Review: Sandisk Sansa E280

What began with the Walkman has now evolved into the small devices, capable of holding thousands of songs, that we see on nearly every person that we encounter. The introduction of the iPod caused a frenzy and consequently a whole new aspect of our culture. The iPod, along with the iPhone and Mac series of notebooks has no doubt been a huge marketing success for Steve Jobs and Apple. Many of us are familiar with the alternatives to Macbooks and the iPhone, but something that is not addressed nearly as much is the iPod's competition.

I have owned a Sandisk Sansa e280 for over a year and a half now and could not be more thrilled with my purchase. The e280 is the 8GB model with room for approximately 2000 songs. I know 8GB is small by today's standards, but it is all that I need. The e280 is also equipped with a video player and FM radio built right in. I have never had any problems with this device and it is not treated nicely. It uses flash memory (the same thing that your jump drive uses) to store all the music on. Flash memory has been prooven to be very reliable as well as inexpensive. The e280 is light easy to carry and easy to operate. Battery life is average, but all you need is a usb drive to charge it using the included cable, which also doubles as your data transfer cable.

Any music can be stored on the e280. With the iPod I think that you have to purchase music from the iTunes store. I could be wrong in this assumption, but in the event that I am I'm sure that the music must be converted using some type of Apple software. I put music that was already stored on my computer directly onto the e280 without any problems and it didn't take a long time either.

Some cons of this device are that the quality of the FM radio is marginal at best. When you are in the same city as the radio station you are listening to, you should be fine. Venture very far away though and you will be glad that you brought along your own music. Sound quality is OK with the stock ear buds, but like everything else the sound would be improved with aftermarket buds. The e280 uses a wheel on the face that can become hard to turn. I'm assuming this is from collecting dust and dirt. This can be a small inconvenience, but nothing major. Trying to listen to music while the e280 is charging takes the correct combination of things to operate correctly.

There is a lack of accessories for the e280 and all the other sansa models. Many of the same items for the iPod can be had with the Sansa too, but they may not be of the same quantity or quality. The selection of these items will be severely limited. This shortfall is especially prevalent in the docking stations as well as the FM radio transmitters that so many now have so that they can listen to their music in their cars. Many new cars and aftermarket CD players now come standard with the connector built in which will be a lot better than using a transmitter.

All in all, the e280 is a great alternative to the iPod, especially if you have a lot of songs already and don't want to have to convert them or buy them again on iTunes. I'm sure the iPod is a great product and many people are satisfied with them. The ability to store music I already had and the durability of the flash memory was enough to push me in the other direction.