Sansa Nation

While Apple has gotten all the limelight with their iPod music players, they’re not the only ones in the game. SanDisk has their very respectable and capable music player the Sansa. It’s good to see other people giving the Sansa a fair review and showing that the venerable Sansa has more to offer then Apples wildly popular iPod Nano. Below is what the folks at gizmodo uk had to say:

Once powered up, you are presented with a clear display, showing large icons for the main features. The clickable scroll wheel allows for simple navigation through icons like Music, Video, Radio, Settings etc, while clicking on any icon leads to the sub-menus. The wheel, unlike the nano’s touch sensitive wheel, is a mechanical variant that rotates under your finger and performs smoothly. Audio formats supported include MP3, WAV, secure WMA, WAV and Audible and you can transfer music to the player via drag and drop or by syncing the player with Windows Media Player. This makes it easy to transfer your playlists onto the player. That said, the cable for powering the device and connecting the player to the PC is one of those USB-to-proprietary syncing port and SanDisk would do well to stick to USB-to-USB like nearly everyone else.

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Popularity: 10% [?]

The Apple iPod Nano is a very popular little music playing device. It’s slim and stylish and has an easy to view LCD screen and is one of the coolest gadgets on the market. There are other music playing devices on the market however, and a few of them have features not found on the iPod Nano. Features such has the choice to use other formats such as MP3 and WMA and the option to use a removable memory card to increase storage capacity. Below is a review of a few other music devices in the same segment as the iPod Nano:

Iriver Lplayer
Summary: Owing to its diminutive hotness and fairly strong performance across the board, iriver’s Lplayer was our favorite of the bunch.

Price: $100 to $130

Storage: 4 or 8 gigabytes of flash memory

Battery: Can handle 12 hours of music playback, 31/2 hours of video playback.

Details: Its face consists solely of a 2-inch screen whose sides can be pressed to control the device. The only buttons – for power and volume – are tiny and located discreetly on one side. The controls were a little confusing at first, as we initially assumed clicking the middle of the screen would serve as a sort of “enter” or “play” button (it doesn’t). But once we got used to it, we liked the simplicity. The Lplayer’s screen is bright, and photos and videos looked fairly crisp. Music sounded pretty good on the Lplayer, and its support for files in the “TXT” text format make it a good place to keep simple notes.

Samsung YP-S3
Summary: Samsung’s S3 looks oddly like the top half of a flip phone. But it proved to be pretty solid.

Price: $100 (due out by early fall)

Storage: 4 gigabytes

Battery: Rated at 25 hours of audio playback, four hours of video playback.

Details: Most notable is the S3’s crisp, 1.8-inch LCD that is surprisingly good for watching videos or viewing photos. Images show up in wide-screen mode, so it is necessary to turn the device sideways to watch videos. The S3’s controls also rotate with the video and photo functions, which can get confusing. Listening to music on the device was simple, and when using the player’s digital radio, we enjoyed seeing such information as artist names, song titles and the names of stations. Another feature unique to the S3 was the inclusion of several games, with more free ones on the way.

Sansa Fuze
Summary: The Sansa Fuze looks most like the current-generation Nano, but the Fuze offers only a subpar, 1.9-inch display.

Price: $80 to $130

Storage: The Fuze scores with its microSD slot that lets users expand the player’s flash memory capacity (included memory ranges from 2 to 8 gigabytes).

Battery: Rated for up to 24 hours of music playback, five hours of video playback.

Details: The Fuze’s screen was plenty bright, but images did not look crisp and were plagued by what looked like slim vertical lines across the face. This made it annoying to view photos and videos, and would turn us off from watching something longer than a YouTube-length clip. The Fuze got points for its more traditional set of controls and rubbery-feeling clickwheel, which made it easier to operate than the others.

-Ray

[Source: quickdfw ]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Here is a good review on the Sansa Fuze that I thought you guys might appreciate. It was written by Paul Lester over at Personal Computer World. Check it out:

There’s little doubt Sandisk is pitching the Sansa Fuze as a direct competitor to iPod Nano.

Although around twice as thick, its height and width are similar to Apple’s player, however, its black plastic and soft rubber chassis can’t match the style of the Nano’s chrome casing.

The player has a 1.9in display and the overall build quality is solid. Capacities range from 2GB to 8GB, though, like the Sansa View, it also offers a Micro SD slot for memory expansion.

The player connects using a proprietary port at the bottom which looks very similar to the iPod interface; unsurprisingly, it’s not compatible with iPod cables.

You can copy music and photos via drag-and-drop, but to make video content viewable you will need to download Sansa’s Media Converter software to encode and copy on the fly.

This doesn’t appear to have changed much, but it does perform a bit faster than before; in tests it processed a 100MB file in around five minutes with a reduction in size of around 25 per cent. It’s still not an ideal scenario though, and it’s a shame format support isn’t better.

The interface hasn’t really changed since the original Sansa e-series of players, though we did notice that it’s a little smoother and more responsive. The display is decent enough without being outstanding, and while playback quality is reasonable the 1.9in screen means you won’t want to watch long movies.

