Unfortunately, the site doesn’t do much elaborating on the topic despite apparently having talked to SanDisk about the DAP.
The story says, “in our meeting with SanDisk, the company said, “Sansa Connect is what Zune is not.” SanDisk was of course referring to the WiFi capability of the Sansa Connect.”
Is it really a surprise that SanDisk would find another use for Wi-Fi than music sharing? The Sansa Connect’s wireless abilities (Internet radio and access to PlaysForSure content for example) are certainly more immediately useful than the Zune’s social-networking feature. I doubt that’s up for debate even. But just because a manufacturer adds a feature to a device, does that automatically mean it’s “going after” another product with a similar feature? Yeah, no.
And not to get nitpicky here (but I’m a bit of a dick skunk so I will), the site incorrectly states that Microsoft had the first Wi-Fi-enabled music player. MusicGremlin had one out early in 2006 and that wasn’t even the first one. My point being that there is plenty of room for growth and innovation yet to come in the DAP market. Not everything is a Zune/iPod killer.
Yea, good luck on the battery life, Sandisk. The Zune uses WiFi, but only when you are sending songs. The zune is designed to improve battery life, but this whole “streaming” idea will take up LOADS of battery.
I also believe Sansa has implemented in a better way the Wifi than Zune (till now). Thats why I posted about it on my Zune-related site when I saw it on CES.
But you don’t mention its a 4GB flash memory player (Zune has 30 GB hard disk), it has a 2.2″ screen (Zune has 3″) and both have the same price, $250 ! Sansa connect is an expensive flash player.
By the way killers, killers, killers. The DAP market has space for innovation and… assassination :P
Very very true, Mike, thanks.
Just to clear things up, I’ve been working at a leading electronics store for almost 4 years. This last christmas and currently, we sell the Sandisk Sansa models. We also sell Zunes. I’ve not had ONE Zune returned. I’ve had almost EVERY Sansa come back for one reason or another; mostly because of aweful craftsmanship (it won’t turn on, I can’t hear the music, it erased all the music I put on there, the batteries won’t recharge, etc.) My customers are the greatest feedback. That is how I sell my other products. Based on REAL experience, not candy coated critics who are getting paid for it, the Zune is the better player. There’s no other way to look at it. These are facts.
I have Sansa and I have to say that it’s a rather….quirky player. It locks up on me out of the blue, won’t recognize upload music, and won’t let me delete some tracks. Granted, it’s one of the Sansa-Rhapsody dealies, so maybe that software is bonkers.
Please watch your language (referring to that last paragraph). You can talk like that with your buddies, but remember that this is a public forum, and although the tone is casual, there are people (like me) who aren’t interested in that sort of “vernacular”.
The only word I can imagine you would be talking about would be quirky. That is by no means a word of vulgarity. Dictionary.com defines quirky as A peculiarity of behavior; an idiosyncrasy. And: An unpredictable or unaccountable act or event; a vagary. So to Jay’s defense, he used the word properly.
To Raoul Pop:
Am I missing something? Has quirky become an offense term in some areas? I’m seriously asking here, no sarcasm.
I think Raoul was referring to ‘Bonkers’. And I think he was joking.
Actually, he was referring to me calling myself a dick in the last graph of the story. And whoops, I did it again.