SanDisk Sansa e280 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)
by SanDisk
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List Price: Our Price: $40.00 You Save: $209.99 (84%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Sansa e280 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)
Customer Review: Good Deal For The Money
Summary: 5 Stars
I was in the market for a good MP3 player at a decent price with a larger than average capacity. I decided upon the Sansa e280, and purchased a refurbished player. I'm very satisfied about my purchase and would recommend this product to someone wanting a great MP3 player who doesn't want to shell out too much money. One of the main selling points was that this is a flash based player, so there is no skipping or worries about mini-drive crashes. The refurbished model that I received looked brand new, save for the silvery printing on the back labeling it as a refurb. The controls are fairly intuitive, and took less than a minute to get used to. There are several equalizer settings to adjust the sound levels for different types of music which really help to fine tune the experience. The sound quality is pretty good, and the included earbuds are better than average. The LCD screen is bright and crisp, and may be a little too bright in full dark situations--enough to find your keys in an unlit room at night. The scroll ring is a little small for my hands, but I assume that may just be because of how I hold it. The built in FM tuner is a nice feature, but isn't the powerhouse of reception I would want it to be. The screen is large enough to see pictures well, but not large enough to really scrutinize images. The only problem I have had is with organizing my files. I prefer to use the drag and drop method instead of synchronizing with Windows Media Player. The problem with this is if you don't have your ID3 tags in order a lot of music may end up in folders named Unknown or in several different folders depending on spelling errors. A real hassle when you've moved 3gigs and realize it after you're away from the computer. File transfer is speedy and easy to setup if using drag and drop. The file transfer cable is also the recharge cable, and it only connects to USB so you have to have a computer on to recharge the unit. Their proprietary software is required to transfer image or video files, I haven't tried using it so I can't say how difficult it is. Overall, a great player and definately worth the money.Customer Review: Falls short from being a great MP3 player
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased this from Amazon.com. It came loaded with the latest firmware. I made sure also to install the "Sansa Updater" utility and now everytime plug it to the computer, it goes to cyberspace to find a newer firmware if available. OK, with the latest software, I now can say that there are still shortcomings on this player.
Sound quality: reproduction of high quality MP3 files is very good. In fact, the sound is warm and very balanced. Very nice. Unfortunately, during quiet passages or in between tracks, I can hear static noise. My Sansa c200 is completely quiet. The e280 is noisy in silent or quiet passages of music. I notice this problem more when I use a high end headphone like an etymotic er4b or sennheiser HD25. With regular earbuds, the floor noise is not so noticeable.
MP3 compatibility troubles: yes, even though my Sansa c200 plays all of my MP3s, the e280 picks and chooses. On certain MP3s, the e280 will not play a sound and then proceed to freeze.
Video playback and control response: video playback is very good. I was afraid I would not be able to read my anime subtitles, but this was no problem at all. The problem is that when Sansa plays a video, it seems as though the CPU gets overloaded and controls respond with a lag. It is pretty annoying when trying to FF or RW or stop playback and the e280 takes its time.
Video converter: it takes your mpeg, avi, and wmv files and converts them to quicktime MOV files. Problem is that the converted files are often bigger than the source files (often by a factor close to 2). One would think that after conversion, the file should be smaller since the Sansa screen is small and does not require full resolution.
FM recording: MONO, that's right, it is all mono. I was expecting the e280 to record in stereo. Recording sound quality itself is also not very impressive, with rolled highs and lows. Recordings sound very lo fi. Voice recordings sound very lo fi as well.
I still like it, but it if I had a choice today between the Sansa e280 and Zen 8GB, I would take the Zen 8GB.
Customer Review: Love Apple but don't like lock-in? This is your player.
Summary: 4 Stars
I spent the past 3 weeks researching various MP3/portable audio players. I've got tremendous respect for Apple, and I must say the new Nano's are absolutely jaw-dropping. And the idea of carrying around 160g in a very elegant shell in the new iPod was very, very tempting.
But in my case, I've got 4 Sonos players at home which I *love*, and am currently a very happy Rhapsody subscriber. I love the idea that for the price of one audio CD each month, I can dial up literally one of a million songs in the house, and play them right away. I also love the idea of not having two different file formats for my music. I've got a few playlists that I've built up on Rhapsody, so in the end, a Rhapsody-compatible player beat out the incredible design and elegance of the iPod.
