Hands on with SanDisk's new Zune-bestin' Sansa Connect

SanDisk was quite a bit more accepting of our touching urges when it came to the Sansa Connect, so we got to spend a little bit of quality time with the unit. The screen was plenty bright, sharp and sizeable considering the form factor, and while the design imparts a bit of a pudgy look to the player, there's really not a lot of bulk here. We're fans of the simplistic interface, but since not a lot of the functionality was in "live" mode, it's hard to tell how effective the unit will actually be at managing all of its wireless sharing and syncing functionality. Pr0n galore after the break.

[Len @ Jan 8th 2007 5:17PM]

Your guys need some better camera or something, or you're not that good at making photos!! .. great player .. I like simple and good looking stuff :)

[Noa @ Jan 8th 2007 5:23PM]

yea don't you guys know how to use macro or at least focus the camera

[alex velasquez @ Jan 8th 2007 5:30PM]

Then why don't you just go see it for yourself if you're gonna complain about information that's being given to you for free. That's what I thought, learn to spell better. Anyways the player does like nice, it looks like it has a pretty good size screen and good interface. It'll be good to see if anything better than the ipod actually comes out in 2007.

[Spencer @ Jan 8th 2007 5:31PM]

The interface graphics look like something for an 8 year old, thanks I'm keepin my Zune!

[sweeet @ Jan 8th 2007 5:37PM]

"Then why don't you just go see it for yourself if you're gonna complain about information that's being given to you for free." Because my traffic to this site generates ad revenue that is used by the parent company of this website to pay the salaries of its writers and they should freaking know how to use a camera.

[Michael @ Jan 8th 2007 6:25PM]

I don't see how this can be compared to the Zune. The Zune is a high capacity HDD player, the Sansa is much lower capacity flash. These are designed for two totally different markets. Now if Sandisk would just make a hard drive version, they would have a winner. I still wouldn't buy one unless it had better sound quality than my Cowon X5L though.

[Silver R. Wolfe @ Jan 8th 2007 7:58PM]

It's getting compared to the Zune (and the Gremlin) because they all have wifi capabilities and personally I'll take flash memory over HDD any day. I like as few moving parts as I can get in my mobile devices.

[Moneyman @ Jan 8th 2007 7:02PM]

apple needs to make one like that but also with bluetooth headphones too so you can have wireless headphones. And 802.11n Support.

[PeteC @ Jan 8th 2007 7:09PM]

Add OGG this time round will you Sandisk? Pretty please? Then I'll let myself get excited, till then this is a no go for me but the interface and features look really great!

[mike @ Jan 8th 2007 8:04PM]

hey does anybody kno if it plays video might wana trade it for my old sandisk

[derek_ph @ Jan 8th 2007 8:08PM]

Not bad, but Sansa products still suffer from a bleak interface and style. Definitely not cool, and far from sexy. The design is old-school but maybe the new features will make this thing a winner.

[hchute @ Jan 8th 2007 8:17PM]

It looks really interesting, and I'd like to try one out. I do like the Zune's user interface better, at least from those screen shots. But it's great to see another design team's results in creating a wireless capability.

Harvey
Editor, Zunerama
http://www.zunerama.com

[Lionel @ Jan 8th 2007 10:29PM]

Monica? Don't Take It Personal? wow.

[sonicbox @ Jan 9th 2007 3:52AM]

This product was designed by Zing - Sandisk just branded it. http://www.zing.net

http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6535687.html

[Rob @ Jan 9th 2007 8:36AM]

specs?

[William @ Jan 9th 2007 2:44PM]

Seriously, though, it's not like they're taking the pics with an actual camera. They're probably using a camera phone, which are known to be blurry and such. Don't be so hard on them, they're doing the best that they can.

[Landon @ Jan 9th 2007 9:38PM]

Dammit, I seriously just went out and got a Sansa e260 (latest 4gb version)...O well, Geekbreif on this baby rocks!

[Neil @ Jan 12th 2007 2:38PM]

To everybody complaining about the interface, I think it's pretty obvious that it will change massively before release, and my Sansa e260 has a pretty good one so I'm sure they'll do a decent job. Kinda strange shape, but differentiates itself from the iPod (or Zune) there, and if they do half the stuff Zune could thereoretically do with WiFi it'll be awesome. Having said that, if MS consider it difficult to design a music store to work on a 3 inch screen, how will SanDisk do it on this?

[DP @ Jan 12th 2007 4:22PM]

The ZING engine is hot—mobile, Wi-Fi, and streaming!

In addition to paid subscriptions and paid downloads, here’s the breadth and depth of free Internet radio streams the Sandisk Sansa Connect could deliver—more than 10,000 stations, 10,000 shows, and 500,000 episodes—broadcasts, webcasts, and podcasts: http://www.radeo.net

[Ray @ Jan 24th 2007 12:57PM]

The people complaining about the quality of the pics should figure out why the pics are not sharp. It's not because they are out of focus. If you can't work out why, you are not qualified to make fun of other people's camera skills.

[sophie @ May 9th 2007 7:13AM]

honestly? This looks really cool, but I'm still happy with my E260r. It also uses internet radio, and I too can download songs on the spot, and watch video (not that it's much fun on the small screen).
No sarcasm intended here...will someone tell me the difference between my player and this one?