A very good alternative to the iPod

Introduction

With the ubiquitous iPod becoming the standard mp3 player for most, Sandisk and their competitors have a lot of work to close the gap – simply producing a better ‘gadget’ isn’t good enough, they have to provide a ‘full service’ gadget that is not only technically excellent, but is also easy to use and links seamlessly with music sites.

An area that seemingly is becoming more important, albeit a relative unknown area is subscription music. With Best Buy and Circuit City heavily promoting different subscription services, Sansa have teamed up with Yahoo Music to offer a quick link to a subscription service (note this ‘quick’ link is only available on the latest Sansa mp3 players.

What these subscription services offer is unlimited downloads to your PC or 3 mp3 players as long as you continue to pay a monthly subscription fee – they also offer a pay as you go download service.

They all use a system call PFS (plays for sure), a Microsoft product that is an industry standard for the subscription industry (aside from Microsoft’s own subscription service available with Zune!).

The Player

The first thing I note about the player is that it is pretty sturdy. It has some weight and feels good in your hand. This may not be important to some, but other mp3 players I’ve owned have felt ‘flimsy’ and really haven’t made me feel comfortable mowing the lawn while using them.

This combined with the over all look of the player make it look more professional and definitely competes with the iPod in looks.

Although the manual advises you to charge your player immediately, is does have some charge. I therefore turned on the player immediately. After a few minutes getting used to the menu systems and the controls, I found the player to be very intuitive.

The controls are fairly simple – the usual play, pause, fast forward, rewind keys are available – they are a little small but you soon get used to it.

Having upgraded from a fairly old mp3 player, it took me a while to get used to the ‘wheel’ that surrounds the other keys. This is a multi function wheel that is used to navigate the menu system as well as turn the volume up and down.

One thing I note is that the ‘firmware’ on the machine I bought was old – it is therefore imperative that you constantly update the firmware – this was very easy and intuitive to do and took a few minutes.

I have a subscription service, and initially, although I could upload songs from the service, they didn’t seem to synchronize (a subs song must constantly be synchronized with the license to ensure you are still a subscriber) – this should be automatic, but initially it wasn’t.

However, after updating the firmware and changing one setting (which had to be changed to allow the firmware update) everything works fine.

Software

The player comes with a CD with Media Converter software. According to the instructions, using the converter should improve your experience with the Sansa player. While I am sure they are not lying, I didn’t really notice any difference – and although the Converter is intuitive, and only takes 30 seconds to use, I stopped using it.

There are several ways to copy music, files etc onto the player. You can use the Windows Explorer, a Sandisk program included on the disk, or the software you use with your ‘download’ service (example – Windows Media 11 etc). Simply dragging tracks to the player is easy and again intuitive.

I used Yahoo Music (subs service) to update my player and this was very seamless – it’s even easy to create separate playlists through the service should you desire.

Note – the player does not work directly with iTunes. The only way to transfer a track purchased from iTunes is to burn the song to a CD and then transfer it from the CD to the player. However, most subscription services also allow you to purchase individual tracks.

Synchronization can be a pain – apparently you are supposed to use the Windows Media player to synchronize a play list on your pc to your Sansa player – however I was able to achieve the same thing using Yahoo Music.

Sound

Even using the included speakers, the sound quality was very good. However to get the best out of this player, buy some decent speakers or link it directly to your hifi (or car audio player in my case).

Depending on the type of ‘file’ you are playing (there is a variance in quality of tracks downloaded from different sites) the sound quality was excellent. The in built graphics equalizer was pretty good, and some of the pre-built sounds (example – rock) were good and allowed for you to vary the sound.

Like others, I didn’t detect any distortion or static, and to my untrained ears, the sound quality was on par with a CD.

FM Player

While touted as a useful addition to an mp3 player, I personally don’t find this useful. I guess it’s good if you jog, but generally I link my mp3 player to the car stereo or to my home hifi, both have inbuilt tuners.
The radio itself is pretty basic – allowing you to search and set a few stations. The reception isn’t that good either - which really is to be expected.

Voice Recorder

While not that useful to me, the voice recorder was actually pretty good. The sound quality was surprisingly good.

Video

The screen of the player is a good size and is pretty clear. The quality of the video is very good, and while it is nowhere near the quality of a TV it isn’t bad for viewing on the move. It should be noted that due to limited memory size, you’ll soon fill the player up if you add large files.

However, if you use the micro-SD memory expansion slot -then memory isn't a problem.

Battery

So far I haven’t had a problem with battery life. Generally I have found that the battery lasts about 12-14 hours. I constantly am adding music by using the USB link – this has the added bonus of recharging the player as you upload music.

Another useful feature of this player is that you can replace the battery – while it involves removing a few screws, I have been told that it is fairly easy to do – this is definitely a good feature.

Playlists

One grip of mine so far is that when I upload files to the player, it plays them alphabetically. While you can use the menu to choose songs, or albums, it would have been useful for the player to play in the order I transferred the files. You can setup playlists (this is easier doing from the software rather than on the player), but this can be a pain.

Memory

The player comes with 2gb of memory – it is preloaded with some free tracks, movies and pictures – but after removing these you end up with about 1.8gb of free space (I’m assuming that the firmware takes up the rest of the memory). Depending on the size of the files you download you can get upto about 500 songs on the player – in my experience I get between 300 and 350 songs.

The player does however come with an expansion ‘Micros SD’ slot – this allows you to essentially have unlimited memory on the player. The ‘Micro SD’s are a little small, and it is sometimes difficult to put them in – but this element adds longevity to the player. (I upgraded from a 512kb Sansa) to this one – I didn’t get an 8gb Sansa because of the expandable nature of this one. Micros SDs are currently available up to 4gb. This is a great little feature of the player.

What comes with it

Perhaps due to the price of the player, you only get the player, the headphones, a USB link and a cover for the player. While you can use the USB link to charge the player, it would have been nice to have a wall charger included. You can buy a wall charger or a car charger if required though.

I should point out that the ‘USB’ cable isn’t a standard link – it looks like the iPod link (not sure if it is) – but should you damage the cable, you can’t use the standard USB cable that comes with most media players (and cameras).

Compatibility

The player is not compatible with Zune or iTunes – while you can burn purchased tracks from these sites to a CD and then convert them for use on Sansa, this really is a pain. Luckily most other music sites work with Sansa.

One note – the Sansa uses Microsoft’s Play For Sure system (PFS). Microsoft themselves have abandoned this software with their own music store (Zune) – however as many manufacturers (including cell phone manufactures) are using the PFS system, it’s not going to disappear that soon.

Conclusion

I am not a great fan of the iPod – it is a nice little player but you are unable to use subscription services – so it’s not for me.

This little player is excellent – it is cheaply priced and is expandable. The sound quality is excellent and overall the use of the player is intuitive.

As an alternative to the iPod, it’s probably the best.


Music Site that work with the player

Napster: www.napster.com
Rhapsody: www.rhapsody.com
Yahoo Music: music.yahoo.com/