SanDisk Sansa e280 (8GB)

9 out of 10 - Spectacular
Much better with the latest firmware update
I had the E270 player for 3 months, and sold it for this.

I am much happier since the last

...
I had the E270 player for 3 months, and sold it for this.

I am much happier since the last firmware upgrade to this system. The original audio settings seemed to have been designed for a dog or a human with preternaturally good hearing, but the addition of a 5-band EQ, full base and full treble have been great.

This is a gorgeous machine, and while it shows fingerprints quite easily, it does resist scratching, and the 1.8" screen is very sharp and clear, and is still very readable in strong light. I like the FM radio, which has reception on-par with the cowans and i-rivers of the world. The only things that are a little annoying are the fact that recording is only in WAV, and you have to pray you don't lose the proprietary USB plug.

On the newer player, little bothersomes that I had on the e270 like popping between tracks and random screen blackouts have seemingly gone away.

Though not necessary, the micro-sd slot did win me cool points with my friends. I consider the fact that you can only put music on it a mere quibble - it is primarily an mp3 player, after all.

Before the firmware upgrade, I would have rated this a solid 7. Now that my major issues have been resolved, I think this could be - dare I say it - the I-pod hurter (I doubt the I-pod gets killed by anyone). Read more
by itdefender (see profile) - August 29, 2006

22 out of 22 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 comments posted to this opinion

9 out of 10 - Spectacular
After a year I give a 9/10, or even up it to a 10/10. It?s great!
I've had the Sansa e280 since the end of September 2006. Unlike so many other users, mine worked out ...
I've had the Sansa e280 since the end of September 2006. Unlike so many other users, mine worked out of the box, no problems, surprises, melt-downs, frustrations, or disappointments. I was ready for all that, but everything worked fine - and still does. I guess it's just the luck of the draw. From reading other reviews it becomes obvious that quality control has been a sore point in the whole e200 series, as has been the firmware. SanDisk rushed this product to market before it was ready. However, having said all this - I love my e280. I use it every day for hours at a time, almost entirely for listening to music - classical music. I have roughly 130 full CD's on this unit; I can select whichever one I want, as well as whatever track I want. All the tracks are in order, the albums are listed in alphabetical order, and spinning the wheel makes it extremely easy - and fast - to find and select the desired music. The colour screen is bright and well-defined, very easy to see. The 5-band equalizer makes the music sound the way I want it to - just right! There is a choice of two loudness levels in the settings section; I have mine on "high" and I have all the volume I need, and then some. I do not use the ear plugs supplied - I haven't even tried them; I use a Koss KSC 55 behind-the-head phones for superior sound, especially bass. I keep the e280 in my front shirt pocket, and there are no scratches or broken screen. The 4 buttons situated around the wheel are small, but my extra-large fingers have no trouble depressing them - these same large fingers are always hitting two keys on the computer keyboard at the same time.

The FM radio works very well, too. Since the reception depends on the length of the antenna, which is the headphone cord, the longer the cord, the better the reception. I can receive stations 60 or 70 miles away, and the presets make it very easy to get from one station to the other. I listen to the FM radio a lot, and having it for me is a big plus in this unit.

The photo option also works well; you have to use the included Sansa Media Converter, which was relatively painless. Of course, looking at photos on a 2X2 screen is not the optimum way of viewing them, but again the screen is very clear and all the colours are there. I have about 20 photos stored in the e280, and I show them to friends - a slide show presentation is possible, where each photo is displayed for about ten seconds before the next one is shown automatically.

Videos do not interest me; the one that comes pre-loaded (with sound) is very clear and easy to watch, but again on a 2X2 screen it's not a maximum effect!

You can record either voice or off the FM radio; quality is not very good, and uses up a lot of memory space. I stay away from recording, but it's a nice addition, especially the voice recording.

There is an expansion slot for a micro (not mini) SD card, currently available in 1 and 2 GB sizes. This card shows up as a separate drive on "My Computer", and can be loaded either via a USB card reader or via the e280 when hooked up to the computer.

