- Sleek, ultra-thin digital audio/image/video player with 6 GB of flash memory
- Compatible with MP3, WMA, and WMA-DRM10 music files (PlaysForSure)
- FM tuner with record capability and voice recorder; bright 1.8-inch color TFT LCD
- Convert most popular video formats (MPEG-4, WMV, DivX) to play on device
- User-replaceable rechargeable lithium-ion battery for up to 20 hours of life
Why pay 0.99 to anyone for DRM crippled tracks?
The artist doesn't benefit.
I listen to CDs I have bought and ripped.
For that purpose, this unit works beautifully with *any* OS including Mac X, WinXP, even Linux.
The e270 can act like a flash/keychain drive:
just go into the Settings menu and change the USB mode.
The e270 also shows the album art (folder.jpg) while playing tracks.
The e200 series has a beautiful display, better than the Nano.
I wouldn't whine about the design being imitative:
the Nano has better quality buttons/wheel,
the e270's controls are comparatively flimsy-feeling and are harder for large fingers to operate.
Besides, didn't Apple copy from *Creative's* mp3 players in the first place?
The courts are reviewing that question now.
THE ISSUE.
My only issue is that the USB cable is proprietary, mandatory, and irreplaceable.
And, Sandisk is currently unable to provide a replacement if you lose it.
Without the special Sandisk USB cable, you can't even recharge the on-board Lithium battery,
and also there's no wall wart for AC power available either.
By contrast, my previous Sandisk e140 player (a 1GB model) uses an AAA battery
--and the same USB cable most digital cameras use.
Batteryand connection-wise the e140 is a better solution,
but the drawback is a dim monocolor display.
If you have good eyesight, the e140 is a great economy player;
but the e270 is the ultimate luxury toy.
Everyone who sees my e270 is smitten.
UPDATE July 6th -
Sandisk says it is _now_ able to ship me a replacement
"e270 to USB" cable, so give them credit for that.
Also, according to internet rumor, Griffin makes an e270-compatible wall-wart (AC Power) solution.
Finally, no solution is available yet to the "cannot play-tracks-in-album-order" issue,
a problem I failed to mention above.
This might drive you seriously insane when you play Mozart or Beethoven on the thing when the IV movement isn't played fourth.
Or, when an mp3 audio book can't be played
in chapter order!
We're waiting every day for the firmware update from Sandisk that fixes this track ordering bug.
Buy SanDisk Sansa e270 6 GB MP3 Player with SD Expansion Slot (Black) Now
I was hesitating on buying the iPod Nano because I'm the guy who usually bought something and the next week something newer and better came out. I think this time I finally got it right. The e270 is sexy. I've seen the Creative Zens get cosmetic scratches within minutes of pulling it out of the box, this tiny e270 looks great, appears durable, and I'm confident it will survive my abuse. Dragging and dropping music is a cinch, the iPod and Zen software my friends use took some getting used to...and the out of the box conversion software to put videos and graphics on this baby is just too easy. The variety of accepted formats wasn't impressive, but it took my mp3s and wmas with no problem. It converted my jpgs with no issue. There were 5 out of 40 music mpegs had an error during conversion. And a movie in .avi format was broken down into 12 .mov files. I took this with a grain of salt and assume future firmware improvements might fix this. The menu works better for me and I prefer the e270's dial over other mp3 players. Improvements I would like to see would be the ability to put the videos in subfolders without disappearing from the menu, a different style headphones, a freebie screen protector and some way to wear it other than the supplied carry pouch or lanyard. I'm still trying to pick up an FM station, can't determine if the weakness lies with the built in antenna or the AFN stations in Iraq. The flash memory was the basis for this buy, the drive players were too bulky and sensitive to my treatment. The added feature of a micro SD slot is probably excessive, but not unwelcome. I am VERY happy with this purchase. Now how about making some accessories for this thing!?Read Best Reviews of SanDisk Sansa e270 6 GB MP3 Player with SD Expansion Slot (Black) Here
My e270 has been a mixture of the enjoyable and the frustrating...with a few changes this little gadget could be simply outstanding. Instead, the Sansa e200 series falls short of what it should be, but remains a good value for those with the technical savvy and patience to put up with it.For crying out loud, SanDisk, when are you going to support folders, or creating play lists on the fly? The e200 will organize your music for you, IF your tags are in order. You can create a "go list" list on the fly, but that's it. Your music (MP3, WMA or WAV only) can be browsed by artist, song title, album, genre and a "go list". There is another category, "my top rated", but if you rate your songs with the Sansa, it'll freeze... how much simpler life with the Sansa would be if there was support for folders or multiple play list creation.
The list of EQ settings that the player ships with are also limiting...there is a custom EQ with the latest firmware, but it isn't as robust as the EQ choices on my older e140, and some users report that it's buggy. So far, I haven't had that problem. The sound is good, with good earphones. The earphones the e200 comes with have been relegated to under the pillow use by me...the ones I got with the old e140 were much better, and the Koss KSC75 clip-on's better yet.
