NOTE: I give the player itself (5) five stars, but the software and documentation problems forced me to give it a (3) three star rating. I would however still recommend it the e260, if you are familiar with MP3 files and music metadata and Windows Explorer you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting the most from this awesome little player.

 

There are hundreds of different MP3 players on the market today. Of course as we all know the Apple iPod has the vast majority of the MP3 market. However, there are other options available that are just as good or even better. For me one of the big downsides to the Apple iPod is that it is very proprietary, you get what Apple wants to give you and that’s it. I prefer an MP3 player that is more open, one that uses standard formats. The SanDisk Sansa e260 is just such an MP3 player.

 

The Sansa e260 is a 4GB flash memory player that can play MP3 files as well as Microsoft WMA files. It can also display video and photos on the color screen after you convert them using the included conversion software. Besides that it includes an FM tuner that you can record from and it includes voice recording capabilities. All of this in a unit that is about 1-3/4-inches wide, 3-1/2-inches tall and 1/2-inch thick. The full color high resolution screen is 1.8-inches in size and is very clear and easy to read though like many LCD screens on portable devices this one can be a bit hard to see in bright sunlight.

 

The unit comes with a user replaceable lithium ion battery for up to 20 hours of battery life (battery life based on continuous, standard playback, 128 Kb MP3 file). The unit does of course support higher quality MP3 and WMA files though that will affect your battery life. I tend to go with 192 Kb files to my ears I can’t notice any difference between them and 320Kb file. The other thing to keep in mind the higher the quality of your files the fewer you will get on the e260.

 

As I mentioned you can view images and video on the e260 but they have to be converted to a proprietary format. While I do consider this to be a weakness in the player the iPod also requires a proprietary format or rather a proprietary flavor of a standard format. However, my big problem is that the conversion software that comes with the e260 doesn’t seem to like large AVI for MPG files and I have as of yet to get a large file converted by large I mean TV show length or movie length. Photos however don’t seem to be a problem as long as they are JPG. The only real use I can see for putting photos on the e260 is if you want to use it like a mini-photo album to show people your kids, pets, etc. Since there is no way to off load images from your digital camera in to the e260 without a laptop or desktop computer to first convert the images I see this feature as a not so useful one.

 

The FM tuner is pretty good. You can save presets to get to your favorite FM stations quickly. It does use the headphone cord for the antenna so if you are not using the headphones the reception is more limited. Why would you use the e260 without head phones? Well, there are separate speakers available for the e260 (some of these also provide an antenna, usually internal) so you can use it like a mini home stereo. Also the FM is recorded in a simple .WAV file so playback and editing is not a problem.

 

The voice recording can come in handy for interviews, recording class notes and the like. You can play them back on the unit, save them, erase them, etc. You can also transfer them to your desktop or laptop computer for playback there. Even with several dozen songs on the unit I could record over 4 hours of voice. The voice is recorded as a simple .WAV file so playback and editing is very easy using almost any media player or audio editor.

 

For managing your music files you have a couple of options. You can use the included Real Networks Rhapsody software that comes with the unit. This will let you buy music online, upload it and help you get music you already have on to the Sansa. Or, you can use Microsoft Media Player to do it or if you want you can use Windows Explorer to copy files to the unit like it was a small 4GB hard drive. This is the method I choose to use, I find it easier and less messy.

 

If you want to take advantage of the various ways the Sansa will allow you to access the music on the unit you need to make sure that the metadata in your audio files is correct. This way you can play your songs by album, artist, genre, etc. For this I recommend a very nice program called Easy CD-DA Extractor. Besides allowing you to edit the metadata, it also provides features for batch processing of CD tracks and conversion of audio files from one format to another so getting your existing music CDs and collection on to the Sansa is a snap. It also can create audio CDs and more. It really is a very nice program.

 

I didn’t spent much time with Rhapsody, I am not a big fan of Real Networks, it isn’t because their software or anything is bad per say it’s just that they tend to install a bunch of junk you don’t want and Rhapsody nags you to death about setting up an account for buying music. I don’t like being pressured or bullied which is how I felt when I loaded Rhapsody. If you want to use a program to manage your music Windows Media Player for me is a better option. But, I still prefer using Windows Explorer and Easy CD-DA Extractor.