With a customisable equaliser, audio quality is also good, though you’ll need to replace the headphones supplied. You will also find an FM radio and voice recorder, with the two able to work together to copy broadcast content direct to the player.

The features, quality and usability of the Fuze aren’t radically different to other players in the series, but the small size, expandability and low price make it a decent choice.

-Jameson

[Source: Pesonal Computer World]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Every now and then, someone puts out a good review on the Sansa, and this one happens to be one of those. Check it out:

The Sansa Fuze from Sandisk is a top-notch music and video player, and it’s all Apple’s fault.

You see, Apple has had a string of hits with its hugely popular iPod line of music and video players, and other manufacturers have lined up to try to get their own slice of that pie.

It’s taken several years, but I daresay the Sansa Fuze is a better choice than Apple’s iPod nano.

First, let’s look at what the two players have in common.

They both look very similar, with an almost square case, horizontal screen at the top and a control wheel at the bottom. The nano has a 2-inch LCD; the Fuze’s screen is 1.9 inches.

Both can play audio and video files and get about 24 hours of audio playback and five hours of video play from their batteries. Both players talk to your Mac or PC through a USB cable with a proprietary connector (which are not compatible with each other).

Both have a built-in memory capacity of up to 8 gigabytes, which both companies agree is enough to hold about 2,000 songs.

Both players also allow users to display JPEG photos.

Now let’s look at what’s different about the Fuze.

Its case is made of plastic instead of aluminum like the nano, and it doesn’t play nice with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. It does work with the Rhapsody and Napster music systems, and it works with Windows Media Player.

The Fuze has a built-in FM tuner that allows for up to 40 station presets.

This feature came in very handy at our last Dallas Stars game for listening to Ralph and Razor do the play-by-play. The Fuze takes up almost no room in a pocket.

The Fuze also has a voice recorder with built-in microphone. You can also record from FM radio.

And probably the most important difference – the Fuze has a slot for a microSD card to add storage. Adding another 8 gigabytes of storage with a tiny card is a huge feature Apple fans have been clamoring for (well, at least I have).

The Fuze plays MP3, WAV, WMA and Audible audio files. The Audible files can be bookmarked so you can pick up the book where you left off.

Video formats are limited to MP4 and JPEG, and all video must be converted through the Sandisk’s provided software, which isn’t a big deal, but it’s worth mentioning.

The built-in software isn’t quite as elegant as Apple’s iPod operating system, but I found it to be quite intuitive and not a bother at all. In fact, the Fuze has a home button, which returns you to the home screen from any point.

I’d love to see Apple add that to the nano.

Let’s talk price.

Everyone seems to love the iPods but quite a few complain they cost too much.

Sandisk sells the Fuze at starting at $79 for a 2-gigabyte model, the 4-gigabyte goes for $99 and the 8-gigabyte will set you back $129.

Apple’s 8-gigabyte nano costs $199.

You could take that $70 you save and buy an 8-gigabyte microSD card and have double the storage.

Pros: More features than its competitors, lower price.

Cons: Needs more video playback formats.

Bottom line: Move over nano, the Fuze just about has it all.

-Jameson

[Source: Dallas Business News]

Popularity: 23% [?]

The snazzy new Last.FM UI

The Last.FM logo

The infamous AudioScrobbler logo

This article was originally posted on the InspireTech blog. Before that it was posted on “Advant-garde”.

I’ve been using Last.FM for several years now. Last.FM is a social music/internet radio/playlist site which keeps track of what music you listen to through the use of a plugin called Audioscrobbler, which essentially records what tracks you’ve played on your computer’s music player (usually iTunes or Windows Media) and sends them to your online profile. Once record, the website begins to take statistics on how much you listen to certain genres, certain artists, and certain songs. The reason it does all of this is so it can give you recommendations for new music based on what you previously listened to. In addition to this, you can create radio stations of your favorite artists, and listen to stations created by your friends. This makes it really easy to discover new and fresh music

The radio stations can listened to through your browser or via the Last.FM software that is available for Macs, PCs, and Linux. In addition to this software, there are many other user-submitted programs available to enhance your experience. There are tons of other cool features that I won’t mention here, so you have to check it out for yourself.

My personal favorite feature is the ability for users to make their own embeddable music chart widgets, which can be used to show people the latest tracks you’ve listened to on your blog or web page. (I have one embedded in my blog’s sidebar!). These widgets automatically update and are available in Flash or Javascript form.

Recently Last.FM introduced the beta of their new interface. You can check it out by creating an account, though I’ve provided a picture of it for you.

The software can be downloaded here, and you can create an account here. My username is thwritingwriter, if you feel like adding me as a friend.

-Jameson

[Source: Advant-garde]

Popularity: 2% [?]

Here is a short video comparing the Sansa Fuze and the iPod Nano from LAPTOP Magazine, and and another in-depth review. It’s pretty interesting, be sure to watch it.

-Jameson

Popularity: 2% [?]