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SanDisk Releases New iPod rival
codemachine writes "SanDisk has released its new iPod rival: the new Sansa e280 music player. It has twice the capacity of the iPod nano at a similar price. Even better, it can be expanded through its mini-SD slot, and comes with an FM tuner. The device is said to work well with both Windows and Linux, without adding any drivers. Some work on reverse engineering this product line has already begun. Might this be a great alternative MP3 player for Linux users?"
I don't use my iPod + iTunes because it is cheaper than anything else. I use it because it "just works". All of the media available on the Music Store don't hurt either.
I haven't read the article, but what software do you use to add songs to this player? I doubt it uses iTunes, and I doubt it is as simple as moving a directory over to it.
Yes, it is truly amazing that major electronics manufacturers haven't taken the time to adopt a format that a minuscule percentage of their target audience uses to encode their music. I also cant believe no one make a wheel chair accessible treadmill. Bastards.
Notably absent are any specs on the unit at all. I was interested in the dimensions of the actual unit. The closest thing I could come up with were some figures in the user guide that appear to indicate that the device is about twice as thick as an iPod Nano. Hardly an iPod rival. Apple will be bumping up the Nano line any time now.
cat
It is in the manufacturer's "best interest" to support what their customers want.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I welcome any MP3 player for Windows that doesn't (a) hijack my file associations (b) install at least two services that launch on startup (c) freeze my entire system if the device is unexpectedly unplugged (d) try to re-invent my GUI to look like another OS using non-accessible controls (e) allow me to easily access the device itself without crazy hacks and (f) uninstall cleanly.
:-)
Works better on Mac, I know
Hmmmm, as there is no official iPod software for Linux users at all, I'd say all Linux software to use iPods would fall under "stupid third party addons" and "weird hacks", no?
In case you're still not aware, Rockbox enables my nano to seamlessly play ogg, flac, mp3, and several other formats. Not only that, but the playback is gapless, has beautiful cross-fading, and quite a few additional features.
Yeah, Rockbox is a fantastic project and I would just love to try it out -- if it weren't for a major problem: the code hasn't been optimised for low power consumption. From the web site: Battery life is significantly less than the Apple firmware.
I wouldn't mind the other known flaws/bugs, but a high battery life is a must for me. I'll install Rockbox as soon as that has been ironed out.
I prefer the term bright white "I just bought a $300 music player and I'm listening to my shitty 128kb MP3s with the free shitty $5 earbuds that came with it."
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
Consumers don't want vorbis or mp3, they want music.
I'm pretty sure they want mp3. Depending on which server you hit at that link, you'll get anywhere from 785,000,000 to 1,085,000,000 results.
Vorbis, on the other hand, has only around 12,000,000 results.
I think in this case, it's wrong to assume that customers don't know or care what format they're using. In order to even *have* mp3's, most people would have had to make a conscious decision to either rip or acquire them that way - because none of the major label-supported download services offer that format (I know, Emusic does), and the two biggest library/ripping apps (iTunes and WMP) rip to other formats by default.
In fact, the "industry" has been actively trying to kill off mp3 for years now, because of the DRM issue. Windows Media 8 or 9 didn't even include mp3 ripping as an option at all until people complained, and then the initial "fix" only let you rip at up to 64kbps. Apple and MS have both been hyping their own formats as sounding better than mp3 (which is, on average, bullshit). And the record industry won't put any of their music on the market in the format.
Device manufacturers, though, have learned the hard way that not supporting mp3 is a death knell. Sony was forced to support it after their non-mp3 DAPs failed to even make a dent in the market. And this was back when it still wasn't clear who was going to win the DAP war; Apple was the early leader but it still seemed like anyone's game. Sony threw their chance away by not supporting mp3 from the start; they've never recovered from that blunder. The lead Apple built while Sony's early players languished on the market is now pretty much insurmountable.
Meanwhile, MS is about to dump their unsuccessful Windows Media format with the Zune; or at least, they haven't committed to it one way or another. They will be supporting mp3, however, because you don't beat the iPod by refusing to support the biggest format out there.
All of this shows that consumers sure do know what format they want their music in and that format is mp3. In fact, most people still buy CD's and rip their own music to mp3 themselves.
Device manufacturers will start to support vorbis I'd imagine when the public decides that's what it wants to use... which means never.
I know some people have some sort of philosophical/political attachment to ogg vorbis as a non-proprietary codec. But you should take your victories where you can, and you should look at the popularity of mp3 in that light. It may be a proprietary format but for users, it is also an unencumbered, universally-supported format. Users are choosing it over the even more tightly controlled formats favored by Microsoft, Apple and the RIAA. And they're bucking predictions of mp3's demise that have been made by analysts for years and continue to be made today. It's just never going to happen.
Don't dismiss Ogg completely; be grateful for people who support it, because, otherwise, Fraunhofer would be collecting patent license fees from decoder manufacturers, which means "users once-removed".
N oticeID=464
http://www.chillingeffects.org/patent/notice.cgi?
Your thesis depends on MP3 being "free", and the only reason it is is because of the threat of OGG. Fraunhofer is willing to give up the otherwise obtainable revenue to maintain the overwhelming popularity of the format, in order to collect revenue from hardware manufacturers. If OGG wasn't around, all of MP3 would be a revenue stream for them, and it would never have achieved it's present hegemony.
Depending on what would maximize their income, Fraunhofer should (or should not) be grateful to Vorbis.
Indeed, battery life is huge. For me though, I didn't have much of a choice, since 90% of my music is ogg or flac.
In my personal experience, I got about 10 or 10.5 hours at best with the apple firmware. With Rockbox, I receive about 8-9 hours reliably (sometimes over 10!), playing ogg (eats more juice -- inherent with ogg), with a skin (default is ugly), backlight (4 seconds, faded), and mostly continuous (I play it all day at work, but shut it off during my lunch break). Which for me, is pretty damn good, and quite reasonable.
When my nano was new, it was about an hour more than the above stated. I also want to point out that the only way I was able to even produce 13 hours of battery life with the apple firmware, was continuous playback, no backlight, mp3, on the lowest volume setting. Apple advertises 14 hours for the nano. Yea, right..
Another thing you should consider is that the Rockbox project is very new. iPod support is new as of March of this year.. so I think things are coming along quite nicely. I also LOVE not having to use the itunesdb.. drag and drop files, or in my case Amarok, which is so very nice.
But I'm not here to persuade you..I'm just explaining why I find it so lovely. If it doesn't work for you, then hey, there's no reason to use it!
.:bleaked
Right, because the enjoyment you get out of a music player is solely dependent on its ability to reproduce every last frequency component and dynamic detail of the audio file. What about the emotional content? What about the freedom of being able to listen to anything you have in your collection, anywhere you are?
Honestly, I think you audiophile freaks would be happy listening to a 200Hz test signal, as long as it was reproduced perfectly...
Oh, I agree with all of those things. I'm willing to sit through an episode of the Simpsons with a little static on the TV because it's funny and I enjoy it enough to ignore the lack of fidelity. I'm not saying the earbud users aren't enjoying their entire collection of tunes, or are unsatisfied with the sound quality. I'm just saying that if _I_ were to buy a cutting-edge $3k HDTV it would be silly of me to sit around watching distant broadcast signals with rabbit ears when an HD Tivo adds only ten percent to the cost. I'd do it for the content I love, but given the choice why not get the full modern experience?
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
"It is in the manufacturer's "best interest" to support what their customers want."
So why do they bother including support for DRM'ed Microsoft formats? Seriously who wants that rubbish, but just about every new portable player includes it.