There are two USB settings on this unit; I keep mine on the Mass Storage Device and simply drag and drop folders into the appropriate icon in "My Computer" - not only is it very easy, this unit is the fastest USB 2 I have ever seen - where it takes 3 minutes to transfer an 80MB file via an SD card reader, the same file will take only 20 seconds when the e280 itself is hooked up via its USB cable. In mass storage mode the e280 and the micro SD each appears as a separate drive in "My Computer".

Out of the box this unit comes with the e280, ear plugs, a cloth carrying case, a USB cable, a CD for software (such as Sansa Media Converter) and information on the Sansa music download programme. One source of irritation is the lack of a recharger - the e280 has a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that is recharged through the USB cable. Most computer USB ports are not powered when the computer is turned off; unless you keep your computer on 24/7, charging becomes a problem. I went to Radio Shack and bought an AC USB charger for $20, which works very well. I also bought a 12-volt USB charger for use in the car. I've already bought a replacement battery kit even though I don't anticipate needing it for quite a while - but be prepared! I've opened the back of the unit via four little screws - it will take less than a minute to replace the battery.

The whole e-series utilizes a proprietary 30-connector plug to connect to a USB port, and currently no replacement or additional cables are available. They are said to be coming, but as with many SanDisk items, the announcement precedes the actuality by many many months. This all means that you have only one connecting cable to work with - don't loose it!

All the controls are very easy to use, and the unit as a whole is a delight to have. It has become my con

After 6 months Update: I still love it!
After six months of using the e280 every day for hours on end, I still feel the same way about this as before -- it's a great piece of technology, and I'm very lucky to own it. I've now gone to a 2GB micro SD card, and so have about 170 CD's on the e280 -- I have lots of choices in listening. There is one very unfortunate problem that I've encountered -- because of the 2GB card the unit takes about 5 minutes to "warm up" after turning it on; this is to catalogue the contents of the micro SD. Rather than wait, I figured out a trick to get around this -- I NEVER turn it off! When I get home, I put the player on "hold" and plug it into the AC USB charger I bought at Radio Shack, so when I go out with it again it's still on and all ready to use. Also, after six months daily use, no scratches, no problems, no broken screens. It's a good thing.

After a Year Update: It's been a whole year with my Sansa e280 - let's see how it's held up and performed. To begin with, there are no scratches back or front, the screen is still in one piece, even though I use it about 4 hours every day - without any protective case! Everything still works 100%, and I'm still very happy with it - this is a great piece of electronics. The battery still hasn't died - nor does it show any evidence of being weak. The unit is very user-friendly - and the best (and easiest) feature is the selector wheel. As written in my reviews above, this has an 8 gig flash memory, plus a 2 gig micro SD - and all 10 gigs are filled, with only 4 Mb unused. There is a total of 2114 files (songs).

About five months ago I began to notice that on some tracks the right or left channel would drop out, from a few seconds to almost half a track. It became worse and worse, until about 30% of my files were corrupted. At first I suspected the internal amplifier, but after listening only to the FM for a few days with no loss of right or left channel, I began to suspect that perhaps I'd had a few MP3 files recorded bad from my CD's. But I checked my MP3 files still on my computer hard drive, and they were OK. Also, the corrupted part always occurred at exactly the same place, down to the second. So it HAD to be the files contained in the Sansa. Oh oh! I was about to phone their tech support when I had a suspicion - which the more I thought about it, the more it seemed likely - although I would never have guessed in a thousand years that this could happen: Once when my Sansa was connected to my computer, I was defragging and saw the Sansa listed as a drive - so why not defragment both the internal memory and the micro SD - I had deleted lots of files and replaced them with others - surely there was reason to defrag. So I did - a few times over the next few months. That was my problem! The defrag process had left "blank spots" in minute places in the files - probably in the process of moving them. I only solved it by re-formatting both the internal 8 gig memory and also the 2 gig micro SD card. Of course, everything was wiped clean - it took me most of a day to re-load all my files (still on my computer hard drive) - but now I have absolutely no corrupted files, no dropped channels, especially in those that were corrupted.

So - DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT defrag your Sansa!

CONCLUSION: After a year I still give a 9/10, or even up it to a 10/10. It's great! Read more
by catrielb (see profile) - October 14, 2007

8 out of 8 users found this user opinion helpful.

