Review: Sandisk Sansa e260 mp3 player

The Sansa e260 mp3 player is Sandisk's answer to Apple's Ipod Nano.

Its ability to play video, handle a broader range of audio formats and the expandable memory are the main advantages over Apple's popular Nano player

Aggressive power management enables Sandisk's e260 to come very close to reaching its theoretical 18-hour battery life for audio playback.

To achieve this, the display is turned off after 15 seconds of non-use. On the downside, you have to reawaken the system by pressing a button before you can skip a track or pause the song currently playing.

If you're happy to lose a little battery life, you can alter this setting and leave the display on for longer.

Under the player's back panel is the lithium-ion rechargeable battery, which can be replaced.

No wall socket charger is supplied, instead the battery recharges when connected via USB to a PC. Charge time is approximately two hours from empty.

The e260's dimensions are comparable to the Ipod Nano but it is about twice as thick.

Movie playback makes the e260 stand out from the crowd of small mp3 players. The 1.8in screen is too small to watch a full-length film, but playback is of good quality and an acceptable, if unspectacular, 15fps (frames per second).

Sansa media converter, powered by Arcsoft, allows you to drag and drop a multitude of video formats and convert them to mov - the player's supported file type.

Conversion is quick (although largely dependent on the speed of your PC), especially considering it's resizing the movie as well as changing the codec.

You can rip an unprotected DVD (vob format) and fit it comfortably onto the player, but the black bands of widescreen DVD formatting are retained after conversion further reducing the display size.

Sandisk has a strong heritage when it comes to flash memory cards, so it's no surprise that it has brought its expertise to bear, managing to pack 4GB of flash memory into this model.

The e270 model pushes the technology to its limit, surpassing the biggest Nano (4GB), with 6GB of space and none of the attendant hassles of hard disk players.

A Micro SD slot at the side of the player enables you to play media files direct from a card. It is also useful for sharing music between an e260 and, say, a mobile phone.

The e260's hardware contains an FM tuner, but access to it has been disabled in Europe (EMEA region) on a software level due to the increased tax radio-capable devices attract.

We're confident that the US release of the player's firmware will be a hot commodity among European owners.

To view photos, you convert photos using the media converter to bitmap format (bmp). You can't zoom or scroll around large images; they're simply resized by the software to fit the screen.

At the top of the player is a tiny microphone which provides good-quality voice recording.

Standard headphones are supplied along with a lanyard and carry pouch. The pouch is scarcely needed as the metal alloy back and scratch resistant front appear to be incredibly durable.

Sandisk is bringing out silicon cases now to be followed soon by a base station, power kit with international AC adapter, spare battery and car charger.

Control of the player is via a transparent mechanical thumbwheel, which is backlit when in use. It's not as smooth as the Ipod clickwheel and the buttons surrounding it would be easier to use if they were a little bigger.

There is some room for improvement in the icon-based user interface but overall it's reasonably intuitive.

During playback, information is displayed about the next song, as well as data about pre-set equaliser settings for a variety of musical genres. The menu system is also available in a range of languages.

Some drawbacks of the player are that it takes over 10 seconds to start up and, while Sandisk supports protected wma files and download services such as Microsoft Playforsure, compatibility with other services is only beginning to be rolled out.

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