My hour with the Sansa e280

gorcorps · #1 (**permalink**) December 19th, 2006, 04:24 PM

I bought a sansa e280 for my dad's xmas gift. It's his first mp3 player and he aint so PC savy so I'm charging it for him and putting a few albums he likes so he can play with it when he first opens it. So here's my impression of it so far.

FILE TRANSFERS:
You can select UMS or MTP on the fly in the options. Very nice feature to be able to switch between the 2. It has a proprietary cable (boo) that it charges from as well. It's about as fast as you'd expect using UMS, and the MTP worked well with WMP11. The sansa can only browse music by database, no filetree. That wouldn't be a problem except that it had a problem w/ v2.4 ID3 tags. It was fine w/ 2.3 but I had to mess with the tags in another program to get them to show up in the sansa.

CONTROLS/INTERFACE:
The mechanical scroll wheel isn't very smooth, and it feels like it sticks sometimes. Other than that it's a nice control system with a well put together UI. The now playing screen is pretty plain compared to the rest of the screens though, which is a bummer.

SOUND:
There's a 5 band EQ which as of a few firmwares ago can be fully customized. However, I found the quality of the low-end w/ my shure e2cs not so great. I like a decent amount of punch in my bass and I couldn't get that sound out of the little sansa. But other than that it's very clear and the EQ is nice.

RADIO:
Good reception, and surprisingly decent sound from it as well

So that's it. After rebate it was $220USD so for 8gigs that's pretty good. The tag problems + subpar sound quality (for me) is disappointing but not enough to regret the purchase.

ShyAnne · #2 (**permalink**) December 21st, 2006, 03:45 PM

Thanks for the detailed yet concise review. Someone recently asked me for a Christmas suggestion for a gift for someone who will also be getting a first MP3 player. Will definitely put this one on the list I will be emailing shortly.

Suspect the difference in sound quality won't matter as much to someone getting their very first player. Most people are so thrilled with the capacity and portability of their first MP3 player that their reaction is a little like discovering fire for the first time.

Great idea to not only buy your Dad his first MP3 but also set it up for him. I did the same a few months ago for someone's birthday present, bought the person an iRiver T10 and filled it with his favorite tunes. He was thrilled with the gift as I'm sure your Dad will be as well! Don't forget podcasts if you think your Dad might be interested. Soooo many podcasts that you're bound to find some in subjects that interest him.

Step666 · #3 (**permalink**) December 21st, 2006, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShyAnne

their reaction is a little like discovering fire for the first time.

The problem comes when you can't get the dead cow to cook using just your DAP...

Nice review, sounds like an ok player, would be interested to play with one and compare it to my Nano at some point.

ShyAnne · #4 (**permalink**) December 23rd, 2006, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Step666

The problem comes when you can't get the dead cow to cook using just your DAP...

Good point. 'Course one of those laptops with the hot battery issues would function quite nicely. Maybe they could release a cookbook ... "Laptop Battery Cuisine" ... "Fine Dining with Your Laptop"?

Step666 · #5 (**permalink**) December 23rd, 2006, 12:49 PM

lmao

Touché.

Yggdrassilious · #6 (**permalink**) January 20th, 2007, 09:17 PM

I wasn't so thrilled with the sansa lil' monsta... The killer for me was the fact that it DOES NOT support any, and I mean, ANY Asian characters. I have a large number of songs that are in French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean (and of course French and Spanish are not Asian but I just thought that I'd point that out to brag about my diversity...) I called the tech/customer service whatever dude, and the reply was simply that SanDisk players do not support my culture and NEITHER do they plan to release updates that would support it in the future.

Seriously, racism is just everywhere. Well I know who are not going to buy any SanDisck players - my approaching-2-billion brothers and sisters.

On a sidenote, the sound quality was okay but if you listen intently you could hear system noise when skipping between tracks. Very, very annoying indeed.

Step666 · #7 (**permalink**) January 21st, 2007, 01:30 AM

It's not racist if Sandisk can't be bothered supporting languages like Chinese, Japanese or Korean - lazy yes, but not racist.

**BBD** · #8 (**permalink**) January 21st, 2007, 06:36 AM

SanDisk's decision to support/not support Asian characters is no more racist than iRiver's decision to get out of the HD-DAP market. Both companies made those as purely business decisions, nothing more. As I understand it, there are numerous DAP manufacturers well-established in the Asian markets (to say nothing of the endless varieties of Chinese knock/rip-offs) that would seem to make it difficult for a relatively new brand to gain any serious foothold there. Even the seemingly ubiquitous 'pod has difficulty with market penetration there, despite the marketing and hype.

There's enough real oppression in the world (Darfur, anyone? ...anyone...?) without having to jump to conclusions. And whining that lack of support for certain markets (however large that potential market might be) for a goddam gadget is racist when there's genocide going on right now makes my "Righteous Indignation" meter register off the friggin' charts..

BBD

P.S. Back OT: I thought that was a very good summation of the player. I bought one for the 11 y/o for Xmas and must say it's a great little device, especially for the price. An excellent value. I may hafta look at SanDisk's new one, too.

**Jenny** · #9 (**permalink**) January 21st, 2007, 02:27 PM

Indeed, a nice summary. I've never considered Sandisk before because I'm so used to buying my SD cards from them that I never considered them seriously as a DAP manufacturer, but the more I hear about them the more I think that maybe I should.

