SanDisk Sansa e280 MP3 Player

Product Introduction:

The SanDisk Sansa e280 is a sleek MP3 player with all the basic facilities available in modern day MP3 players and also has numerous other special features.

Design and Features:

SanDisk Sansa e280's has a 1.8-inch display screen. Below that we have a mechanical, tactile click wheel. We have the four player control buttons surrounding the click wheel and on the right bottom we have the menu button which also functions as power button. We have a record button on the left side. On the right side we have a Micro SD slot and a dock connector at the bottom. On the top of the device we have the headphone jack, a microphone hole and a hold switch.

The menu setup is somewhat similar to Sony products with separate icons for Music, Video, Photo, FM Radio, settings and Voice. There is a time and battery indicator at the bottom. We also have a fully developed music library.

On the main playback screen we could always view album art in thumbnail format and track information. We have a fully customizable EQ set and file formats like MP3, WMA DRM 10 and WAV are supported. And then comes the traditional set of extras like FM tuner and voice recorder with microphone.

Considering the images JPEG and BMP file formats are supported for photos and MPEG-4, WMV, DivX file formats are supported for videos. However most of the video formats needs to be converted first into 15fps MJPEG format which is done by the built in SanDisk Media Converter.

Specifications:

Available colors: Black

Supported operating systems: Windows

Connectivity: USB: 2.0

USB 2.0 ports quantity: 1

Storage capacity: 8 GB

Compatible memory cards: microSD

Player media type: Flash memory

Storage type(s): Built-in Flash Drive, Micro Secure Digital

Display: 1.8" TFT LCD, unknown colors, with backlight

Audio support file formats: MP3, WMA

Video support file formats: MJPEG

Photo support file formats: JPG

Package contains: Earphones, USB Cable, Carrying Case, Carrying Strap

Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR): 90 dB

Record modes : Voice recording

Equalizer: Built-in

Speakers: Built-in

Microphone: Built-in

Radio: FM radio

Bit rate: 128 kbps

Battery life: 20 hours

Battery type(s): Li-ion

Performance:

Performance wise we could rate SanDisk Sansa e280 as good. There are numerous features which are excellent and so many features which need improvement. The display screen is large and wide but it could have had better resolution as the images with high color contrast do not look quite good on this screen.

The menu is easy to use but the click wheel is not so good in performance. It is hard to get used to scrolling this. Coming to video and picture display the image and the picture quality do compromise with the low resolution of the screen. Transferring data is made simple and the sound quality is exceptional. The memory slot could be expanded up to 10 GB. The battery life is also quite acceptable with 20 hours.

The Good:

There are numerous desirable features in SanDisk Sansa e280. The main highlights are the sleek look, easy to use interface and useful built in software and easily customizable EQ’s. Excellent quality audio and video with reasonable battery life is another advantage. Apart from this extendable memory card slot is also a good feature.

The Bad:

The scroll wheel is a bit hard to get used to. The display screen should have better resolution. The expansion slot could be used only for music. Voice could be recorded only in WAV format. The controls are slightly hard to use.

The Bottom Line:

SansDisk Sansa e280 is a good device with many features. Considering the overall performance there is nothing much to complain but there are lot of suggestive improvements. Though not the best product available in market with this price tag it is definitely a worthy product.

Rating: 3 star rating ***

3 Stars (Good):

A product with 3 star rating has strengths that outweigh its weaknesses. Users should be aware that this product has some minor faults that should be taken into consideration.