SanDisk keeps its edge over the nano with the "Sansa View"

This February, I bought my first mp3 player, a SanDisk Sansa e260, a direct competitor to the iPod nano.  When I first started looking for an mp3 player, I thought that a nano was what I was looking for.  I just needed a player that would hold a few gigabytes of music that I could use for running and the like.

Because the nano was the most popular flash player around, I assumed that it was the highest quality player.  As I found through a bit of research, this sentiment was quite incorrect.  SanDisk was one of a few DAP makers that produced a more fully featured player for a lower price than the iPod nano.

The nano had a smaller screen with lower resolution than the SanDisk player; it lacked the video, radio, and recording abilities of the SanDisk player, and to top it off, the e260 was $20 cheaper than the nano at the Grinnell Wal-Mart where I got it.  It seemed almost paradoxical that I could get such a better player for less money than the market leader.

New iPods expected to be announced September 5

Apple will very likely be pushing out new models of its very popular iPod line with the special event they are hosting next week.  There is a lot of speculation as to what changes to the the iPod and its spinoffs will be announced.  I am not one to join in that speculation mainly because I’m not an Apple fan (they make decent products, but they don’t appeal to me) and because I am as clueless as the next guy as to what they will do.

Hopefully, Apple decides that it will put effort into having the best DAPs around, because they haven’t been doing that lately.  Though I haven’t been an iPod fan thus far, as can be seen by this recent post, I am willing to be converted if they do a good job.

Upcoming Sansa Clip puts iPod shuffle to shame

Apple’s iPod brand has enjoyed a majority share of the digital audio player (DAP) market for the past few years, and the term “iPod” has become synonymous with DAP in popular culture.  My opinions on this are stated in an earlier post, but basically, I see it a stifling to worthy competition and ultimately bad for customers that this is the case.

The iPod shuffle is the most basic DAP that Apple puts out.  The current model has 1GB of memory in which it stores a playlist of songs with the ability to play them in order or to shuffle them.  It’s simple to use because it has very few controls: a play/pause button flanked horizontally by forward and backward buttons and vertically by volume controls, with a shuffle switch, and a hold switch.

Perhaps its biggest merits are its small size and the clip that is built into it, but it also has a tremendous downside in that it lacks a screen, which makes it difficult to find the song you want without memorizing the playlist.  This alone removes it as a consideration for me.  But some people are willing to fork over $79 dollars for a screenless DAP.  There were no less than 3 iPod Shuffle owners of the 9 residents of Chinese House, which is where I live on campus.

Some of my thoughts on mp3 players

Since my last post was about my experience with getting my mp3 player replaced, I figured that I’d post my opinion. I know I’m not the foremost authority on the subject, only having owned one mp3 player for myself, but I think I have enough experience with them to make a few comments.

Apple’s iPod mp3 players dominate the market. In the minds of many people iPods and mp3 players are equivalent sets rather than the former being a subset of the latter, as the actual case is. For instance yesterday, my mother, knowing full well that Apple did not make my mp3 player, asked if my iPod had arrived.

I think it is unfortunate that iPods hold the market share they do, not because I hate Apple or feel that people shouldn’t own them, but because they are not the best devices one could buy for their price. Take the iPod nano. It is a thin flash mp3 player. It does not have video support or an FM radio (you can get a radio add on for $49 from Apple). Furthermore, it has a troublesome file structure, forcing one to edit the songs via iTunes unless they hack the player. The 2GB version costs $149, the 4GB version costs $199 and the 8GB version costs $249 according to Apple.

In contrast, the mp3 players in SanDisk’s Sansa e200 line does play video and has a built in radio. According to SanDisk, the 2GB version costs $120, the 4GB version $150, the 6GB version $170, and the 8GB version $199. Both the 4GB and 8GB versions are $49 cheaper than the corresponding nano. Yet, the majority of buyers who buy flash memory-based mp3 players buy iPod nanos over Sansa e200 series players.

Now, I’m not going to say that SanDisk’s player is better for all people. It’s not. For one thing, it doesn’t support games. I’m not one to play games with handheld devices, so that didn’t matter to me. As well, for some, the touch scroll wheel of the nano is preferable to the mechanical scroll wheel of the e200 series (for me the situation). Others may find that the form factor of a nano is worth plunking down an extra $49 dollars. To me, if it fits in my pocket with room to spare, I’m happy. However, given the features and the prices, I cannot believe that the nano’s market share is due to rational, knowledgeable choices being made by users.

Of course, there are other mp3 players beyond those produced by Apple and SanDisk, which happen to have the first and second place market share respectively, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were comparable players that have better features and/or a better price tag than both. For instance, I have little doubt that there exists a flash player that works with a different format or formats than the space-consuming .mov format that the e200 series uses.

This is one of the irksome things about the e200 series. Video is converted to a 90° rotated scaled down .mov file (one of the formats used by Apple’s Quicktime player). Presumably this is so that the player can directly play it without using many resources, but since it is uncompressed, it can sometimes take up more space on the player than the original file did, even if the original file was of higher resolution.

My mp3 player issues

In February, I bought a SanDisk Sansa e260 mp3 player at the Grinnell Super Wal-Mart. It was the first mp3 player I have ever bought and I really liked it. It’s a flash player, like an iPod nano, except it has more features and a cheaper price tag. There are some minor gripes I have with it, like the lack of support for Asian characters in the English interface (I have a few songs that have some Chinese characters…if I had more, this would be an issue for me). However, overall, I was more than satisfied.

But, last week, I hit a snag. Like the iPod, the Sansa transfers songs from the computer and charges via a USB cable. One day, I was plugging in the player as usual when instead of plugging in smoothly, there was resistance. I unplugged it to find that two of the wires within the port had separated from the plastic ridge in the middle, leaving it looking like this:

I ended up contacting SanDisk via their support site. After a few exchanges they asked for some pictures of the player, which is why I have the picture above. They decided that they would replace the player. They gave me a three day delivery UPS shipping label to print out and use to send them back the player on June 12. I sent it that day. They received it on the 15th and sent the replacement on the 19th and I will be receiving it today and will update this post when it comes.

Update: I got my mp3 player today as expected. They sent a completely new mp3 player, which has some benefits and some downsides. The benefit is that it’s new and shiny and is in really good shape. There were a few nicks on my old player, as you can see from the above picture. As well, I have a new pair of cheap headphones. I probably won’t use them as I have a better pair of headphones from Sony (nothing noise canceling, but with better sound and better fit to my ear).

The downside is that I have to add all my songs back onto the player. This isn’t a total disaster…it means that I can go back and look at what music I want on and what music I don’t. Of course, I could go back what I had on my old player, since I do have it backed up on my external hard drive. However, that would take only a little less time, and I want to make sure some things are cleaned out.

Now, as for what I got. The new player had different packaging that went along with their “Lil’ Monsta” marketing campaign. Here’s a picture of the new packaging:

Contrast it with the old packaging:

Overall, I am happy to have an mp3 player again that is functional. I may say more later, but for now, I have to go to work.