SanDisk Sansa Rumors

Sansa Connect short review

2008-03-03T07:07:00.001-08:00

The silky, shiny black Sansa Connect is markedly greater than the 4GB iPod nano--easily excusable given the integral Wi-Fi module, microSD Card slot, and rear-mounted mono loudspeaker system. At a lower place the great, acute 2.2-inch colour liquid crystal display embodies a mechanical scrollwheel decorated by a blue LED.

An OK button sits down in the midst of the scrollwheel, which bears 4 clickable degrees thereon (replay buttons and primary menu). To a higher place the dial are 2 contextual menu controls, and on the left side is a loudness leaver button. The power button and accommodate switch are about the top, while the proprietary charging/synchromizing plug and earphone jack are on the bottom.

SanDisk admits an AC-to-USB adaptor (a large incentive), an USB wire, earplugs, a laniard, and a delicate drawing string sack, plus a CD with Yahoo Music Jukebox thereon. The Connect functions on Windows Media Player 10 and 11, in addition to PlaysForSure services and MP3s. But to enjoy the Yahoo-related features, you had better set up Yahoo Music Jukebox.

Installation is a picnic, and signing on for a Yahoo ID online is you're welcome, either. A 30-day free Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go tryout goes with the player, and it tolls $14.99 per month after that for all-you-can-eat music (or $11.99 per month if you buy an one-year subscription). We alike that you do not have to submit a credit card data for the free tryout, having in mind you will not get foxed into buying once your 30 days are up.

The precious, icon-based user interface is sensitive decent and super easily to navigate. The clickable dial acts smoothly, applying close to haptic feedback. The Connect does not do videos or FM radio, but with a Yahoo ID and a free Flickr photo-sharing account, you are able to approach almost 40 costless Yahoo LAUNCHcast online radio stations (whenever you are a subscriber, there's upwards about 120 stations to pick out of), and Flickr photographs. We particularly like the power to buy music you hear during listening to LAUNCHcast, even out though not totally of the LAUNCHcast tracks are purchasable.

Sandisk Sansa e260 short review

2008-03-03T05:42:00.001-08:00

The SanDisk Sansa e260 aggregates plentiful features like subscription capability, an FM tuner / microphone recorder, broadcasts recording, and photo-video playback into a tiny and long-lasting digital media player. We love the haptic navigation dial, in addition to the user-friendly software. The removable battery and the Micro SD expansion slot are fine specks, and the player has nice audio quality, CPU performance, and battery life. At last, the Sansa e260 has a storage capacity of 4GB, and it bids a competitory price.

No AC adaptor in bundle; the controls surrounding the SanDisk Sansa e260 control dial can be hard to push; the mechanical control dial can fag out someone's fingers; photographs and video recordings must carry out transition with included software package; the SD expansion slot can be exploited with mp3 files exclusively, not pics or other files or data; and microphone recordings are brought in only in WAV. The control dial isn't as comfortable to enjoy as the iPod Click Wheel.

The SanDisk Sansa e260 extends a carload of features for a fair price, in a bundle that's a lot more overnice than that from previous SanDisk devices. For those searching a high-capacity, tiny MP3/WMA device, start with the e260.

Sansa e280 review

2008-03-03T04:54:00.000-08:00

The Sandisk Sansa e280 shows a pure counterpoint with the older Sandisk digital audio players like the e100 series. As the previous e100's look fragile and run-down all-round, the e280 has a very strong feeling and a stylish aesthetic exterior. The scratch resistant metallic body on the backbone is especially fascinating. It has a fine matt coating and makes the device feeling stout and indestructible during handling. Sansa's weights like almost correct for its dimensions though a little on the heavy side. All the same, I didn't feel that annoying in the least. Sansa e280 as well admits a micro SD slot that not only brings you additional storage capacity for your mp3 files, but likewise turns the e280 into a card reader.

