Category — Software

I figure an active 15 year old teen age boy has to be extra careful with his MP3 Player.  This wasn’t our luck.  After the Rock Box Story, Future Shop had to honour our warranty due to a malfunction.  This was honoured.  More recently, we had an inkspot on the screen.  Future Shop called it abuse and said we had to buy a new one.  I said what about the warranty?  They said they would honour it again as long as the unit was replaced by Sansa.  Proving that it was deemed a malfunction.

After two long faces walked out of Future Shop, I went home and decided to try that Avenue.  I’m only too pleased to report that Sansa customer service is well organized and rooted for their customers.

Pictures were requested, along with the standard info serial #, Date of purchase, Proof of purchase etc.. Within 24 hours, we were asked to follow a procedure to return the unit.  2 weeks later we had a replaced unit. 

Thank you Sansa, to your staff, policies and well organized system. 

The original post on music players is here.  if you want to go back in time.

The thing I like about extended warrantees, is if you do it right, it can go a long time.  I learned that with my own music players and the same now holds true for DS.

First the review on the shiny new Sansa e280, 8 gig MP3, Video and photo player.  Click on the link to see the specs from the manufacturer. 

This puppy comes with an expansion slot, currently 2 extra gigs.  Capacity is not a problem up to 10 gigs if you really need it.  Even if you want to store movies on it.  I have a tough time personally viewing a movie on one of these 1.8" screens.  Our son however, is thrilled with the idea and has already converted one or two flicks.  Still lots of room for his music and pictures!

He had the navigating down to a science in no time, but needed a little coaching on the music transfers and video converting.  I’ve never been a believer in Itunes for the Ipod, because I don’t like the way it stores music.  I like file names and directories and drag and drop playlists.  Simply, I like the Lyra.  

The sound quality exceeds the IPod product when hooked up to a sound system.  The FM tuner locks on station much better than other  players I’ve worked with. 

I looked at the manual briefly, the suggested interface was the Windows Media Player.  Another library concept I thought.  I went onto the net, and discovered and read at length about a product called Rockbox. 

Warning:  Do Not Install RockBox on your Sansa e200 series.   

Our extended warrantee was almost void.  There probably will be a day when RockBox is feasible, but not for now.

The install and firmware upgrade went quite well, it was the dual boot that didn’t go so well.  I couldn’t roll it back.  Why would I want to roll it back after all that research?  Well, it didn’t recognize the USB port anymore.  Without that, I had no means of formatting, uploading the promised games that you can use with Rockbox etc…

I looked at DS and said "Daddy made a mistake".   On the night of the biggest snowstorm of the year, I got out the bill and warrantee and shovelled the car out.  Drove up to the store and  explained what I had done…  Swallowed my pill, as they read me the riot act at the store.  This is the bit about not using the device properlyblah blah…and they were partially right of course.  I took out my 48 years experience against their 2 x 24 years, and made sure they replaced it.

I looked at our son as we walked back to the car and told him that I owned that machine for the next 24 hours.  The initial charge through the usb, took 2 1/2 hours.  I started reading the manual and specially the part about the 2 modes and the interface with Windows Media Player.

I upgraded my Windows Media player, installed the Sandisk movie converter and one by one begun to achieve all the areas that had stumped DS. 

In order of importance for DS:

• Make a playlist
• Convert Movies 

 He hadn’t complained much, since he could drag and drop songs onto it through MSC mode.  He got through the week quite happy with his upgraded music player.  He was going from a 6 gig Creative Zen(reviewed below) to an 8 gig player that could do just about anything.  My learning curve on this toy was 4 hours.

It took me 2 hours the following morning, to show him  how to use it properly.  He’s a very happy camper with his new Sansa e280.  The moral of the story here maybe…

When putting some new expensive technology into your young teens hands, spend the proper amount of time required to learn how to use it properly.  Show them properly.  As clever as you may think they are, there’s no harm in a little caution.

Why we didn’t stay with the Creative line of products…  The store just didn’t have a 6 gig player to replace it.  For the exact price of the Zen Micro 6 gig.  Our option was the Sansa e280.

The Previous Generation 

Creative Zen

So last Christmas (2005) DS wanted an MP3 player and a cell phone.  <choke>   I told him to choose and that the other one, would come for his birthday.  The Apple Nano was getting terrible reviews in 2005 about how easily it scratches.  Despite this, there were no IPod products available.  2005 was probably the Apple IPod wave, that took the market by storm.  Good for Apple.  In the mean time I had to come up with a solution.

I figured, at 13 years old, he’s old enough to come with me and choose something he likes.  The kids see all kinds of stuff at school and have a pretty good idea of what they really want .  If you’re going to drop $300 on a music player, it may as well be the right one.

He chose the Zen Micro 6gig.  That’s actually $249 + $69 (2 year warrantee) +  15% tax = $365.70.  Great choice and for 15 months of everyday use, it certainly did what it had to do.  Made by Creative, these people had my money for many generations of sound cards.  I knew we were getting into a good product.

