20050629

SanDisk's Sansa e130 Reviewed


Here's my review of the SanDisk Sansa. After seeing the beautiful screen, I hope it will start to erode into Apple Shuffle sales.
SanDisk’s Sansa e130 is a strong entry in this ultra crowded market segment. With very adjustable music settings, organization by artist and genre, and an integrated SD slot, folks will be well served by this music player. Add in a very readable screen, and an intuitive interface, and SanDisk has a real winner on their hands. This is the first MP3 player to be “LD Approved,” and it is awarded without reservation to this noteworthy device. When compared to an iPod Mini with no screen, minimal adjustments, and a nonreplaceable battery, the Sansa stands out even more.


Read another opinion here.
Usability matters a lot with a portable player. The main buttons are large and on the front of the casing, with a wheel for volume control and scrolling through lists on the upper right edge, and a hold button on the left edge. It is pretty ergonomic and the screen displays enough information about the current track to be useful.


Also, take a look at Futurelook's review.
At Futurelooks, we get a lot of MP3 players across our desks. Some of them are really great. Some of them kinda suck. Things that I've always whined and complained about are the poor quality headphones that most players come with and the lack of expansion through some sort of memory slot. Well, it looks like we found something that might fit the bill. Sandisk, makers of all sorts of Flash Memory products got into the business of MP3 players a little while ago. Since then, they've made some changes along the way, and their latest series, the e1xx, shows a continuing evolution of their growing MP3 product category. I think they were just paying attention to our reviews, and keeping their ears open.

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