The bundled Media Converter software could be set up reasonably speedily and when the Sansa e280 was attached it was instantly recognised and prepared to run. The supplied CD went with an installer for the Rhapsody subscription music store. It would involve the 2 had better act mirthfully conjointly, and so they did. The e280 was in real time accepted by the OS and I got on the go to fill it up with Rhapsody ToGo music in no time. It appears to take 2 to 3 secs to download each mp3 file to the player. Album covers are simultaneously downloaded to the DAP to be showed while replay.

Push the power button, and almost 15 seconds (fifteen?!) After the Sandisk Sansa e280 is ready to enjoy. Contrary to the Zen Micro, there's nay fast start mode. It is a feature that I lose after being used to the Zen's almost straightaway rush of music. The LCD screen is great and clean and the colours are really fine. The device is as well rather sensitive: changing tracks or fast forwarding is bouncy. The track and record album cover interchange just about instantly and the new mp3 file begins playing almost 1-2 secs after. Not everything is perfect altho. The one especially unreactive feature along this player is the track scoring system that admits you to delegate a 1 by 5 star rating to whatsoever given song. It is a bright idea, but when you rank a track the device freezes down for what looks alike a minute. Luckily, the sound keeps going running while that time.

Talking of sound, I'm really delighted with the sound quality. I detected virtually no ambient noise and at almost one-half loudness on the wheel, the e280 produced output loud sufficient to driving my Sennheiser HD570 earphones. A lot of competitive players do not do likewise.

The discovered battery life is about 18-19 hours, which is near adequate to what Sandisk advertises. I think it is potential to reach twenty hrs with a temperate usage practice. I listened to the Sansa e280 along the go to the office for around two hours a day and the device was capable to work without a recharge for almost a week and a one-half, which is really good.

A few additional functions that accompany the Sansa are the FM radio and microphone recording. As a matter of fact, you will be able to even record the radio receiver signal to the Sansa e280. It is nice feature if you need a copy of your loved morning talk show or that music you like but do not recognise the artist of. The microphone recording feature is really easy to enjoy with just push of a button.

3 Sandisk Sansa e280 video reviews

2008-02-19T01:48:00.000-08:00

Sansa e280 deep and thorough video review by Ubergizmo. And another one from Tecno Babble:

And this one is about Sandisk Sansa e280 video playing capabilities. As you can clearly see - it's workin'!

How to read ebooks on Sandisk Sansa players

2008-02-15T02:36:00.000-08:00

Most of the top ten diagital audio players manufacturers including Sandisk, Creative and Apple aren't equip their products with ebook reader software. But allmost all of their pruducts have a photo viewers. That's the point. To read ebooks all we have to do is to convert ebooks into a set of jpeg files.

Fortunately, there is software that do it automatically. A.I. Studio Rasterbook can convert any html file (with graphics!) into the set of jpegs of any given resolution. How is it works? Very simple.

First load any html file into Rasterbook. It could be news page of an ebook. You can get some for free at Project Gutenberg website.

Than you press 'Render Book' button and in a minute software creates a lot of jpeg files that you can upload to your player.

Also you can setup a slideshow on your player so the pages will be scrolled automatically while you read your ebook.

Sandisk Sansa e260 and PC connection

2008-02-14T03:34:00.000-08:00

Most of the MP3 players on todays market are lack of quality software. Even iPods. Yep, they have iTunes bundled but it's pain in the **s when you have to connect it to a Windows or Linux machine.

Fortunately, the Sandisk's Sansa e200 series supports USB mass storage, so if you want to add some music to your player you can just drag-and-drop it onto the player or vice versa. Share it if you want - share your music with your friends - no matter what tipe of computer and software they are running. And it's fast: you can copy a thousand MP3s (4 gigs!) less than in 15 minutes.

And the bad news: if you want to use the e260's PlaysForSure support and listen to DRM'd files, it will not be easy. I suggest you don't buy DRM music at all.

Actually, except for third-party DRM providers (not Sansa favored Rhapsody) everything worked just perfectly fine.