The navigating was simple enough and the pc software interface, not aproblem.  Creative bundled it with it’s own file manager.  No messing around with Itunes or third party software.  The down side may have been the FM Tuner.  A little weak on capturing a decent signal.

Sound quality is great!  I would say it exceeds the IPod when hooked up to a sound system, as the Lyra did too.   Battery life is estimated to be over a year.  Ours certainly did that. 

What eventually brought it down was already documented and we had read up on it.  The headphone jack unit/socket, eventually loosens and you lose a channel or sound quality.  It actually cost me a pair of headphones to diagnose properly.  Future Shop took them back no problem. 

This Christmas, I bought him the travel dock for his room, which converts it into a little sound system.  Even has a remote control.  Also a very well thought of product for the price.  The back has all the input output jacks you would ever need.
6 Gigs at 13-14 years old, seems to be plenty for DS.  His friends this year have the 2 gig Lyra, which is also a great product.

I certainly would have no problem steering a shopper towards a Creative product. 

Well what is revisited, I had a great story on it, 2 weeks ago and deleted it by error.  I really have to learn how to do these back ups!  Just the same I will walk through it,  a little quicker not as much details as before.

My first music player was a Lyra, a product by RCA Thomson.  At the time, 3 years ago, a 40 gig music player was a big deal by any standard.  Considering iPods were just being thought of.  It doubled as a portable hard drive and hooked up to our sound system very nicely.  For the record, a portable music player for me has never been to wear headphones.  Instead it is to copy my digital music collection to play in our living room through the family sound system.  It also allowed me to take it to the cottage etc…

When we bought it, $549, it included a 3 year wall to wall Future Shop guarantee.  If anything goes wrong bring it back we’ll exchange it.  A year and half later, the battery died and Future Shop lived up to its deal.  I had a brand new machine, same capacity plus a radio on it which of course I would never use, but made the controls a little more difficult.

I noticed my replacement value, had been devalued to $479, but who’s to complain, I had a brand new toy.  Yes by now the iPod had established itself, and was available in a 20 gig format.  The industry talk was that it would eventually set the standard.  I found that hard to believe.  I d/l iTunes, hated and continued with my second generation Lyra.

One year later, I found to be locked out of my Lyra.  Couldn’t take it to the cottage, I drained the battery, I reset, I did everything the manual and website recommended.  No use.  Finally I got it going again for a short stint and it reoccurred. 

So off I went to visit my friendly retailer.  This time with many more competitors in the game, they offered me everything but a Lyra.  They only carried the very high end ones with video capabilities or the pocket ones.  Instead, they offered me a Toshiba, Gigabeat.

Well, we have many Toshiba products in our home, I must say Toshiba offers a solid product.  So I agreed to take it.  40 gigs plus this one had a bigger screen and displayed photos.  It never occurred to me at the time to even ask for iPod.  This time my product had been devalued to $429.  Still I had a brand new box.  Slimmer, thinner and more tricks to it.  Why complain?  I had 30 days to go back if I didn’t like it plus the 3 year guarantee still riding.

Bad idea!!!  The new generation players, conform to a new standard or law, where they scramble all the songs.  They also don’t playback to your computer as a hard drive or as the Lyras did.  Hummm, I went out and bought a 120 gig usb HD to store other stuff like pictures and do back ups and what not.

Still, after the Gigabeat was fully loaded, about 1 day’s work, I found myself unhappy with the interface software.  My play lists were not compatible, that was a big down side.  I also found myself looking more and more towards the iPod.

A smart sales rep, from another Future Shop looked at me and said he would fix me up if I brought back the Gigabeat.  He didn’t seem to care that I was outside the 30 days.  So the following week-end, I packed up the Gigabeat and went to see him.  He was an iPod believer!

Cashed in my Gigabeat, nulled my 3 year warranty.  Full $429 gift card to go back in and buy an iPod.  I had already walked around with him.  No 40 gigs, either 30 gig or 60.  No 60 in stock so I took the 30 gig knowing that I now had a 120 gig HD to better manage my stuff.  Photo capable also. 

But my biggest selling point on the iPod, was a remote control.  So from the dining room table I can just skip songs, albums, play with the volume etc… another $79.  Just the same, I had to try it.  It came with an A/C adapter and iTunes 6.

Money:  Well, I had to look away, as this time it was costing me!  $379 for the iPod, $79 for the remote, another $89 for the new extended warranty:  $547 plus taxes, $630 bucks, minus my $429, cost me  a whopping $200 bucks to get into the iPod.

Am I happy?  Very!  Still I cannot use it as a true hard drive and play song directly from it to my computer.  Remeber, the songs are scrambled and I cannot bring it to a friend’s house and trade.  I guess they have suceeded.  Mind you they little buggers do network together!

iTunes, has come a long way and so has the iPod.  I’m thrilled with my little remote.  As Apple always does, it over prices stuff.  The thing is designed to scratch easily!  So you end up buying other accessories to protect it.  Performance is there, Address book, silly games, many options like an equalizer, volume sync all music, playlists compatible the list goes on…

Happy day for Apple!