SanDisk Sansa e270 6 GB MP3 Player with SD Expansion Slot (Black)
by SanDisk
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List Price: Our Price: $64.68 You Save: $235.31 (78%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Sansa e270 6 GB MP3 Player with SD Expansion Slot (Black)
Customer Review: Great possibilities, perhaps a QA issue
Summary: 1 Stars
I have owned an iRiver cd slimline, philips mini-cd mp3, and an iPod 40GB. I was hoping for something I could take jogging (flash memory vs harddisk or cdr). Out of the box I must say I was impressed with the little 6GB Sansa e270, but over the next two weeks flaws would appear.
One of the things that made me return the player was the order of the tracks; 1) actual track name 2) album (taken from id tags) 3) artist (also taken from id tags). This was a major source of headache for me as alot of my songs had incomplete idtags. I suppose if I had a smaller player (1 or 2gb) going back fixing the tags would be viable, but 6GB (or 8GB if you get the additional 2GB SDcard) seems daunting. I like to just dump my mp3s in to root or some folder I created so I can sort thru them that way, but folders is not an option for sorting. Now there is a playlist you can create ON the player, which is very cumbersome. Maybe if you could create or import them from your PC, but from the player is too time consuming. Compounded by the fact that once the playlist is made, scrolling thru the list is very laggy. This must be a design flaw, as the lag isnt apparent when going thru sorting by track name, album, or artist.
And as others have posted, the player seems to randomly freeze and require a power off restart. As well as the terrible buttons for the up down left right being so recessed by the wheel that it is nigh impossible to press. The wheel does not scroll fast enough thru the list either. An option I find great in iRiver is a 10 song skip, instead of having to scroll thru 1 at a time, which is great for cds (650megs). Something like 10 or 50 would be nice when scrolling thru 6 gigs, not one at a time! You pretty much are forced to use the sorting by Album or Artist option (see above for my pains with the ID tags).
I dont mind the Sandisk USB cable to charge/move mp3s as I have a laptop with me often. But I can definitely sympathize people wanting an wall AC charger for trips w/o laptop. Some people might only have desktops, so charging away from home is an impossibility.
Long and short of it, paid almost 300$ for the Sansa, I shouldnt have to put with these headaches. Currently I am trying a Creatize Zen for my flashdisk needs (jogging).. so far none of the above problems, but its also alot smaller (1gb), and I have had to return it once for failing (after a few days), hopefully this is just a bad unit and not indicative of the line.. (might have to go ipod nano)..
Customer Review: Very happy except for one Issue/risk
Summary: 5 Stars
June 15 2006 - Unlike some of the reviewers, I couldn't care less about music "services" be they iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.
Why pay 0.99 to anyone for DRM crippled tracks?
The artist doesn't benefit.
I listen to CDs I have bought and ripped.
For that purpose, this unit works beautifully with *any* OS including Mac X, WinXP, even Linux.
The e270 can act like a flash/keychain drive:
just go into the Settings menu and change the USB mode.
The e270 also shows the album art (folder.jpg) while playing tracks.
The e200 series has a beautiful display, better than the Nano.
I wouldn't whine about the design being imitative:
the Nano has better quality buttons/wheel,
the e270's controls are comparatively flimsy-feeling and are harder for large fingers to operate.
Besides, didn't Apple copy from *Creative's* mp3 players in the first place?
The courts are reviewing that question now.
THE ISSUE.
My only issue is that the USB cable is proprietary, mandatory, and irreplaceable.
And, Sandisk is currently unable to provide a replacement if you lose it.
Without the special Sandisk USB cable, you can't even recharge the on-board Lithium battery,
and also there's no wall wart for AC power available either.
By contrast, my previous Sandisk e140 player (a 1GB model) uses an AAA battery
--and the same USB cable most digital cameras use.
Battery- and connection-wise the e140 is a better solution,
but the drawback is a dim monocolor display.
If you have good eyesight, the e140 is a great economy player;
but the e270 is the ultimate luxury toy.
Everyone who sees my e270 is smitten.
UPDATE July 6th -
Sandisk says it is _now_ able to ship me a replacement
"e270 to USB" cable, so give them credit for that.
Also, according to internet rumor, Griffin makes an e270-compatible wall-wart (AC Power) solution.
Finally, no solution is available yet to the "cannot play-tracks-in-album-order" issue,
a problem I failed to mention above.
This might drive you seriously insane when you play Mozart or Beethoven on the thing when the IV movement isn't played fourth.
Or, when an mp3 audio book can't be played
in chapter order!
We're waiting every day for the firmware update from Sandisk that fixes this track ordering bug.
Customer Review: Great buy
Summary: 4 Stars
So far, I am satisfied.
I updated to the latest firmware right after I recieved it on front of my door, and I highly suggest you to do it too. I had it for about a month, and had never freezed.