7 out of 10 - Very good
Good Player but CNET failed to mention a few things.
IF ANY CNET EDITOR SEES THIS PLEASE READ IT! Why is is that in CNET reviews, so many of the ...
IF ANY CNET EDITOR SEES THIS PLEASE READ IT! Why is is that in CNET reviews, so many of the features that consumers want in mp3 players are not mentioned. Almost everyone I know wants removable batteries. And do you know how much of a drag it is that on the sandisk sansa e200 series, instead of an option to view all tracks instead of browse by artist, there is a PLAY ALL option which is completely useless! All it does is play the first track. So stupid! It is infuriating. I really wish I could be a member of a focus group for sandisk or creative or even CNET because there are so many basic things that are missing in todays mp3 players. On the go play lists cant be named also. Read more
by xanderk84 (see profile) - April 27, 2007

7 out of 7 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 comments posted to this opinion

8 out of 10 - Excellent
Best Flash MP3 Player for the Price
After about a year of looking for a good flash-based MP3 player I finally settled on the Sansa e280. I ...
After about a year of looking for a good flash-based MP3 player I finally settled on the Sansa e280. I am not a big fan of Apple and their iPod, but I almost got the Nano a while back. Luckily, I didn't, because this product is better in a number of ways.

First off, the price of the e280 at retail is the same as the 8GB Nano, but unlike the Nano its isn't nearly as static. Over the Internet I was able to find the e280 for 70 bucks less than the 8GB Nano. That is a great price for all the features this thing has.

Along with the ability to play music, you can view photos, listen to FM radio, and even watch videos. The video playback is fine for small clips, but I wouldn't want to watch a full length feature on the small screen. But the screen is very nice for everything else. At 1.8", this screen is crisp and brings a nice overall presentation to the player. The FM tuner is a really nice feature and it comes in perfectly for all the local stations I normally listen too. I do wish it had an AM tuner for some local sportscasts, but I am still impressed with the FM tuner.

If you do choose to put video onto your Sansa, it will have to be converted into an inefficient format using the software that comes packaged. Pictures also have to be converted using the same software.

When transferring songs you will have two options. You can either transfer them using a media player to sync the player, such as Windows Media Player 10. You can also set it to act like a standard storage device, which will allow you to drag and drop music files into the player manually. I prefer using WMP 10, but each to their own. It took me about 30 minutes or so to fill the whole player up the first time I used it, but in smaller volumes it takes little time to transfer files.

Other people have stated having trouble with the playlists, but I have had not problems so far. I have a few playlists that I've created in WMP and I just drag and drop them into the 'Sync' column and when I sync the player it transfers both the actual playlist and the music in it. You cannot create custom playlists within the player itself, which I can see could be an annoyance.

I really enjoy the tactile navigation wheel of the e280 and the buttons are fairly easy to use. I do have small hands and I can see how many people with larger hands might have trouble pressing the buttons or using the wheel smoothly. I don't see how someone's thumb could become tired using the wheel unless they have arthritis. It seems somewhat easy to move and once I got used to it I had no trouble navigating very smoothly (much easier than on iPod's in my opinion).

The Sansa is quite durable and has good battery life. The back is a matte metal and can be removed via four screws to replace the rechargeable battery, if necessary. The front is made of fairly durable plastic and is supposedly scratch resistant. I haven't tried testing out how scratch resistant it is, but you should be able to put it in your jean pockets without the protective case and not scratch it. Some people I've talk to never use the protective case and put it in their pockets with their keys and it still has not scratched. The plastic front attracts fingerprints fairly well, similar to that of a PSP. Using a tissue or some other soft cloth you should be able to have no problem cleaning it if it gets too grimy. The metal backing actually seems to show fingerprints easier, but still looks good at most angles even when its full of fingerprints.

Some other nice features are the expandable storage, voice and radio recording. The Sansa e280 can be expanded using microSD cards, currently up to 2GB. Unless there is a physical limitation (which there shouldn't be) it should be able to accept even larger sizes in the future. Here's hoping for cheap 8GB microSD card in a couple years

The voice and radio recording are nice add-ons, but not nearly perfected. They only record in WAV format and are not high in quality. It still works well for simple voice recordings and to get a snippet of that song on the radio you don't know the name of.