Did your dad like the player, gorcorps?

**musichound** · #10 (**permalink**) January 21st, 2007, 02:38 PM

Thread moved to Sandisk sub forum.

gorcorps · #11 (**permalink**) January 22nd, 2007, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jenny

Indeed, a nice summary. I've never considered Sandisk before because I'm so used to buying my SD cards from them that I never considered them seriously as a DAP manufacturer, but the more I hear about them the more I think that maybe I should.

Did your dad like the player, gorcorps?

He did, and now knows how to rip and sync on his own so I don't have to deal with it anymore

He really likes the big center button and the good grip you get on the scroll wheel, cuz he has big hands/fingers. He says it's pretty easy to use with gloves on at work and stuff too, so that's a plus.

cheetah65 · #12 (**permalink**) February 18th, 2007, 09:26 AM

My friend has an E250 and seeing that hes not the most tech savvy, i helped him out when he got a nice little microSD card for it. It was very confusing because the card actually shows up seperately from the device, and the sad thing is that it now has to do a full database refresh every time he starts up the player because it has to check the card. Its only about 30-45 sec. but it gets annoying. All in all, my friend thinks it was a well spent 125$

mantekka · #13 (**permalink**) March 22nd, 2007, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gorcorps

FILE TRANSFERS:
You can select UMS or MTP on the fly in the options.

Yo, does this mean you gotta go through 3rd party software to transfer folders or can you get XP to show it as a removable disk?
That's what I love about my h120 that you can just drag and drop albums on.

Gonna get a e280 as secondary more portable player, just wanna check this first.

Still love my h120 with rockbox tho!

**BBD** · #14 (**permalink**) March 22nd, 2007, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mantekka

Yo, does this mean you gotta go through 3rd party software to transfer folders or can you get XP to show it as a removable disk?
That's what I love about my h120 that you can just drag and drop albums on.

Well, you can if you want, but why? It's drag-n-drop....

XDeathLoRdz · #15 (**permalink**) March 22nd, 2007, 08:35 AM

Yep , pretty good little player. My friends has it and they showing me how good it is. But they have to admit that my e10 was still far better. The only thing that i found it was greater then my e10 was the screen , bigger in size .

**BBD** · #16 (**permalink**) March 22nd, 2007, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XDeathLoRdz

My friends has it and they showing me how good it is. But they have to admit that my e10 was still far better.

In what aspects? I've never seen an E10 in the flesh, as it were, so I'd be very interested in the comparison.

s_mcflurry · #17 (**permalink**) March 22nd, 2007, 10:36 AM

The Sansa was actually the player I tried right before coming upon the clix. Although the price was right and the sound quality was good, two things killed it for me: the scroll wheel and the font.

The scroll wheel is..."embossed" (geez, I can't think of the word right now...it sticks up)...and around the scroll wheel are the 4 keys - the scroll wheel actually interferes with key usage. Now, I don't have fat hands or anything and I like to think that I have fairly good thumb dexterity

but the scroll wheel bothered me. It was clear they were trying to emulate the iPod's interface and was failing; much less elegant.

The menu fonts (save for the root menu) would dynamically respace themselves. For example, "Beck" would be spaced nicely while "Red Hot Chilli Peppers" would be all scrunched up to fit the window. So, some fonts would look like Arial Black while others would look like Arial.

These are nit-picky points, I know, but they were enough to make me return it.

michelle · #18 (**permalink**) May 6th, 2007, 06:01 PM

We purchased a Sansa e250 and a Sansa e280. The e250 stopped working after 3 weeks. We got our money back and replaced it with a Toshiba S30.

I think the e200 series has good sound quality. They are fairly compact and easy to carry around. The screen was a lot clearer than I expected. They show up fingerprint marks easy on the back of the player.

I think they should have came with a wall charger. I don't like charging stuff with a USB cable.

ShyAnne · #19 (**permalink**) May 6th, 2007, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelle

I think they should have came with a wall charger. I don't like charging stuff with a USB cable.

Is there a wall charger available for the e200 series (as a separate purchase), or is it USB charging only? If USB-only that could be less convenient for frequent travelers.

Step666 · #20 (**permalink**) May 6th, 2007, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelle

I think they should have came with a wall charger. I don't like charging stuff with a USB cable.

Same could be argued of a lot of players nowadays.
But that's just the way it is - they give you the bare minimum.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShyAnne

Is there a wall charger available for the e200 series (as a separate purchase), or is it USB charging only? If USB-only that could be less convenient for frequent travelers.

There's no such thing as a USB-only player (from a charging perspective).
There are generic USB chargers available that allow you to effectively plus a USB cable into the mains - this for example.

ShyAnne · #21 (**permalink**) May 12th, 2007, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Step666

There's no such thing as a USB-only player (from a charging perspective).
There are generic USB chargers available that allow you to effectively plus a USB cable into the mains - this for example.

Yeah, there are those. But I would strongly suggest anyone be careful with generic wall chargers. Have read more than one sad story about players being fried from generic wall chargers that said they were the correct voltage.

Most recent one (read elsewhere)was somebody's kid managed to fry his Cowon A2 with a generic charger that was indeed marked with the correct voltage, but apparently it wasn't. It's tough finding out the hard way.