Sandisk Speakers with Technology

2008-02-10T23:26:00.000-08:00

I am not a technologist, but I have to cope with technology. What you need is a trusted navigator who helps you understand, choose, buy and most importantly, use technology. The Sandisk products are the best examples for the above discussed statement. The Sandisk Speaker systems are very easy to implement. The 5.1 Channel output with optical/coaxial output delivers a crystal clear music output with out any external disturbances makes cost worthy.

The Digital Speaker system for the Sandisk home theater are powerful with crystal sound, presence of power full bass effects makes as to feel real theater experience. The interesting thing is they are much compatible with higher quality. The Sandisk speaker system comes with AC adapter, and gets hours of continuous playback with four AA batteries. With a high quality amplifier, full range speaker units and a subwoofer, you can easily enjoy phone based music at home – in subwoofer and with great sound quality. The Sandisk speaker system is a home audio system with outstanding sound quality, making your home happier always.

SanDisk Rules

2008-02-08T04:22:00.000-08:00

Technology is far advanced for the consumers to absorb. Consumers are lagging behind technology by four to five years. The affordability of compatible handsets is critical. Emerging markets have suddenly found themselves in the spotlight when it comes to Mp3 Technology. Then cost of an Mp3 player is still the single biggest upfront barrier for anyone who seeks to get connected. A Sandisk MP3 player with multitasking abilities is sure to set hearts aflutter.

Horror is a genre that has not really made its presence felt on Mp3 players. The Sandisk Mp3 players are suppose to be called as the real music maestros , since Sandisk is a tiny Mp3 player that raps an array of cool features, as distinctively clear sound for its tiny size. Rocking time starts as soon as Sandisk mp3 is in your hands, customer satisfaction is proved 100% in Sandisk Mp3 players. It’s a perfect player for you to enjoy your favorite music’s and videos with high quality. The Sandisk players are having large storage capacity and with warranty period also. So go get it and start enjoying mind blowing musical treat with Sandisk Mp3 players and be a maestro in your life.

SanDisk Sansa e280 8Gb First Look

2008-02-05T05:56:00.000-08:00

What can I say about new flash-based portable media player SanDisk Sansa e280 8 GB? Eight gigabytes of memory of this player are waiting to be filled with music and video files. It plays music in MP3, WMA and Secure WMA file formats. Video playback capabilities (well, 8 gigs are far enough for videos) including AVI, MPEG1, 2, 4, DVD (VOB), WMV, MOV. 1.8" LCD screen (resolution of 220x176 pixels) provides comfort for the eyes and excellent picture quality. Tired of your own music collection? Built-in AM/FM tuner will help you to diversify your listening experience.

So what about style. Sansa e280 looks great: this small device is a natural born eye catcher. Its display is bright and vibrant, the control wheel is highlighted with cool looking blue glow.

The player can be connected to the computer using a USB 2.0 interface. If you have some media files that aren't recognized by the player on its own, use supplied Sansa Media Converter software to convert audio and video files into understandable format. If it will turn that the eight gigabytes of built-in flash memory is not enough, the player has a microSD slot, which allows you to add more memory on the go.

You can grab it on Amazon for less than $125 today.

SanDisk Sansa Connect review

2008-01-25T06:45:00.000-08:00

At the CES 2007 Sandisk has presented the new Sansa players lineup. Among the new products has been Sansa Connect, which showed that the built-in Wi-Fi today is not an innovation but a trend.

Besides the player itself you can find the headphones, necklace, cleaning cloth, USB cable, charger, manual and software CD with Yahoo! Music.

In its look and feel Sansa Connect is a weird hybrid of Creative Zen and Sony Walkman A800. Protruding Wi-Fi module brings to mind antennae of the Ericsson cellphones of the last decade. The body is made of rigid plastic - the player does not catch a scratch even if you'll carrying in a pocket with the keys.

The screen is 2.2 in. and is not the most up to date - it can display only 65 thousand colors. No, it is bright and contrast, looks better than e200 series screen, but slow. This is not a big deal because Connect does not know how to play video. But even graphical user interface is way too slow - every menu action is clearly visible. So it's better to just turn off the icon animation.

