SanDisk has been giving Creative a run for its money of late, releasing a host of Flash-based players that are not only competitively priced but also sleek and easy to use.
Pitched against the Creative ZEN, the Sansa View is a music player that can also be used for video as it comes with a decent sized screen. The unit is roughly the same thickness but is longer than the ZEN. Measuring 108 x 50 x 10mm, weighing 83g, the design is an awkward shape and the screen seems a little too far away from the control dial.
The screen itself is a 2.4-inch display with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Image quality is stunning, with videos looking bright and crisp
It comes with 16GB of storage onboard and there is a microSD slot to add more storage if you should need to. This means you can hold 4000 songs, or 20 movies synchronised using SanDisk’s own compression software. This works well but it is rather labour intensive so don’t expect movies to swap over instantly.
In terms of support, it’ll play MP3, WAV, WMA and pretty much anything you can convert through Windows Media Player. When it comes to images, you can view JPEGs, as well as DivX-encoded MPEG4, WMV and H.264.
Extras include an FM radio and there is also a voice recorder built-in. SanDisk claims 35 hours of audio playback and 7 hours when watching video. We found this a little generous, as in separate tests we managed to run video for 5 hours and music for well over 20 hours before needing to recharge.
Our quick take
The SanDisk Sansa View may be bulky and a little on the large side but it supports a host of formats, the screen is highly usable and the price is tantalisingly cheap.
SanDisk Sansa View MP3 player - 3.5 / 5
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To recap
Larger and heavier than its rivals, this device wins points for screen clarity and it's great price