I purchased the Sansa 280 today and have been very pleased. The player seems to work well in Vista (note -- I had to download the latest upgrade from Rhapsody.com), and keeps my favorite playlists in synch between Rhapsody and my player. No duplication of files. If a new song comes on the radio and I want to play it, I don't have to buy it -- I just drag and drop it onto my little Sansa player. Or, if I'm in the house, I just pick up a Sonos controller and dial it up. If I'm on my PC, I can create playlists that work on both, as well of course any Internet-connected PC. Nice.
One other point -- I have a Vista Media Center PC and have several TV shows recorded in DVR-MS format. As I write this review, I'm (apparently) successfully converting a Law & Order episode to play on my device on my next airplane trip. Pretty cool if it works as it appears to... I can't believe I only had to pay about $130 for this mobility. Remarkable.
So AAPL gets very, very high marks for design, elegance, fit and finish, simplicity and pushing every other player to be better.
But if you're a Windows user and have considered the Sonos player for home audio, this is a big recommendation to consider the alternative music ecosystem, which is actually more free and open.
Customer Review: Great Buy!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This product is everything it is advertised as.
The diplay is crystal clear and bright. I had to turn the display DOWN because it was so bright. Even in the sunlight I only have it set to 2. And we're talking desert sun here!
Music loading is a breeze. I have Windows Media Player 11 and have had no problems syncing with the e280. Switching music is just a matter of going in and erasing and then dropping more mp3's in. I had 1GB of music on it within 10 min of plugging it in!
Not sure about capacity. The manual says you can put about 2000 WMA or 1000 MP3's on the e280 (at avg 4 min song length). Everything of mine is in mp3 so I can't say for certain whether it's true or not. And then I have whole CDs in mine, so that really messes up the song count. Mine is telling me that I have 581 songs with a little over 1GB remaining. Alot of that would be due to the fact that I have several 40-60 min symphonies in there! LOL
Music playback is pretty good. Finding what you want to listen to is a snap if you have your ID3 tags set up right. If not (like me) it can be a pain. I have since corrected that though!!! Sound is good. The volume is plenty loud. I can drown out the music in the gym with it, standing next to the speaker and not even have it turned up all the way. The best setting is Custom, I think. The other settings can sound a little canned at times. Especially with the dynamics of classical. But with the Custom you can set what sounds best to YOU.
The FM radio is a nice touch. Haven't really used it though.
The Voice Recorder is the best feature yet. It picks up sounds across the room easily. And it has a button on the side that will override anything you are playing or doing. Takes a second to start recording, but it starts automatically.
Haven't tried it with any online music sources. I already have 12 GB of music on my PC, so I haven't needed to.
It does play video too, but I haven't tried that yet.
Other than that, it's a great buy. You won't be disappointed.
Customer Review: Good features but hard to use and not well supported
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought it for its video and photo features, in addition to its non-proprietary music formats. All are there and that's good.
I booted it up and charged it, which took about 6 hrs (I later found out charging depends on which USB port you use). Then I tried to update the firmware, which failed repeatedly. It also disconnected all the time when I tried to copy files to it. I called support, which took over 30 min to have a live person. It turned out I shouldn't be using the USB port from the monitor. Instead, one should be using the ones directly off the computer. No other USB devices had this problem.
Now it comes to copying files, videos and photo. It's soooo inconvenient! You have to use "Sansa Media Converter", which doesn't show what you have on the device and you have to type in the folder name, instead of browsing what's on the device. Every time you want to see what's already on the device, you'd have to unplug the cable and browse on the device. For photos, it only shows in Portrait. If you want to show Landscape, you'd have to convert the photo BEFORE storing on the device.
Video playback is not reliable (with the latest firmware 1.02.15). For the same pieces, it sometimes plays fine but causes hanging & reboots of the device other times. Half of the pieces I copied to the device hiss at words with "s". The hiss is apparently related to conversion from MPEG (.mpg) to QuickTime Movie (.mov), using Sansa Media Converter. I copied the converted files back to my PC and they had the same hiss using QuickTime player or iTune. No conversions required with MP3 files and no problems there.
All in all, it feels like a device lack of basic professional software support as expected these days. As a result, while I bought it for its video & photo features, I might end up using it mostly for MP3 playing, which is quite good. It's twice as thick and heavy as a Nano. I assume it's because of all the great features (video, etc) that are hard to use & unreliable. Too bad.