SanDisk unveils 8GB, expandable Sansa e280

SanDisk is making its latest push against Apple's venerable iPod nano, and unlike the sour grapes iDon't campaign, this one has definite potential to knock a few precious percentage points off of Cupertino's still-overwhelming market share. Besides officially unveiling the 8GB Sansa e280 that we'd seen coming for awhile, the Milipitas-based company also announced price drops on the entire e200 lineup of players, bringing the 6GB e270 down to $220, the 4GB e260 to $180, and the 2GB e250 to just $140. As with other members of the Sansa family, the e280 also includes a microSD slot for jacking total memory up 10GB -- meaning that even if Apple can get an 8GB nano out the door by the holiday season, SanDisk will still hold the title of "most capacious flash-based DAP." The other value-added features that have helped SanDisk quickly acquire its number two position in the marketplace are also still present: you're getting video playback capability (using a proprietary converter, granted), an FM tuner with "on-the-fly" recording, a user-replaceable 20-hour lithium ion battery, embedded voice recorder, and support for MP3, WMA, and PlaysForSure tracks. All this functionality will set you back just $250, so unless you've already got thousands of FairPlay songs sitting on your hard drive (and don't feel like stripping the DRM), the Sansa e280 looks like an awfully strong contender from where we're standing.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 14th 2006 5:14PM]

I looked long and hard at the Sansa e280, but ended up buying the 5.5 generation 80 GB IPOD. The main reason was that many of my friends have already ripped all their CDs to m4a (AAC) format, and none of the other "mp3" players I could find would play m4a files so...IPOD it was for me. I mean, like everyone knows that AAC is far better soundwise than the old mp3 format, so I just don't understand why the player industry hasn't adopted it better. I sometimes wonder if many of the players being sold by Apple are replacement players, bought by folks who already have ripped their libraries to m4a and don't want to do it all over again in another format?

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 30th 2007 7:15PM]

all i have to say is that ipod ( when i came out ) was just easier then everything else at the time. apple picked up on it and lunch a advertising campam.

i have tested the ipod and the sansa side by side and none are perfect but as i see it over all the sansa is better, software is software it can be changed on a click of a mouse but hardware cant.

and u might hear cases that " oooooo mine broke in 2 weeks, don't buy it" there are cases in every company like that

and don't complain about the long wait time, it;s better that it checks it self then your ipod freezing up and crashing