Verdict:
The memory card maker scores a hit in the music business. Video playback is basic, but it's a fun extra on top of ease of use, great sound and fantastic value.
At £12.50 per gigabyte, the Sansa e280 is the most attractively priced player here by some distance. If the huge 8GB capacity isn't enough, an extra 2GB MicroSD card for the built-in slot will only set you back another £13.
The player is a little chunkier than most at 13mm thick, and its screen's 176x220-pixel resolution is lower than those of the other video-capable players. As a result, video playback looks relatively crude. The supplied software for converting video files uses a low-quality audio format for soundtracks,
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so videos don't sound great either. The player can be slow to switch on, especially when it's full of music, as the player habitually refreshes its database to check for new tracks.
So much for our gripes - there's very little else to criticise. The controls are among the best, with a simple hierarchical menu structure that resembles the iPod's.
We particularly liked the dedicated Menu button, which jumps between the top menu and ow playing' screens. There's also a dedicated Record button for the built-in voice recorder function, although we would have preferred a separate volume control as well. This function is handled by the wheel when it's not browsing menus. It's not as precise as the iPod nano's click wheel, but it's good enough.
Boosting frequencies with the Sansa's custom EQ controls caused distortion regardless of the output volume, but the EQ presets use frequency cuts rather than boosts to avoid this problem. When we selected the Full Bass preset, we found that the supplied headphones performed superbly, though not quite in the same league as Sony's. Overall, it's a surprise winner.
