Digital Home Thoughts: A Different Viewpoint: The SanDisk Sansa View

Product Category: MP3/Video Player
Manufacturer: Sandisk
Where to Buy: Amazon [Affiliate]
Price: Starts at $129 USD for 8GB model
Specifications: Please refer to the Sandisk website

Pros:

• Excellent sound quality;
• Large, bright and crisp screen;
• Expandable memory;
• Works with subscription music services like Rhapsody;
• Great value.

Cons:

• Not the smallest player out there;
• Videos have a slight green cast;
• Supports only .jpg photo format.

Summary:
In the minds of many people, the name iPod is synonymous with MP3 player. But savvy consumers know that there are many excellent alternatives. One such alternative is the Sansa View by Sandisk. This flash player is designed to provide a good measure of the features of the hard drive-based iPod Classic at prices that compete with the iPod Nano. Can lots of features at an affordable price make up for the lack of the iconic iPod name?

Is There Life After iPod?
Eponyms. Most of us use them every day. That’s when a particular product of a type becomes so prominent that its name is used to describe all products of that type. Among the most commonly used ones are Kleenex for facial tissue and Band-Aids for bandages.

I suppose that it’s a testimony to Apple’s marketing skills that the iPod brand is approaching eponym status among digital audio players. And to be fair, it’s not just marketing hype… iPods in general are well designed, innovative and attractive. But despite their market dominance, iPods aren’t perfect and that leaves some room for other companies to compete.

Sandisk is one of those companies. At the time of writing this review, Sandisk is the #2 selling brand of digital audio players… a distant second to Apple, but second nonetheless. Sandisk’s Sansa line competes by offering features not available in iPods, and by pricing players much lower than iPods with similar specs. The Sansa View is one of their most recently introduced players. Let's take a look...

An iPod Point of “View”

Figure 1: A View with lots of room... up to 32GB!

The View is designed as an all purpose digital media player. It supports music, video, FM radio, podcasts, audiobooks and more. Based on its functionality and specs, the View competes most directly with the the iPod Classic. They’re similar in size, with large screens and larger storage capacity than the Nano 3G. The Classic uses a hard drive as opposed to the View’s flash storage. So the View with the largest built-in capacity (32GB) is just under half of the smallest capacity Classic. But the View compensates by being just over half the weight of the Classic and by offering removable storage (SDHC).


Figure 2: Specs for the View and some of its competition.

Pricewise, the View competes more with the Nano 3G. The Nano is shorter and thinner but wider than the View and just over 1 oz. lighter. While both have screens with 320x240 resolution, the View’s is larger with a 2.4” size vs. the Nano’s 2” size. The smallest capacity View (8GB) equals the largest capacity Nano, and the largest View has 4 times the capacity of the largest Nano.

The View is similar in design to the second generation Zune flash-based models. The Zune is smaller and lighter but with its largest capacity model being the equal of the smallest capacity View. The Zune also has a 0.6” smaller screen and no removable storage.

The View has the candy bar shape of the previous generation iPod Nanos and the current generation Zune 4G/8G. Unlike the iPods and like the Zune, the View sports a display with portrait orientation. This allows the View to have a screen nearly as large as that of the iPod Classic with its landscape screen orientation, while being almost .5” narrower. A mechanical jog wheel is positioned below the screen.


Figure 3: Nothing much on the back...

The back of the View has no controls or displays. It has a matte coating that resists fingerprints and makes it less slippery than the shiny plastic or chrome on other units.


Figure 4: Power switch and microphone are on the left side.

The left side sports the microphone and the combination power/hold switch. To turn the View on, slide the power switch up and release. To turn it off, slide the power switch up and hold it until the control highlights go out and release. To reset, slide the switch up and hold for about 10 seconds.


Figure 5: One of the View's biggest advantages, the microSD slot, is on the right side.

The right side has the slot for the removable storage. The View uses microSD and microSDHC cards, the latter having a maximum capacity of 32GB, or at least they will. At that point, you would be able to have a View with a capacity of 64MB, or 80% of the capacity of the hard drive based 80GB iPod Classic.


Figure 6: The bottom, with the headphone jack and proprietary synch/charge connector. Thin, but not "Nano" thin.

The bottom of the View has its charge/synch connector and the headphone jack. The connector is proprietary, but it is the same connector that was used in earlier high end Sansa models like the E200 series. So if you’re upgrading and you’ve purchased extra cables for work, etc., they can be used here. The headphone jack is the widely used 3.5mm. The top has no controls.


Figure 7: Another Nano comparison.

Figures 6 & 7 also include a comparison with the iPod Nano 3G. The Nano is certainly thin, although the View is hardly what I’d classify as thick.