 

This brings me to my biggest complaint about the Sansa players and SanDisk. This unit comes with what has to be the world’s most useless documentation. Not only do they not include in-depth instructions on how to use Rhapsody with it (this is the software they included with it) they don’t include any information on using Windows Media Player or Windows Explorer other than to tell you it is possible. They don’t talk about converting music files to the needed formats, how to create playlists other than the default one that is on the player or even if you can have more than one playlist, since they call it “playlists” plural then I assume you can have more than one otherwise they should call it playlist. I also found getting this information from SanDisk support impossible. No matter how many times I asked for clarification or even basic instructions on any of these things I never got it. What I learned about the metadata for your music files and how to use Windows Explorer I learned from hours of trial and error. The single most important thing I learned was how to use the file metadata to control how the music is listed and played.

 

Since I don’t really care about finding music by artist and since a lot of the CDs I converted to MP3 have various arts I went in and set the album name and the album artist to the same thing. As an example for my album Journey Frontiers I set the album and artist to Journey Frontiers. I do with so that when I go in to the album or artist listing I can find what I am looking for. Now if you only have albums with all the same artists on it then feel free to use the artist metadata as it supposed to be. Also, it is important that the metadata track number be in the order you want them to be played in. I wanted mine to match the order that they played on the CD, which made it easier as the conversion process with Easy CD-DA Extractor pulled all of this information as well as cover images off the internet.

 

It is my opinion that if SanDisk really wants to take on Apple, then they need better documentation and yes better software. Once I figured out how to get my music on the unit and in a way that would let me use the Album, Artist, genre options of the unit I love it. It is a very nice little player with a good screen and a very nice set of features. I wish I was able to get larger MPG and AVI files converted to go on it, but that isn’t what I wanted an MP3 player for.

 

Charging the unit is easy. Simply connect it to the USB docking cable and you can not only transfer files to and from the unit it charges the unit at the same time. Many of the add-on speakers and docking stations that are available for the Sansa will also charge it and allow you to transfer files.

 

I have read many comments from owners of the Sansa about how poor the buttons and controls on the unit is. I have to disagree. I think they are just fine. Yes, the outside ring of buttons are small, but then so is the unit itself. People need to decided if they want small size or big buttons, I don’t think it fair to expect both. This unit is much smaller than the hard drive based iPods and I think a bit smaller than the iPod shuffle though I didn’t have access to one to compare. The Sansa is small however. It offers some very nice music related features including shuffle playback, track and album repeat, and it even has an equalizer with presets and a custom option for fine tuning music playback.

 

Outside of the documentation and the lack of good software I like the e260 and I would by another one. I think SanDisk needs feedback from users and they need to listen to what users are saying and even what reviewers are saying. If they don’t then they like many other MP3 players will fall in to one of the nitch categories.

 

There have been at least three firmware upgrades since I got my e260 and each one has made things better. So I do think SanDisk is going to do what they can to make the units better, easier and more powerful. Now if they would just do some good documentation and include better software with less focus on selling user’s music and more on using and converting what the user already has that would be great. After all you can buy music from any number of online music stores, we don’t need one crammed down our throats. They need to be more open about what they support, this is the one area where Apple is very bad, they want control and that control comes in the form of proprietary software and heavily copy protected formats. Never a good idea.

 

To update the firmware you need to download the auto-update software from the SanDisk web site. This software once installed will detect you plugging the Sansa in to the computer and then if you set it to do so check for new firmware. I did have problems getting this to work reliably. After installing the auto-update software it did go and check for new firmware. However, days later when I connected the Sansa back to my computer the auto-update didn’t come up and the only way I could get it to work was by uninstalling it and reinstalling it. It is also important that USB mode on the Sansa be set to a specific mode, which I had mine in the several times I tried to get the auto-update to detect the Sansa, it didn’t help.

 

The “e” series players include a microSD expansion slot. However out side of this feature being mentioned on the site I saw nothing offered by SanDisk that used this and there is no indication if you have a digital camera that uses the microSD cards if you can then transfer the image from it to the Sansa. Just another example of very poor documentation. I do think having this slot is good and at some point I hope be used for something. They also mention Gruvi content cards, but could find none of the SanDisk site and very little is said in the documentation. I can only assume that these “Gruvi” cards are cards that come with music pre-installed. However, that is only a guess.