Video? Yep, but the MOV QuickTime format is as bloated as a beached whale. The bundled media converter will chop your video in to 10 minute chunks with iffy sound and in widescreen format. All this can be changed (except the MOV format) with some file editing, but why should a user have to dig through the anythingbutIpod forums to find this out? What could have been an outstanding feature with MP4 support is merely a novelty.
Voice recording? Yes, in WAV format. You can record FM on the fly, (when is a Sansa player going to have AM support, anyway?) and there are photos with a slideshow function via the media converter.
Left out of the package as of the 01.02.15A firmwareAn alarm function and a sleep timer.
The Sansa is fine with me from a control standpoint. The voice record button is placed where you can hit it by accident, the scroll wheel should be progressive, and the buttons around the wheel are hard to find with my fat fingers, but for something this size it's all livable. Battery life is as advertised, but you are a slave to your USB port unless you buy an aftermarket adapter. Don't lose the cable, its Sansa only.
I enjoy my e270; the six gigs of storage, plus the expansion possible via micro SD are plenty for my use. A lot of the niggling problems I've encountered have been solved with the use of a good MP3 tag editor (MediaMonkey is great for this) and some searching through Sansa forums.
Want SanDisk Sansa e270 6 GB MP3 Player with SD Expansion Slot (Black) Discount?
I have been using the 270 (6 GB version) for about 3 weeks now, and largely agree with the positive comments on this site. Sandisk just released a v. 1.01.11 update for the e200 series, so be sure that you go to the Sandisk website and download the updater (all updates after this version will be installed automatically when you sync).I thought about getting one of the harddisk based players which offer up to 60 GB of space, but they seem to have high rates of problems and disk crashes -not suprising given the workout these tiny devices are subject to. So I 'settled' for the 6 GB version. That is a huge amount of music, certainly more than I can listen to at a single sitting. I have the equivalent about 68 of my library disks on right now, say, about 40 hours of music PLUS another 20-30 hours of old time radio shows. So a big flash memory drive is the way to go, and 8 gigs would be more than enough for almost anyone. Remember that the e200 series all accept microSD memory chips. Currently the 1GB microSD is going for about $US 55 in local retailers, less online. I expect that a 2 GB chip will be releases shortly at around $US 100. IMHO, only college students that are skipping all of their classes would have the time to fully use more than 8 GB of storage.
The removable battery is a Very Good Thing. All you need is a SMALL phillips electronics type screwdriver to remove the four tiny screws in the back and the battery removes as easily as a cell phone battery. I'm puzzled by the reviewer who complained that he left scratches when he "pried" it open -no prying is necessary -the case back splits easily from the front. Be sure to put the screws in a safe place (I use a little plastic bag), because they can easily get lost. Which leads me to the next point:
The firmware is improving, but is not all the way there. One of the annoying problems that occasionally reported (and I experienced) is a hard crash and lockup -this happened to me -and the solution is fairly easy, just pull the battery and replace it after 10 seconds (not something you can do on an iPod). I am guessing it's some kind of operating system programming issue that can be easily fixed in a future update. If and when that happens, I'd give the e200 series an upgrade to 5 stars.
Note that the Sansa relies on the internal .mp3 file tags for artist/album/track information. This means that if you have music that was converted to .mp3 with bad tags, they'll have to be fixed for things to be identified and ordered correctly. I had that problem as I used early versions of RealPlayer, which apparently didn't write tags into the .mp3 files correctly until recently. It took about an hour to rewrite the bad tags with a tagging program that used the internet music info database to retag, after which things worked fine. As noted in other posts, the Sansa e200's conversion codecs for video yield a fairly a large set of quicktime files a full length video can take up from 1.25 1.5 Gigs of space. Given that the screen resolution is very small, this needs improvement. However, it actually DOES do video and movies, and they are actually watchable with decent sound. It would also be nice if SanDisk would support some other common formats besides .mp3 and .wma.
Given that the e200 series has been out less than a year, it seems likely that all of these issues will be addressed shortly.
The best part is that it's not an iPod, and I'm not yoked to Apple's iTunes service if I want to buy content from a competitor. With the e200 series' ability to use microSD chips, I'm guessing that Sandisk hopes to sell movies and other content on micro SD chips at retail in the future. But it also opens up the possibility of easy transfer of home video as many camcorders can store SD format as well and with an SD reader and a computer it is easy to transfer all kinds of content.
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I'd have preferred to be able to give 4.75 stars rather than 4 or 5. The reason for this is the placement of the RECORD button. I have made more than a couple inadvertant recordings simply as a result of handling the unit. Other than that, I like the fit and feel of the thing. I don't know that the micro-SD slot contributes much to the user -I think it was meant rather to contribute to SanDisk (manufacturers of same, not coincidentally). I like that the unit will "keep track" of your progress through a long track (I like to use my Sansa for listening to audiobooks, the files of which can be quite long and finding one's place manually can be a rank tedium). The screen is quite nicedisproportionately large for so small a unit. Finally: battery life for mine on the first two charges was between 20 and 22 hours. Not bad at all.
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