Review: Sandisk Sansa View portable audio player

The popularity of Sandisk’s e200 series, released in 2006, was in no small part down to an effective pricing strategy that undercut much of the competition by a substantial margin.

This trend is set to continue with the new Sansa View, which is available in 8GB or 16GB capacities at £95 and £125 respectively. A 32GB version costing £175 was announced at CES 2008.

It’s quite a bit larger than its predecessor but offers a 2.4in display for viewing photos and video along with a built in micro-SD card slot for upping the capacity even further.

The rest of the player, both in terms of the case design and menu structure, is rather basic. There’s decent support for a range of music and video formats, although for the latter we still had to resort to using Sandisk’s media converter software despite testing files that apparently adhered to the player’s specifications.

Video playback is adequate without being outstanding; the display isn’t particularly vibrant but is fairly sharp, though as always we’d question the legitimacy of watching videos for an extended period on such a small screen.

Audio playback offers similar middle-of-the-road performance. There are a handful of equalizer presets and a custom option but we weren’t bowled over by the player’s clarity, despite ditching the similarly average headphones supplied for a decent set of in-ear buds. Extra features include an FM radio with auto-tuner and a voice recorder - considering the low price, both are welcome additions.

Battery life is stated to be around 35 hours for audio and seven hours for video, which is very impressive and is significantly higher than most rivals. Despite not excellent in terms of looks and performance, its appeal is boosted by the low price tag and long battery life and it should result in continued success for the Sandisk in the digital media market.

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