SanDisk Sansa Connect (4 GB) MP3 Player

I got the Sansa Connect from American Express Rewards for 26000 which I thought was too expensive, but at least it was miles. The one and only reason got this player vs another one was that it works with Yahoo Music ToGo. The way Yahoo Music works is that for a fee one can download songs and play them on the computer at no additional cost. This does not help me tremendously because I want to listen to music on a portable device as well as on my stereo. The ToGo subscription allows the user of Yahoo Music to copy subscription-based songs to a portable player, such as the Sansa (this only works with a limited number of players, the Sansa Connect being one of them). Note also that there is no limit on non-subscription based songs, i.e. ripped or copied songs. Having thus identified the player I wanted from the glut of similar products, let me spend some time on its key features:

Design: The player feels solid enough in my hand but not as sturdy as the ipod nano that my wife bought. It feels a little plasticky but it's fine. The screen size is at 1.5 times 2 inches large enough in my opinion. Resolution and brightness is good. The player has a round control wheel that allows the user to navigate playlists, on screen menus etc. It works fine, but I get sometimes confused at when to turn the wheel vs. press the wheel and so on, but it works fine. It has a lock feature to avoid the accidential fat finger. There is a built in speaker which might be useful in some situations. Overall, the player is about the size of a pack of smokes.

Integration with the Yahoo Music player software is as expected. The software and the player work well together although I did have some trouble at times and the software wouldn't synchronize with the player but with a few shut-downs and restarts (I have to get a mac eventually...) it now seems to work fine. My biggest complaint is still the time it takes to transfer music. if you want to put 4gb of music or other stuff on the player, it will take some time. Otherwise, syncronization seems to be the same as with the ipod nano. One complaint and maybe I just haven't figured out how to do this: when I make changes to music on the player, it doesn't seem to carry over to the music library, but again, maybe I am just an idiot....The biggest complaint that i have is that I cannot seem to be able to change my playlists on the portable player. I don't think i can move a song from one playlist to another. The only option seems to be to rate it or remove it. On the other hand, if i like it, I can press the ZING button (yes, that is what it's called), and try to get more stuff online, i.e. similar songs etc. So let's talk about that...

Wireless connectivity: The player has the ability to connect to wireless networks in range. This works reaonably well and could be a great feature for those of us who are often in range of unprotected open wirelsss networks. The only one I am ever near is my home network. But when I am at home, i don't tend to fumble around with the portable player but instead with the computer and hence this feature is a nice-to-have at best for me right now. But if you do your homework or whatever at Starbucks or some place, this might be a great feature because you have access to all your Yahoo playlists and radio stations etc. Of course, you have to have a yahoo ID and a music subscription)

Let's spend some time just looking at the features that are listed when turning on the player. The main options are:

Now Playing: clicking on now playing will display the current song, progress meter, song number of total number of songs, total time of song, title, album, genre, album cover (if available). From here you can click Options which allows you to rate the song, album or artist, turn shuffle and repeat on or off, remove the song or go back to playlist. The other option is to press Zing button. Here you can Get this album, recommend to a friend, find more, or make a mix like this song. I haven't tried all that stuff yet but the features depend on being online, which as I mentioned is rarely the case for me. Now that I pressed all those buttons, I remember the other thing that bothers me about this player: I can never seem to be able to get back to previous menu, which is really quite annoying but one of these days maybe I will figure out which button to press.

Internet radio: this is pretty self explanatory. I have tried this and it works fine. Good integration with Yahoo Music.

Music library: This allows you to navigate through the music library and view your stuff by artist, album, song, genre etc. You can also suffle all your songs.

Yahoo Music; this is where you sign in to your yahoo music account.

Friends: the options here are Yahoo Messenger, which I don't use, but I guess if one did, this might be a great feature; Others nearby (not really sure what this is for) and Recommendations from friends. Overall, this might be good for people who use online friends a lot.

Photos and video: this allows you to upload photos/videos to the device and connect to Flickr Photos. I suspect that this feature is mostly a gimmick. For example, it says that you can use Sansa Media Converter to transfer videos from your PC, but you have to download add'l software. I have no patience for this stuff and hence do not use it. I never thought the quality of photos was good on portable devices and I am concerned about the space. Flickr might be good but then, you need to be online, which I think I mentioned, I usually am not.

Settings: this allows you to change Audio settings such as equalizerm sound effects and the external speaker. One particular frustration: there are only preset equalizer settings (trebble boost, bass boost, Rock, pop, Jazz etc). This is annaoying to me because I like none of the preset levels. Would it have been so hard to let me set the different frequencies manually the way I like it? And sound effects: there is a sliding scale from 0 to 100%. Maybe I am getting old, but I just don't hear a difference. A total throw-away feature. Other settings are video settings (brightness etc), Friends settings, Info, Music and Mixes settings, WiFi settings (there is a flight mode. not sure what it does but it sounds like it might be useful for travellers), and Reset and Erase (which I had to do once, but that might have been my fault).

The device has an internal battery which appears to last maybe about 10 hours or so. Charging can be done via USB port or wall outlet with the same cable. Charging time seems to be normal. There is a slot for a mini memory card, which might be good, if you are pressed for space. The last complaint that I have is that when I insert the headphone plugs all the way into the device, they turn off. I have to make sure they are not all the way in to hear the music which is a major problem because I never know, if I inadvertantly pressed a button or what...


UPDATE: So, now that I used the Sansa connect for a few weeks I can say that I genuinely think it's a piece of garbage. I am going to throw it out and get an Ipod. The connection with Yahoo Music worked a few times but I had to reset the player every time I did it lately because of some syncronization failure error message. Reloading 4 gb of Music every time is a pain, of course.

Also, it turns out that the device has no auto-off feature. Since I listen to stuff while I fall asleep, this means that the battery is regularly empty. Would it have been so hard to add an auto-off feature? My stinkin' Emerson TV that I bought in 1991 has that...

I just fiddled around with this thing some more. It is now 1am almost and I finally think I got the syncronization to work. But, if I remove a song on the device, it gets resynked the next sync. Also, the song ratings do not carry over from the Yahoo Jukebox to the device or vic versa.

Bottom line: the only thing this device is good for is transferring music to and then listening to. IF syncronization happens to work, fine. The other plus might be the network connectivity.