SanDisk Sansa View review

You may recognise the name Sansa View, but that's about all SanDisk's new video MP3 player has in common with the original View that SanDisk was planning on releasing. SanDisk essentially went back to the drawing board, which is why it's taken so long for the official View to surface. Rather than a screen-dominated PVP, you get a sleeker design, a beefed-up screen and a larger body.

It's a smart move, since more users are inclined towards compact players than dedicated PVPs. Even smarter is the price -- the 8GB View goes for just £100 and a 16GB version is expected to hit the market in early 2008. By comparison, the 8GB Creative Zen retails for around £120. However, it must be said that the Sansa's sound does not stack up to the Zen's.

Design
We're torn on the Sansa View's design. On the one hand, it's pretty large for a flash MP3 player, but it also has an ample 61mm (2.4-inch) screen. And we're taken with the mechanical scroll wheel that sits below the screen and the nifty backlight control indicators that switch their orientation depending on whether the screen is in landscape mode for photo and video viewing, or portrait mode for navigation and music playback.

In addition to the wheel, there's a home button that alternates between the top menu and the playback screen and a small centre select button. The size of this key may present a problem for the less dexterous, though the fact that it's slightly raised helps things.

Sadly, there's no dedicated volume control and the syncing port, located on the bottom, is proprietary. On the plus side, you get a hold switch on the lower-left spine, while the lower-right edge contains a microSD card slot capable of accepting SDHC cards that at the time of writing went up to 8GB.

Style-wise, the Sansa View definitely falls into the understated category; its shiny black face isn't unattractive, but neither is it eye-catching. The clear coat should do a reasonable job at protecting the player from scratches, but it also creates a dimming effect on the LCD, almost as if you're looking through a very fine-mesh screen. Luckily, the display gets very bright, so visibility is not really an issue.

However, we should note that, although the text for all the menus is black, the lettering on the playback screen is white, which may present a problem for some people. Along with track info -- title, artist and album -- this screen also displays album art and can be set to show one of the following: time elapsed/remaining, a graphic equaliser, full-screen cover art or the song that's on deck.

Features
Although the playback screen offers all the information you'd want, most of the Sansa View's interface is fairly uninspiring. You can set different wallpaper colours, but they appear washed out, and there's no option to set a photo as your backdrop. And although the main menu with its magnifying icons is graphically pleasing, the inner menus feature small font and a rather 'blah' overall feel.

That said, music organisation is good, sorting by artist, album and so on; and we're keen on the photo thumbnails in that respective menu. Also, we're happy to see a separate podcast sort, which allows for easy organisation of that content. Another bonus is that although SanDisk's documentation calls only for Windows support, we had no trouble attaching the Sansa View to a MacBook (running only Mac OS) and transferring audio files.