Customer Reviews
Replace your Ipod 
2009-01-06
I bought this as a gift for my son. He wanted a player with more capacity than his present 4 GB Sansa.
I have never owned an I-pod, and I never will with products like this around.
Major Firmware Bugs 
2009-01-01
I've had my 32GB View for about two months now, and am actually on my second one, after having the first one replaced by SanDisk under warranty. The player works great for music (I have not tried downloading and viewing videos) except for one major flaw that I have experienced on both my original player and now my warranty replacement player - it takes over fifteen minutes to boot back up after it has completely shut off.
By way of explanation, I'm running the latest firmware (as of 1/1/09), have the Power Saver mode turned off (set to 00 minutes), using a SanDisk 16GB MicroSD card in the expansion slot, and have synced about 20GB of 192 Kbps files to the internal memory and about 10GB to the expansion slot using Windows Media Player 11 - pretty standard stuff and what I thought the player was made for.
A search of forums shows this slow booting to be a fairly common problem. Contact with SanDisk support results in nothing more than a replacement of the player, only to experience the same problems with the new player. At this point I'm not sure if I've just gotten two lemons, or if there are serious firmware problems involved. However, based on my experience and what I'm seeing on forums, I'd suspect the latter.
I'd recommend steering clear until forum activity indicates this problem has been resolved by improved and functional firmware.
battery issues 2008-12-16
I have a sansa 280 and wanted to update memory from 8 gb to 32gb.
The sound is good. Lots of memory. You can put videos on it and so on.
Two big problems: 1. If you use a case for the sansa - ie "DLO Action Jacket Armband Case" it is really difficult to use the on/off switch - generally a poor design. 2. I am lucky to get 2 hours out of the battery. You can "google" "sansa view battery life" to review comments from others with this problem. No solution yet.
If I cannot sort out the battery problem, I will return the item.
Get an iPod touch 
2008-11-25
Sorry to all the Apple-haters out there but for the same money you could get an 8GB iPod Touch. There are numerous sales this time of year that bring it down to $199. Yes, the storage is a quarter of the View but the fun factor is more than 4 times the View. When Apple says it's the "funnest iPod ever," they aren't kidding.
The video quality of the Touch is outstanding as is the music quality. The Touch's firmware is outstanding. I find myself using it daily for web surfing, entertainment and information of all sorts. The Apps that are available make the Touch extremely useful. There are many productive ones that are free with more being added all the time.
I can't say enough positive things about it. If you need more storage, spring for a larger model. You will not be disappointed.
The only thing I use my View for is out-of-the-house activites where there is a risk of loss or damage. Everything else is iPod!
Sansa View 32 GB 2008-11-23
This is a great product but it still freezes when you try to skip a song. This is "supposedly" a revamped Sansa View the original had lots of problems. They still have problems unfortunately.
Horrible, Nasty Device- DO NOT BUY 
2008-11-17
The Sansa View is a sleek yet simple MP3 player with video capabilities, perfect for consumers to enjoy their favorite movies and shows while on the go.
Great hardware, software needs work 2008-11-15
This is probably the cheapest bang for the buck at the moment. The device works, the battery life is excellent, the audio sounds good, the video looks good (as good as anything can on a small screen), the fm receiver is decent (and can be recorded directly to the unit), and the storage is impressive for the built-in medium.
The microSD expansion may allow the device to keep up with increasing storage demands, however, it appears that using the expansion slot may destroy battery life. Do not buy this expecting to immediately upgrade the storage with microSD, you will be disappointed with the results. The other notable "problem" is the USB connector: at the bottom of the unit is a custom connector that requires a brand-specific USB converter. You get one with the unit, but if you lose it you have to buy another one from Sansa. The alternative would be to have a standard USB port built into the unit, which is presently not done.
The user interface leaves a lot to be desired. There is no seek function to jump to a certain point in a song or video. Fast forward for movies and audio is stuck at a fixed rate, which feels sluggish especially considering the lack of seek function. The unit has a funny habit of locking up for various reasons.
It took me about two months to become comfortable with the interface and have a stable, enjoyable experience. I look forward to future firmware upgrades that may improve the software issues; in lieu of that, Rockbox may eventually get ported to the View. It is currently not there yet.
Pretty much love it so far 
2008-11-05
The first model I got was defective (volume issues), but I submitted it for return and Amazon delivered a new one two days later. The quality is excellent, and it was recognized right away by Windows XP. Sound quality is also very good. I didn't get this to watch videos, but it seems to have a fairly decent playback quality considering the small screen size.
My issue with just about every portable media player these days is the indexing system. My old Archos unit used a FAT32 folder system for organizing mp3s, which were often ripped without full info tags, so I have a ton of stuff to re-rip or manually update literally dozens of CDs. But as I said, I'd probably have had to do that for any new portable player, anyway.
Great Player, great customer service 2008-11-03
Great player, sounds great, holds a ton of music. I had the 16 GB version and got this because I was running out of space, love the Micro SD card capability to add even more space. I had a small problem with the first one I ordered, Amazon customer service handled it quickly and got a replacement out ASAP. Overall I am very happy with entire buying experience and the product and would recommend to someone else.
New best digital media player - I upgraded from Sansa Fuze 2008-11-01
First off, let me say that I loved my Sansa Fuze. Check out my review of that device if you are interested. However, at 8GB internal with a maximum of 16GB microSDHC external, I was looking to expand. I wanted something that I could easily put my entire music collection on, along with videos from the Amazon Unbox (now Video On Demand) service. Naturally, after my good experience with the Sansa Fuze, I looked to SanDisk to see what they had to offer.
I was pleased to discover that the new Sansa View models now went up to 32GB of internal storage. Combine that with the 16GB microSDHC external, I could have an amazing 48GB of portable flash storage!!
This seemed like the best move to me, as I was alreay familiar with the Sansa interface. Plus, the $/GB ratio was the best of any flash player out there. I already owned the Altec Lansing iM413 docking station (another wonderful product) that would be compatible with the View.
I took the plunge and ordered one up. It arrived quickly and I opened it up. WOW!! The View was even nicer than the Fuze! Better build quality, and a much better screen. After loading up some music, I discovered it had even better sound quality than the already great sounding Fuze. Plus, I now had the ability to play videos! The view easily synced with Amazon Unbox to load up my Battlestar Galactica episodes. A nice feature of the View compared to the Fuze is the button icons light up (the Fuze's are painted on) and when you switch to video, the lights rotate so the controls make sense.
The final item I need to commend to you about this player is its ability to seamlessly integrate the contents of internal and external memory into one library. This is a feature SanDisk has nailed compared to ANY other player I have tried. The View does this with ease, and does it even faster than its cousin the Fuze. Another neat thing is that the View has a much bigger picture of your albums when using Album View than the Fuze.
In conclusion, the Sansa View has all of the features I loved about the Sansa Fuze, but with more memory, bettery build quality, a better screen and even better sound quality. Check one out today!
