iPod Dominance is Over: Enter Sansa

I often get blamed for iPod purchases by people who listen to my podcast. After a while you just can’t remember to pack stuff into your PocketPC and as the more interesting stuff comes online in the audio form the more reasonable the investment in a portable music device becomes. I must admit that I’ve cringed at the number of iPods I’ve sold not simply because I hate the arrogant Mac users who think they are englightened but also because I have first hand experience with the awful quality of the iPod Mini that my fiance has. She is on replacement #2 or #3, stuck with iTunes and quite unhappy with it. The problem is that even given those downsides there was no comparably useful device that supported WMA and Plays for Sure and still appealed to the sight and to the touch. I’ve held back on this post for quite some time because I wanted to make sure that this doesn’t become yet another gadget in the drawer or a Best Buy return.

Sandisk Sansa E260 is the winner.

I’ve played with everything on the Microsoft side and until now everything has sucked. Either from the lack of features, poor design, poor sound quality or just poor all over. Who wants to carry around a brick that plays video (Creative Zen Vision M) – that 20 year old technology of portable television is available at your local flea market for $50.

This is different. Sansa costs around $180 for the 4GB version (cheaper than Mac Nano) and quite comparable in size. It has a rather intuitive interface and is far less prone to scratches than Mac Nano. Unlike Nano, you are not restricted to a single proprietary software or music store – you have a choice of going with Yahoo, Napster, Rhapsody, allofmp3.com  and more. This is important because you are not stuck paying $0.99 for one song after another, you just pay ~$15 a month and download as much as you want and the content is yours to use for as long as you keep your subscription. Sansa has a built in microphone so it can easilly function as a voice recorder, something Nano does not because Jobs is in bed with the recording industry and doesn’t want to allow people to record live concerts. Sansa also has a built-in FM radio tuner when you get bored of your mp3’s and want to listen to talk radio or get traffic updates. Sansa also works as a USB drive which means you can drag and drop files, pictures, music and anything else you want onto it. The USB interface is also the charger so you don’t need to keep a stack of batteries or carry around a cradle when you’re traveling. The battery is solid, 12–20 hours of playtime on a single charge.

And the killer feature – Video. Yes, this tiny device can play video. Even though it is as small and as light as Nano it does have a significatly bigger screen which allows you to play rocketboom on the device. The sound is spectacular. The video, likewise, is bareable but lets face it, you’re using this device to be entertained while doing other things, not to enjoy theatre-like movie performance. I’m starting video blogging later this month so this is what sold me on it, David Ciccione did an awesome video blog episode on this device and I got it just a few minutes later.

As for how I use it – first of all, all my music is directly ripped from CD’s so I simply moved my desktop library to the device and that was it. For podcasts and vlogs I use Yahoo Music Engine which keeps stuff up to date and syncs my Sansa with the desktop when its plugged in. Thats all there is to it.

So if you’ve got an iPod, throw it away and go get Sansa. You will not regret it.