There is no AC adapter that comes in the package, so you'll have to use the proprietary USB cable to charge the player. This can be quite annoying if your computer doesn't give power to the USB ports while not on. Luckily, I have a Xbox 360 which charges it, while off, overnight.

Overall, I think the Sansa e280 is a very good deal and considerably better than the iPod Nano. There are a few things that could be fixed in the next iteration, but it seems the e280 is the best flash-based MP3 player on the market currently. I would definitely head over to your local electronics store and try any of the e200 series players out for yourself before making a definite decision. Read more
by jfowler27 (see profile) - December 19, 2006

4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 comment posted to this opinion

8 out of 10 - Excellent
Good Integration with Rhapsody
I bought this 8GB flash player primarily because it is designed to work easily with the Rhapsody service. At Rhapsody ...
I bought this 8GB flash player primarily because it is designed to work easily with the Rhapsody service. At Rhapsody you pay a monthly fee ($15 for music that's portable; $10 for music that is not) to "rent" music. The player works well with Rhapsody. I've loaded about 150 CDs worth of music onto it from Rhapsody and it works fine and sounds good. It also holds MP3s as well as photos and videos, which look fine on its small, but bright color screen. I have not had the computer freeze-up problems reported by others and I think the sound quality is fine. The build of the device is nice and the scrollweel works well. Highly recommended, especially to you Rhapsody users!

3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 comment posted to this opinion

10 out of 10 - Perfect
The users rating (at this time) doesn't do justice
This Sansa is such a great alternative to the iPod, and there's a reason it's picked up 15% ...
This Sansa is such a great alternative to the iPod, and there's a reason it's picked up 15% of market share thus far. Sandisk can offer their products cheaper than Apple because they produce their own memory. I paid $165 for this product, which is almost $100 less than the 8GB iPod Nano. Sound quality is great, and the added feature of being able to add MicroSD cards to increase memory in the future is a big plus. The casing is very scratch resistent (not as much smudge-resistent, though!).

I'm rating this a 10 to bypass some of the bias of the horrible ratings other people rated it. You CAN buy an extra USB adapter if you manage to lose the one they give you. You can also buy an AC adapter to plug it into the wall, but the USB power charger they give you is perfectly fine.

You can also change batteries if the included batteries fails after the 1 year warranty for any reason. That gives this player that much more life than others.

The battery itself lasts about a full 24-hours with constant use and practically indefinitely when turned off.

The entire player is thicker and a little heavier than the iPod, so it's a preference on if that really matters or not. For me, carrying it in my pocket makes it inconsequential. You can cycle through the songs from A-Z or Z-A, unlike the Nano, another nice feature.

There is a short lag between picking songs, but it's nothing like how critics make it out to be. It's similar to changing the channel on TV and waiting that brief pause when the sounds comes on. Nothing intolerable at all.

Don't buy this for photos and movies, though! The screen is only about 65,000 colors and not that great a resolution. It shows album art and song titles perfectly fine, but this is a music player, not a DVD player. Please keep that in mind.

Also nice is that not all the accessories are proprietary like the iPods, so you can buy the 3.5mm audio adapter to use on your stereo at home if you want, or (practically) any FM transmitter. Accessories are more difficult to find at stores, but go to amazon.com and you'll find more than you'd ever need, with free shipping and (most cases) no tax. So accessory shopping isn't a problem.

Again, all in all, it's a great player. Put this up there with the Zen V's and iPod Nano's of the industry. I'm so happy I bought it! Read more
by MAK1981 (see profile) - December 23, 2006

3 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

3 out of 10 - Poor
Nice while it worked
The unit was more or less what I expected out of the box. I was able to fill up the ...
The unit was more or less what I expected out of the box. I was able to fill up the 8gb flash much faster than my 5gb Zen Micro even thought about going. The system played music well, but that's where the fun ended. There is a noticeable pause when moving to the next track. It's at least 2-3 seconds before any action is responded to, whether it's changing the volume, etc.

Speaking of volume, it resets to the middle of the range when the unit is turned on. This is irritating as heck when you try to use it in the car.