The screen resolution is high making photos look brilliant. Viewing angles are strange: when you look at the screen from the left, it's perfectly visible. When you are looking from the right side, you can see virtually nothing, and some colors are heavily wiped out. Brightness can be set in the range from 5% to 100% in 1% steps. Indoors 30% are quite enough. 50% is better for outdoors.

Menu navigation is traditional for all modern players - the wheel and the center button. Two keys under the screen for a variety of action depending on the context. On the left side of Sansa Connect you will find dual side button for volume adjusting. Interestingly, the play / pause is not combined with the center OK button but on the lower side of the wheel. Inconvenient, but usable.

Sansa Connect works with hot-spot standards IEEE 802.11b/g/n. The latest standard is not fully supported nowadays (it havn't yet been finally approved), so SanDisk doen't recommend to use it. The quality of the connection and data transfer speed depends on many factors: the location of Wi-Fi router, the walls configuration and material, etc. In our office Sansa Connect worked at a distance of up to 30 meters from the router. More than enough for the average apartment or cafe.

One of the most important player's feature - microSD card support. Today the maximum size of the cards is limited to 2 GB. SanDisk promises to release firmware upgrade to support SDHC cards - up to 32 gigabytes. But nothing particularly enjoyable here - SDHC card at 4 and 8 GB will appear in the retail stores only in mid 2008, and 32 GB cards - later.

The player automatically recognizes all image and music files stored on the memory card. You can insert any card (for example, from a mobile phone) and immediately see all the pictures and listen to music that are stored on the card. When you plug Sansa Connect to a PC, memory card is defined as a single drive. In other words, the player works as microSD cardreader. But you can not copy files between SD card and player's on-board memory. We will be waiting for the firmware upgrade.

Sansa Connect built-in loudspeaker is as good as can be good miniature loudspeaker. Not enough power, but enough to fill a small room with sound.

Battery life when playing MP3 music is around 12.5 hours. At the same time, when you connect to the Internet with Wi-Fi and playing streaming audio (yes, it's possible), it will cut a half of battery life. Everything depends on the intensity of use. On average, enough juice to play all day long.

Audio quality is average, but better than the e200 series. EQ is disgusting. It's difficult to distinguish 192 kbit/s bitrate from 320 kbit/s.

Managing files is very convenient - Download Manager shows tracks to be downloaded. And when the memory is very low Sansa Connect automatically (with confirmation) erases tracks that were not played for a long time. You can erase not only individual albums, but entire genres.

Sansa Connect is complex and extremely functional. The toy is not for everyone - Sansa Connect demands understanding and a lot of attention, but you'll get a great pleasure instead. Amazon lists it for less than $90. It's a bargain.

Sandisk Sansa Shaker: MP3-player or Happy Meal toy?

2008-01-25T04:03:00.000-08:00

As you might guess, the player could be shaken - thus managing music. For example, if you shake it while music is on, Sansa Shaker switch to a new song. Such technology is not used for the first time: Sony NW-S200 Sport Walkman also offers a songs change by shaking feature, but Sony's player in the form of a thin cigar is not intended for children, obviously.

On the other hand, Shaker will enable children to enter the world of digital music. SanDisk definitely thought about the target audience designing Sansa Shaker design. Its form is ideal for small hands, and the player about the size of the average salt-shaker - no danger of swallowing small details.

Navigation is quite simple - you need to shake the device to switch to another song or spin the ring at the bottom to go to the next or previous melody. Another ring at the top is the volume controls. As always should be done in the case of the MP3 players for children, SanDisk Sansa Shaker is equipped with two sets of a headphone jack, so you can listen to music together. This player is not equipped with a built-in memory, but the SD card can be installed in the SD slot, which is hidden under the cover below (also you can find standard mini-USB port and AAA battery slot there).

Given the MSRP of $39, it's still too expensive to be included into McDonald's Happy Meal, but who knows what the future will bring us.

SanDisk Sansa Shaker

2008-01-25T01:47:00.000-08:00

SanDisk Sansa Shaker mostly interesting because of its design. It looks like colorful fancy salt-cellar. You can fast froward/backward and adjust the volume by turning the white rings. But the most fascinating is what you need to do to jump to another song — just shake it!