The latest firmware also has custom EQ, which sounds better than those presets, in my opinion. If you high the bass, however, it sounds very distorted. You can reduce that by lowering the second and third bars of the eq. Overall sound quality is nothing to be wow-ed about.(my other mp3 player, iriver u10, is noticably better.) Still, acceptable and better than the nano's. If you aren't picky about sound quality, you should be fine.
When you convert videos on the Sandisk media converter, the sound quality is noticably reduced. A very bad thing when you are transfering music videos, but you can mod the program to solve that problem. Just search how by going to the e200 forums in the anythingbutipod website. Photos were easy, but I had to go in rotate all my photos so it will appear full screen on my Sansa. That's time consuming.
I think that the mechanical wheel is better than the ipod touch. You can actually feel it scrolling, if you know what I mean. The bad thing is, after exessive use on the wheel, it becomes a little loose and chuggy.
I personally have no problem pressing the buttons on the outer side of it(I have small fingers), but if you have thick fingertips, I understand that it will be a little difficult, especially when you have a case put on the player.
Occasionally, the sound drops to one channel when using custom eq. When I switch it back to normal, the sound comes back in both channels again. I think it's a firmware problem. Hopefully they will fix it soon.
I once dropped my device pretty hard on the kitchen floor. Surprisingly, no damage was made externally and internally(still, be careful!)
Overall, very good player. I definitly choose it over the ipod nano.
I mean you get more battery life, a bigger(and brighter)screen, video playback, fm radio, voice recorder, USER REPLACEABLE BATTERY, custom eq, expandable memory.. All in half the price. I wouldn't understand why some people would still choose to buy a nano. Because of those people, there are not a lot of accessories for the e2xx(yet).
Customer Review: Works great but seems to lack some basic features
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased the Sansa e270 mp3 player and am pleased by the amount of songs this little unit can hold, as well as the extra long battery life (about 6-7 hours, though I did use the miserly settings ie: low brightness, short backlight, auto shut-off). All I really wanted was somethign that played music; however, even with my "low" standards, I have noticed this MP3 player lacks some pretty basic features:
1) Volume control. There's only two settings (well, three, if you consider "pause/mute" a volume)- loud and LOUDEST. It's ok using on the train or airplane, but if I'm wearing it while running, I find I have to hang the earphones around my neck rather than have them in my ears, because it's just too darn loud. I'm very surprised at the lack of volume control as I was expecting a wheel or some sort of "dial-a-volume" feature.
2) Lack of FF/REW/Stop buttons. Or maybe I haven't figured it out? anyway, there seems to be one play/pause button, but you literally can't stop a song unless you switch to either the video, photo or radio option. Maybe it's just me but I don't really like shutting down the unit while it's still playing. As for the Fast forward/rewind, it seems you have to go through the menu to find "scan through song" option in order to do so. When you push the > button, it advances to the next song instead.
Seems to be a few minor bugs, too. I noticed the "Rate the Song" feature doesn't seem to work and just freezes my Sansa player. Everytime I turn on the player and select "Play All" it always seems to start off playing the same song each time, rather than picking a song at random, as I've set it.
I did go to the SanDisk website and downloaded the "latest" (who really knows?) software or update; this seemed to speed up the startup and shutdown process noticeably but did not fix any of the aforementioned bugs.
I really was expecting an MP3 player that worked 100%, but again, i just need something that that plays music (which the Sansa e270 does very well). However, the problems I have noted may be significant to other consumers, so Buyer Beware.
Customer Review: A good solid player, but some continuously annoying things
Summary: 4 Stars
First of all, this review is after a year of using the Sansa e270.
I got this player to stay sane at work (what's with this bullpen garbage).
The good points:
1. It is a sharp player for the price
2. It has the capacity without the hard disk.
3. The size is right.
4. The sound is good.
3. The color display, especially of the album covers is nice, but certainly not required.
4. Yes, I like the option of FM radio, or taking my own recordings, but I have yet to use it.
My main and only point of getting this player was 6 GB of shuffle. It works fairly well, and I would not trade it for the other players on the market. That said, there are some issues.
1. You can only charge by plugging into a computer that is turned on. The 3rd party wall-wart costs extra. It should not.
2. The cable is custom and fragile (although, I have yet to break it).
3. You cannot listen to music while it is charging. Unlike some other posts here, it takes 2-3 hours for my player to charge.
4. It resets your location in a playlist after charging. The firmware has gone back and forth on this one, but the latest status is that you cannot. This matters because one battery round is not enough to play all the music stored on it.
5. Shuffle does not kick in until after the first song plays. IOW, it always plays song one first.
6. This is the cardinal sin: Shuffle is not shuffle. It is random. If you hit the back button, it will not go back to the song it was playing before, and some songs tend to get hit more often than others (not a good PRNG).
7. Minor nit: up and down are backwards on the main menu.
The sad thing is most of these things should be firmware correctable, but after waiting a year, they have not been fixed.
I still do not see a better player on the market. It has all the show-stoppers taken care of. If they could just fix shuffle and restoring location after charge, my major gripes would be resolved, and I could recommend it without hesitation.