There is no way to enqueue the next song you want to hear unless you great a "to go" playlist. Creating one isn't very user friendly either. Each song you want to add has to be played in order to be added.

Worst of all, I was using the unit on a two day trip when it suddenly displayed "Bad Track" in red. Now it's possible I may have had a bad MP3 file on there, but that's no excuse for the player to lockup. I had to hard reset it by holding the power button for 15 seconds. When it came back up, every song was saying bad track and then the player would lockup again. Rinse, repeat. I called SanDisk support who suggested I re-format and re-load my music again. That was it. I decided to exchange it for an Ipod Nano. Read more
by jeffs47 (see profile) - November 20, 2006

3 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
2 comments posted to this opinion

6 out of 10 - Good
Handsome but noisy, needs better noise reduction.
I got this, and was very very excited, and tried to live through the noise and small fuzz noise at ...
I got this, and was very very excited, and tried to live through the noise and small fuzz noise at low end, but alas I can't.

I don't know about you, but cnet shoud have caught on that, the 8.3 score is very high for a unit with as bad sound quality as this. They want an iPod killer right now. Folks, this is not it, but this unit form has a lot of potential. It's not the earphones which I have tried many. I have already returned mine (less than 3 days). Sticking with my old Sandisk 2GB. Read more
by Waam (see profile) - September 2, 2006

5 out of 9 users found this user opinion helpful.

6 out of 10 - Good
Good player - if only it wasn't so frustrating to get working properly
I was really expecting a lot from this device I suppose. i heard this was a rival to ipod and ...
I was really expecting a lot from this device I suppose. i heard this was a rival to ipod and not wanting to join the band wagon decided to purchase this. I had a M230 and loved it and figured this would set up and work just a easily. I have had this MP3 player for 3 days and so far have had nothing but trouble. My computer had a hard time recognizing it at first, after that got resolved it continues to cause my personal computer and 2 different friends' computers to freeze. Then, I finally got my computer to not freeze, but when transferring files on the Media player the Sansa would randomly disconnect during sync and I had to continually go back and either add songs in 10 song incriments or allow it to freeze a little and then quit transferring. One good thing through all this is that San Disk's customer support has been fabulous and because of this I will continue to try to get it to work properly. Now that I have my library and a few pictures on my player it sounds good, is easy to use, and better picture quality then I expected, but I wanted to inform other potential users that I have had a very difficult time getting it set up and working properly.

2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 comment posted to this opinion

9 out of 10 - Spectacular
Touchdown Sansa!
About the size of a small candy bar cell phone, this little unit is fantastic. Unhappy with my last MP3 ...
About the size of a small candy bar cell phone, this little unit is fantastic. Unhappy with my last MP3 player, I made sure to do plenty of research before choosing and boy am I glad I did. The majority of the reviews on CNET were dead on accurate. Thanks to all who took the 5 minutes to inform.

The Sansa E280 is a tad bit larger then I wanted, although, the ease of operation, good sound quality, adequate capacity, and PHYSICAL buttons to push more then make up for the small inconvenience of the weight/size. I would recommend springing for the neoprene belt clip protective case though as it may be a bit cumbersome to wear this with the lanyard around your neck for any extended period of time.

While this guy has the options for photos and even video playback, I stick the theory that the jack of all trades is the master of none. Hence, this was primarily designed for the purpose of audio playback and I will review it as such. The option to install a micro SD card and DOUBLE that's right, DOUBLE the capacity to 16 Gigs made this the clear cut winner in my book. I was especially pleased to learn upon installing the memory expansion card that in Win XP the Sansa is split into phsyical memory and extended, so I know exactly what goes on the card. This makes card swapping later for particular music a breeze since I'm a organizational freak and want rock/metal on one card and rap/hip-hop on another.

In an effort to cut costs, the ear-buds that come with the unit are less then desireable, although, they do get the job done. When you have the loot though it's well worth picking up a decent head set.

All in all, I am 100% satisfied with my purchase and would highly recommend this to anyone in the market for a sturdy, well engineered, decent capacity flash drive. I will be returning to Sansa for my MP3 player needs in the future, gaurenteed. Read more
by fornever1 (see profile) - May 30, 2008

1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.