Firmware Feature Comparison Chart

Generic features
Other features

These charts compare Rockbox with the original firmwares as shipped by the manufacturers of the players. The Rockbox column may specify features only available in SVN and daily builds.

Generic features

Feature	Rockbox	Archos firmware	iriver h1x0 firmware	Sansa firmware
ID3v1 support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ID3v2 support	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Background noise during playback	No	Yes	No	No
Mid-track resume	Yes	No	Sometimes (1)
Mid-playlist resume	Yes	No	Sometimes (1)
Resumed playlist order	Yes	No	Sometimes (1)
Battery lifetime (archos)	Longer	Long	?	?
Battery lifetime (iriver)	19-21 hours	?	14-16
Battery time indicator	Yes	No	No	No
Customizable font (Recorder/iriver)	Yes	No	No	No
Customizable screen info when playing songs	Yes	No	No
USB attach/detach without reboot	Yes	No	Yes	Sometimes (19)
Can load another firmware without rebooting	Yes	No	Not really (1)	No
Playlist load speed, songs/sec	3000 - 4000	15 - 20	30 - 40
Max number of songs in a playlist	20 000	999	999 (2)
Max filename length of song in playlist	260	?	52
Supports bad path prefixes in playlists	Yes	Yes	No
Open source development process	Yes	No	No	No
Corrects reported bugs	Yes	No	No or slooowly
Automatic Volume Control (Recorder)	Yes	No	No	No
Volume triggered recording (Recorder)	Yes	No	Yes	No
Pitch control (Recorder)	Yes	No	Yes (limited)	No
Text File Reader	Yes	Yes	Yes (limited)	No
Games (Bitmap LCD)	8	No	No	No
Games (Player)	2	No	N/A	No
File Delete	Yes	Yes	Partial (6)	No
File Rename	Yes	Yes	No	No
Playlist Building	Yes	Yes	No
Recording (Recorder/iriver)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Generates XING VBR header when recording	Yes	Yes	N/A - records CBR only	N/A - records WAV only
High Resolution Volume Control	Yes, 84 steps	No	Yes, 40 steps	Yes, 30 steps
Customizable backlight timeout	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Backlight-on when charging option	Yes	No	Yes	No - always on when charging
Backlight fading (iriver?)	Yes	?	No
Supports the XING header	Yes	Yes	?
Supports the VBRI header	Partly	Yes	?
Max number of files in a dir	10 000	999	?
Adjustable scroll speed	Yes	No	Yes (but badly)	No
Screensaver style demos	Yes	No	No	No
Variable step / accelerating ffwd and rwd	Yes	No	No
Visual Progress Bar	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Select/Load configs	Yes	No	No	No
Sleep timer	Yes	No	Yes	No
Easy User Interface	Yes	No	No	Yes
Remote Control Controllable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ISO8859-1 font support (Player)	Yes	No	N/A	No
Queue songs to play next, queue support	Yes	Yes	Yes (3)
Bookmark positions in songs	Yes	No	No	No
Number of available languages	24	3	2	17
Accurate VBR bitrate display	Yes	No	No	No
FM Tuner support (FM Recorder/iriver)	Yes	Yes	Yes (4)	Yes
Naming FM channels	Yes	?	No	No
FF/FR with sound	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Skip to next/previous folder	Yes	?	Yes	N/A
Pre-Recording (Recorders)	Yes	Yes	No
Video Playback with sound (Recorders)	Yes	No	No	Yes
Boot Time from Flash (in seconds)	4	8-12	13-60 (5)	4-8
Speaking Menus Support	Yes	No	No	No

Other features

Feature	Rockbox	iriver H1x0	iriver H3x0	Apple iPod	Toshiba Gigabeat	iAudio X5/M5	Sansa e200
Gapless playback	Yes	No (8)	No	Yes	No	No
MP3 Decoding	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
MP3 Realtime Encoding	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
OGG/Vorbis Decoding	Yes	Yes (9)	Yes (9)	No	No	Yes	No
FLAC Decoding	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
WavPack Decoding	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
WavPack Realtime Encoding	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
AC3(A/52) Decoding	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
AAC/MP4 Decoding	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
ALAC (Apple Lossless) Decoding	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
WMA Decoding	Yes (19)	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Proprietary DSP effects	No	SRS WOW	SRS WOW	No	SRS WOW	BBE	No
FF/RW with sound	No	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	Yes
5 Band Parametric Equalizer	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes (17)	Yes
On The Fly Playlists	Yes	No	Yes (7)	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Radio Recording	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes (18)	Yes
Crossfade	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Voice UI	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
ReplayGain	Yes	No	No	No (12)	No	No	No
Cuesheet support	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Album art support	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Backlight fade-in/fade-out	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
Video playback	Yes (16)	No	Yes (11)	Yes (13)	No	Yes (18)	Yes
Picture viewing	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Text viewing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Bookmark support for multiple files	Yes	No	No	Yes (14)	Yes	Yes	No
Remote Control Controllable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
File Rename	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
File Delete	Yes	Yes (6)	Yes (6)	No	Yes	No	No
Games	Yes	No	Yes (10)	Yes (15)	No	No	No

Wrong facts? Feel free to edit this page.

Yes, except after removing from PC or total battery failure.
The iRiver firmware will read playlists larger than 999 songs, but will only actually load the first 999 into memory.
Only 1 song in queue.
No recording.
If database scan is on, and some disk fragmentation, a full H140 (6997 tracks on mine with 4MB free) will take up to around a minute to load. Without DB scan, 20 seconds is normal.
Limited, iriver can delete only music files and when there is no song played at the moment.
Limited to 100 tracks (added with the 1.31 firmware).
The supported 'Gap delete' is something totally different from gapless playback. Gapless playback means to add no pause between the tracks, so that e.g. for a DJ mix split into multiple tracks, the track change is unnoticeable during playback. Gap delete just means cutting silence from the beginning and/or end of the track itself.
Not low bitrates - less than 96kbps doesn't appear to work.
The 1.31 firmware has a minesweeper game.
The stock H3xx firmware is capable of playing XviD video at 10 fps only.
iPod has soundcheck, which is similar in purpose to Replaygain.
The iPod 5G (aka "iPod Video") is capable of playing MPEG-4 and H.264 format video using dedicated decoding hardware. Other iPod models can not play video.
The iPod can do bookmarks for Audible files and audiobooks, but not for other files.
There are some games available for purchase.
Currently support MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video streams, see PluginMpegplayer.
Cowon firmware equalizer is simplified and not fully parametric (only gain is adjustable on an arbitrary non-dB scale).
X5/X5L only.
The stock Sansa firmware is capable of MSC and MTP mode. Sansa requires reboot when in MSC mode, and doesn't when using MTP.

r90 - 18 Apr 2008 - 05:45:37 - EricLowe