And the record industry wonders why consumers loathe DRM? That extra time isn't the end of the world, but it took upwards of an hour to fill up a 4GB Sansa e260 with DRM'd music. I was able to transfer DRM'd Rhapsody To Go tracks over to the player with minimal effort - the only annoyance was that it would take about seven minutes to transfer 100 tracks over to the player, three times longer than it would during a straight drag-and-drop. To be fair, most of the time everything worked perfectly fine. I tested the e260 with Rhapsody To Go and found that player-software integration still has some kinks to be worked out. Here's the not-so-good news: if you want to take advantage of the e200's PlaysForSure support and listen to DRM'd music, including those of subscription-based services like Napster To Go, Yahoo Music Unlimited, and Rhapsody To Go, you're in for some frustration. These transfers were a snap I was able copy over 100 MP3s (about 400MB) in 2 minutes and 21 seconds. I was a little nervous about well the e200 would fare going into this review, and the results here are a mixed bag.įirst, the good news: the e200 supports USB mass storage, so if you want you can just drag-and-drop your tunes onto the player (for smaller capacity players, drag-and-drop is usually the quickiest and easiest way to handle transfers).
#SANSA SANDISK MANUAL SOFTWARE#
Poor software integration has been the downfall of many a promising MP3 player. Pressing the center Select Button while you're listening to a song toggles the display between the amount of time the song has left, a graphic EQ, album art, and a listing for whatever song is next up in the queue. Volume is adjusted by turning the scroll wheel. Pressing the Submenu button (the one below the scroll wheel) when you're listening to music takes you into menu where you can find options to Repeat, Shuffle, EQ, Rate This Song, Scan Through Song, Add Song to Go List, and Back to Music List. It takes a little while to catch some of the tricks, but the UI itself is nice and snappy there's absolutely no sluggishness at all. The main menu is an icon-based list of options (Music, FM Radio, Photo, Settings, Voice, and Video) and navigating sub-menus is fairly straightforward. We all know how bad it can get, but the user interface on the e260 is surprisingly good. There are two additional controls on the player, a Hold switch along the top next to the headphone jack and a dedicated Record button for voice recordings. The Play/Pause button is also awkwardly placed along the top of the scroll wheel where it can be a little difficult to press SanDisk should have put it on the bottom like with the iPod or made the button larger. Having the power button pull double-duty as a menu button is probably a mistake I know I've been trained to resist pressing any button with the universal power symbol on it unless I want to turn something on or off, and several times I've switched off the player when I actually wanted to exit to the main menu. There are six buttons on the front of the player, four surrounding the scroll wheel (Up/Play/Pause, Right/Forward, Left/Previous/Rewind, and Down/Submenu), a center Select Button, and a power button which confusingly also doubles as a main menu button (instead of opening a submenu it takes you all the way back the main page of the UI). The wheel itself is plasticky and feels like the only part of the player that won't be able to stand up to a little wear and tear (not that I've experienced any problems with it so far). The tactility of the mechanical wheel is nice, and it even glows blue when you're using it (which is also a nice, albeit pointless, touch).
#SANSA SANDISK MANUAL SERIES#
Yes, the players in the e200 series have scroll wheels - no touch-sensitive pads here - but this is a mechanical scroll wheel reminiscent of the wheel on the original 1G iPod (which, for whatever reason, still has a lot of fans). Hardly a deal killer when you're talking about gadgets that are this small - unless you absolutely have to have the thinnest player around, that is. the nano's 3.5-inches by 1.6-inches), but the e260 is nearly twice as thick (0.52-inches vs. It's also just about the same length and width as the nano (3.5-inches by 1.74-inches vs. The e260's design reminiscent of the nano, right down to the glossy black finish and the scroll wheel. For starters, SanDisk doesn't deny that they're going straight after the nano with this one. They've still got some cheapies in their line up, but the e200 series signals a new direction for the Sansa line. Until now SanDisk's Sansa line has aimed squarely for the low-end of the market, with a succession of clunky, uninspired, no-frills flash-based players designed to appeal to budget-conscious consumers.