Hot Electronic Gadgets

Dean Hannotte says:

I have lots of .MP3 players and only got this for occasions when a built-in speaker would be nice, as when I’m too far away from my stereo system. (And I don’t really like the feeling of wires dangling out of my ears.)

FIRST: I’m a software developer with a high-end PC and two DVD burners that double as CD Players, but their Installation CD comes in mini-CD format which doesn’t work on my system. I got around this by noticing that the disc was mislabelled and only contained a .PDF with documentation in it.

SECOND: When I tried the shaker, however, I couldn’t hear anything out of the speaker. Seriously, I had to keep the thing within a foot of my ears to hear anything at all.

I called Sansa’s technical support line about this and spoke to a nice young man. Unfortunately he just read from a script instead of trying to understand what I was telling him. After saying “no” to a list of possibilities that had nothing to do with what I had just told him, he said he needed to speak to a technician. (This is the technical hotline, mind you.) I waited for two minutes and then he said, “That’s as loud as they get.”

“So Sansa is aware of this problem, then?”

“There is no problem, sir.”

“Well, I consider this false advertising. How do I make them aware that customers won’t stand for this?”

“Just send an email to the support department, sir.”

“I thought this WAS the support department.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, perhaps it’s just one faulty unit. How do we investigate that possibility?”

“We do not ship faulty units, sir.”

I gave up at that point and ended the call, assuring him that I fully realized that none of this was his fault.

A few minutes later I got an email from their support department, supposedly responding the problem number he had given me. But it didn’t say anything about my problem but instead forced me to login to a website to read their response. I logged in and opened the response there, only to find that it too said nothing about my problem but merely bragged about how great their support was!

So, add to FALSE ADVERTISING the fact that Sansa support is incredibly vapid, empty and INSULTING to the intelligence of their customers. I’ve made a promise to myself to remember this rip-off for a very long time.
Rating: 1 / 5

Sherry L. Sharp says:

I bought this mp3 player about a year ago for my then 9 year old son. It has proven to be extremely durable by surviving the ravages and neglect of a young boy. Other things I like about this device: Uses an SD card to store music which allows me to upgrade the storage amount without purchasing a new player, simple intuitive controls which young children can easily learn to use, and most importantly I love that it has a built-in speaker. While the sound quality of the speaker is not as good as the earbuds, it is good for what it is (my son certainly doesn’t notice a difference in the quality). I worry that extended use of earbuds can damage a young child’s hearing so this is the absolute best thing I could hope for in an mp3 player.

The only downside I can find is that that “shaking” control of the player doesn’t really seem to work. That’s fine with me because the controls really are easy to use and I worried that it would be a little too sensitive to the shaking. It’s not and I’m fine with that.

I even bought one of these for my 4 year old nephew and he loves it just as much as my son. I highly recommend this product for children under age 12.
Rating: 5 / 5