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.
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.
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.
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'!
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.