SanDisk Sansa e250 (2GB)

Design
The Sansa e's represent the top end of SanDisk's MP3 player range -- a fact which is immediately apparent just from looks alone. The e players come in the three capacities -- the 2GB e250 (AU$279), the 4GB e260 (AU$359) and the 6GB e270 (AU$439). The candy bar shaped e player is slightly shorter but fatter than an iPod Nano, measuring in at 43.18mm by 12.7mm by 89mm. The SanDisk e sports a reflective black plastic casing on the front, while the back is encased in a silver alloy metal. Both surfaces seemed fairly scratch resistant in our tests -- certainly more so than a fragile iPod. The e player (we tested the e250) feels good in the hand -- it's sturdy and has a nice heft to it, and certainly features a much superior build quality than its low- and mid-range cousins (such as the c150).

At the front of the unit is a 1.8-inch portrait TFT colour screen. Below the screen are the e's main navigation controls, which consist of a scroll wheel, a large central confirmation button and four flanking buttons. The scroll wheel acts much like the ones you'd find on any iPod -- except instead of being touch sensitive it's actually a moving piece of plastic. The raised circle can be spun left or right to navigate through menus, and with its fishing line-like look is probably the worst design aspect of the SanDisk e. Needless to say, the tactile feel of using the e scroll wheel pales in comparison to an iPod's -- you have to put a bit of pressure to turn the wheel, plus the raised grooves in the wheel itself feel a tad icky to the thumb. In a nice touch, however, the wheel glows bright blue when the unit is powered up. The four buttons arrayed around the circumference of the wheel acts as play/pause, forward, rewind and context sensitive controls. There's also a small power-up/menu button on the bottom left corner.

The rest of the e player is relatively clutter-free. At the top is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a sliding hold switch, while the bottom of the unit sports a proprietary dock connector slot. On the left side of the unit is a dedicated record button, while the right houses a slot for micro SD cards.

Features
If you're after a player with a serious features list, then the SanDisk e players may just be what you're looking for. The diminutive e units can play WMA/MP3 songs, display photos, play video, has a built-in FM radio, voice recording and radio recording, and features expandable memory in the form of a micro SD slot. About the only thing missing is direct line-in recording.

When it comes to music, the Sansa e can play WMA and MP3 files -- a fairly slim format list to be sure, but one that should be able to take most of your existing digital music collection (unless you're a long-time iTunes user, that is). Transferring music files to the Sansa e is a simple drag and drop process, or alternatively you can use Windows Media Player to sync the unit to your tunes. Transferring video or photos, however, requires the use of some proprietary SanDisk software, which converts your files into a format accepted by the Sansa. Supported video formats include AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPG, MPE or VOB(unprotected) formats, MPEG-4 in AVI format, DAT, ASF, QuickTime MOV, and WMV. Photo formats supported include JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP and GIF.

All of this is displayed on the Sansa's 1.8-inch screen, which has a maximum resolution of only 220x176 and 65,000 colours. What it lacks in resolution in makes up for in brightness, however -- the Sansa e's screen looks vibrant, and its image-driven menu system is pleasing to view.

The Sansa e sports a rechargeable lithium ion battery which SanDisk claims has  a charge life of 20 hours. Charging is done through a supplied USB cable -- there is no power adaptor included, which makes it somewhat of an inconvenience if you need to charge the player up and you're not near a computer.

Performance
Good players can be so easily brought down by clunky and difficult to use file transfer software, but we have no such complaints with the Sansa e. Having the ability to directly drag and drop music files makes transferring your tunes from PC to player a no-brainer, while SanDisk's conversion software for videos and photos is fairly hassle-free.

Navigating the player itself is also quite intuitive -- simply use the scroll wheel to select, push the middle button to confirm and you're away. The main menu system is logically and clearly presented, with headings for music, radio, photos, video, voice and settings. Pressing the bottom button during music or radio playback will also bring up a context sensitive options menu, while pressing the on/off button will switch you right back to the main menu (pressing it again will send you back to the screen you were originally in). Using the scroll wheel and the its surrounding buttons is generally easy, although we did at times find the outer buttons to be a little small and too close to the wheel itself for comfort.

Despite SanDisk being better known for its memory products than for audio fidelity, the sound quality on the Sansa e is rather good. Most listeners shouldn't have any complaints -- the music we pumped through the e was crisp, featured decent bass and was free from distortion. Radio signals were also good and reception was strong. Recorded radio doesn't fare so well -- the Sansa player downgrades audio quality of the recorded signal. Those who like to set their own equaliser settings will be a little disappointed, however, as the e player only has preset settings (such as rock, pop, dance, hip hop and more) rather than user adjustable ones.

Video looks surprisingly good on the Sansa e, although the player has certain limitations which prevents it from being a completely compelling portable video solution. Video automatically defaults to a widescreen format, which means you have to hold the Sansa on its side to view. The video conversion process to get movies onto the Sansa automatically breaks large movie files down into more manageable chunks for player to handle. For example, a half hour video may be broken into three files on the player. Playback suffers as a result, as there's a noticeable 5 to 10 second gap between switching files.

The dedicated record button on side is excellent feature -- press it and takes you directly to voice recording. This functionality, coupled with the fact that voice recordings are generally of high quality, makes the Sansa e a great impromptu voice recorder.

SanDisk has produced a winner in its e series. Not only do the players have a great list of features, its price makes it a very compelling proposition for those looking for a small MP3 player.

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