The syncronized lyrics is interesting but the screen is too small for it to be very usable, though I can see some value.
- Included ebook reader is ridiculous, see screen size mentioned above.
- Radio (not useful for me but others might find value)
- Video player: ridiculous, such a small, low resolution screen, and any videos must be transcoded into a different format (AMV, 128x128).
- Picture viewer: see Video player above
- Pedometer (really?)
- Calendar, stopwatch, alarm... (just stop)
The bad
- The x62 has improved on the buttons, though it still takes a bit of learning to navigate error-free.
- Physically larger than it needs to be (even more so the x62).
- Cringe video
The decent parts
- USB-C (finally)
- A better physical interface than the ClipJam, including a dedicated on-off switch on top, USB connector on bottom, and volume up-down on the right side. The headphone jack is on top instead of the side (same as x52).
- Up to 128gb MicroSD card slot (see below for caveats).
- 32gb standard size
- Color screen.
Ongoing issue: 4,001 song limit
- While it can read a 128gb microSD card, it doesn't do so well at seeing all the music (artists, albums, songs) that are there. I've got 15,000+ songs (1,000+ albums) -- 103gb -- and it only sees 4,001 songs (314 albums). That seems to be a limit no mater how many times I rebuild the playlist. This limit (4,001 songs) is hard to find on websites and in documentation, but it is present on some related products.
- This means the most appropriate MicroSD card is 32gb (~20gb usable for 4,000 songs).
- I've got a playlist of 425 songs which is 26 hours of music. 4,000 songs is certainly a large amount, but does prevent simply having a complete copy of all music.
- Note that the Sandisk Clipjam has a 2,000 song limit, so there is some improvement here.
FLAC to MP3
These portable players do not support FLAC, so the best approach is to do conversion and remove FLAC. This can be done on a regular basis when new FLAC are added. Sorry audioheads, but MP3 is fine for me.
find -name "*.flac" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "{}" -y -acodec libmp3lame -ab 128k "${0/.flac}.mp3"' {} \;