IT Blog Today

This is the MP3 player I was waiting for! It is an excellent and elegant device. Perhaps that is a problem. I read one review where the writer said he had all kinds of problems with his View that it would not work properly even after the original firmware upgrade. he blamed it all on the device and firmware. Yes, the View took a little while to get used to. It was necessary to learn how to use the device properly and learn it. Time invested will be rewarded. Pay particular attention to the thumbwheel. It is powerful, elegant, responsive and sensitive. It is plenty intuitive, but perhaps more featured and capable than one might first expect. So work with it. Menu structure and function is good but takes a little getting used to. You may find features you did not realize are there. SanDisk should really put more emphasis on helping to educate people about this. It has been worth it. I concluded that that reviewer had one giant thumb and was a Cyclops. I'll say no more. There were originally firmware issues with the device. New firmware was already out when I got mine early on 2008. Upgrading was easy. I just installed newer firmware this month. Again, easy to do. I never had a problem with it before or after. I bought the 8Gb View and later installed a SanDisk 8Gb microSD aux chip. Again worked great. Had to play around just a little with Audible dot com and Rhapsody dot com to figure that out. I have been through all the functions of this device, they will say they can be a little obscure, but they work great. The issue that people may have is the thumbwheel is so powerful and sensitive. The device is mostly controlled by it. The device is extremely capable and elegant as I said, but many may miss this if they don't take the time to learn how to really get the most out of it. The way the menus/screens and selections are navigated are very well thought out. But a little difficult and confusing at first. I would not have it any other way because it is designed right and it is sooo very powerful. You have a very capable device that will do all it should. But you must experiment and take the time learn how to use it. This is the MP3 I waited for and am glad I did. Great vivid screen and size, great capacity, form factor. All the features one should need and more. My only regret is that I did not buy a larger capacity unit. But adding another 8Gb for a total of 16 is pretty good. I use it for audio books/periodicals and presentations and for music. The recorder and FM radio features are nice also. Put a video of live 82d jump on it it works great in video mode. I feel sorry for the guy who could not get his to work. It was pretty obvious it was the User and not the View. There are simpler and less capable devices out there that sacrifice functionality and compromise on features. Those are easy to find. As I said, it is a sophisticated and elegant device, but still simply and intelligently executed. I think SanDisk design engineers must have thought hard about how to make this device really right. I think thye did that. Kudos to them. There is little that should be changed or added. Once learned, it is also easy to use with little effort. Just about the perfect MP3. I think it is clear runaway as the best flash MP3 player in its class on the market at this time. Superbly executed. SanDisk does make very innovative and solid products. BTW, I do own a little of their stock (SNDK). My next MP3 will probably be a 32 or 64 Gb View. Almost lost my 8gb microSD so I taped over the slot.

With the original firmware, you can only use a 2gb micro sd card. With Rockbox open source firmware, you can use sdhc cards of 8gb+. This gives you more room and access to programs and features that aren't part of the original Sansa firmware, or updated Sansa firmware. Rockbox firmware is always free.

It's easy to install and significantly updates your play to work with ID3 tags, games, applications and best of all - album art. You can also download skins. Check it out. The newer Sansas are awesome but if you are on a budget you may want to stick with an older model made better with some new tricks.

After about 8 months of use of the 8gb Sansa View, I decided I should write a review of my experiences. I did quite a bit of research and choose the View over the Creative Zen. My requirements in the video mp3 were to be a minimum of 8gb, cost effective, and radio (which ruled out any ipod). The expansion slot was also a much needed bonus, which was crippled on the Zen (i.e. files on the expansion card were much more limited).

PROS:
Good screen quality that is large enough in my opinion to watch videos.
Micro SD/HC expansion slot is fully integrated with files on main memory.
Being able to drag and drop files onto player
Multiple video formats supported.
Menu and buttons are easy to use
Sound quality is good
FM Radio can automatically search and save local stations.
Good battery life and quick charging (~2 hours)
Good size in my opinion, not too big, not super small.

CONS:
Limited personalization of menu
Playlist can only be 500 files
Can be more tedious than nessary to sort through long music/ artists lists
Initally limited accessories (cases, cables, etc), but getting better.

NEUTRAL:
Included media converter works, but was fairly limited in it's options. I found a free program that can covert to multiple formats and convert youtube videos (.flv).

All in all, I have been very pleased with the purchase and would purchase again. Although there are a few cons, there are pretty minor to me and I didn't find another player that met my requirements as well as the Sansa view did. I have been using a 4gb micro sdhc card and it works flawlessly to have all of my files together. Using an expansion card does seem to decrease battery life, but haven't done a formal comparison test to know how much. Would recommend to anyone looking for a good video/mp3 player that won't break the bank.