Sansa Shaker is powered by one AAA battery and uses SD cards as memory so you can take with you as much songs and as much juice as you need.

It comes in two colors: blue and pink — for boys and girls respectively. For quite social boys and girls, that's would be correct. SanDisk Sansa Shaker is equipped with a speaker on its top and two earplugs' jacks.

Watch this video review to get a clue how Sansa Shaker working:

SanDisk Sansa line-up (part I)

2008-01-25T00:32:00.000-08:00

Current SanDisk portable media players range consists of 10 products (or series). Let's take a closer look at the every single one of them.

Sansa e200, m200, c200 and Express series are virtually the same as many other MP3 players on the market. They can be confused with the others on the shelf. However they are more than hi tech enough. E.g. SanDisk Sansa Express is the world's first cordless (just like a thumb-drive) MP3 player with the microSD slot. Not bad for the tiny flashdrive player.

Sansa View is the direct competitor to the Apple's iPod and Microsoft's Zune MP3 players. Actually, the name 'MP3 player' is too traditionalist's for such device. I'd prefer to call it pocket sized media center. Not only because you can watch movies or read ebooks on the go. There are a lot of third-party accessories like dock stations and FM transmitters dedicated to SanDisk Sansa View and Sansa e200 series players.

Another great distinction of the Sansa View which stands it out from the closest competitors is a flash memory. Well, Zune and iPod which are HDD based offering more storage but SanDisk Sansa View much more reliable because its built-in flash memory didn't suffering from the vibrations of any kind like hard disk drives. Unless you are using your player only at home sitting on the coach you are constantly shaking and shocking it. Too bad for HDD based players.

All those models described above are of the pretty common kind though SanDisk has some really unusual thing in the sleeves. Let's talk about them in the next posts.

SanDisk Sansa in common

2008-01-24T05:52:00.000-08:00

Current Sandisk portable media player line-up can't be definitely subdivided into several large categories. Instead of that Sandisk has solid core of classy looking MP3 players (with video capabilities) and several unique and even bizarre solutions.

Base core of Sandisk players are pretty usual and competing directly with Apple iPod, Microsoft Zune and Creative Zen as well as horde of less known and no-name devices that could be found on shelves of Wall Mart, BestBuy and RadioShack. Thin and light black bricks equipped with large bright color LCDs, from two to 32 gigabytes of built-in flash memory and handy back-lit control wheels. But there are something that makes difference.

Most of Sandisk Salsa media players are equipped with built-in SD or miniSD cardreader. What does it mean? Black brick is not just a brick from now. It's expandable! You can easilly upgrade it by adding 1Gb, 2Gb or even 8Gb memory card. You can take more than one card with you and change them on the go. You can even share the music or videos with your friends without computer.

Steve Jobs thinks different, he thinks that you need to buy expensive and inconvinient add-on for iPod just to listen to FM radio stations. Sandisk thinks simple — get your FM receiver right out of the box.

Ever thought about something important just to forget about it next day? With the msot Sansa models you can record all your thought with the built-in microphone.

What is Sandisk Sansa

2008-01-24T04:18:00.000-08:00

Sansa is Sandisk's brand for the wide range of portable media players also known as MP3 players, digital audio players and so on. Such devices are usually smaller than the smallest mobile phones although they can store gigabytes of data inside or, in more convenient way, they can hold thousands of songs that could be played anytime you want in any desired order. You can copy all songs at once or any number of songs from your computer to your MP3 player or back from the player to the computer, you can even transfer music between computers, because your player acts just like any other external storage device in this case.

But it's not only about music. You can watch, store and transfer movies, photos, audio books and many other digital media with your portable media player.

If you are holding your hand on the pulse of consumer electronics, you probably heard of Apple's iPod series which is generating a lot of buzz nowadays. Well, in general, Sandisk Sansa is like iPod but packed with a load of additional features. Furthermore, Sansa range includes some really interesting models that Apple's have not.