Hi guyz. This is the followup reply I just sent off to SanDisk North American Technical Support (Email) today.
I wrote this somewhat forceful, quasi-legal, comprehensive letter to respond to the brushoff I just received from Sansa Tech Support, and to advocate generally for all of us here desiring excellence in design and performance, or at very least a fully satisfactory and reliable experience with our Sansa View devices. And for the fulfillment of the implied corporate obligation SanDisk has towards its past, present, and future customers.
The letter is conceived in the spirit of service and truly I hope that reposting it here is well received, and does not offend any of the forum contributors. Though strongly worded, it is not flaming, defamatory or inappropriate. On the contrary I believe it is honest and objective, hopeful and constructive, and even somewhat residually respectful!
I’m NOT merely whining. I truly hope that this message MAY conceivably have it’s intended effect … which would be a win-win situation … both for us support-neglected Sansa View users, who demand and deserve a well-designed, fully functional, reliable and well-supported device, … as well as for the company and its future business prospects.
It’s obvious that most of us here really want SanDisk to succeed with this product, and as a company. Most of us really do enjoy and appreciate our Sansa View media players … or should I say, that which works well and as advertised, and we recognize its great potential. And I, for one, am truly grateful to SanDisk Corporation for having served us in many ways with their great concepts and products, though in this case, regarding the View, almost great, with some serious flaws.
And most of us care enough about to be persistent and passionate in finding remedies to the deficiencies of both the product and the corporate approach to us users.
So without further ado:
Email Date:05/13/2009
Sent to:support@sansa.com
Richard, or to whomever it may concern at Sansa Tech Support:
I believe you are quite MISTAKEN!
I have visited the latest Sansa View Firmware Thread on the Sansa Forum to which you referred me. I see no evidence that anyone from the Sansa product engineering or firmware development team EVER reads or responds to that thread. Many of your long-standing, formerly loyal customers there are frankly very upset with the perceived level of neglect and the lack of attention to customer support for the View that they have been experiencing.
Please go to the Sansa Forum to see for yourself what I am talking about!
Disappointed and frustrated users are investing lots of time and energy helping themselves and each other, and doing some of the QA testing, applications and customer support that Sansa corporation apparently has not. Some View owners are practically praying for third party firmware support from RockBox, etc., to compensate for its relative lack from SanDisk … to FINALLY liberate the admittedly excellent and prodigious capabilities of the View’s basic hardware design from the inadequately engineered, inadequately tested, and inadequately resourced firmware provided.
There is much anger, and several customers have given up on purchasing SanDisk products in the future altogether.
Truly I hope it is NOT SanDisk corporate policy for Tech Support to intentionally sweep aside customers’ legitimate claims and requests, and appear to rid yourselves of the “problem” by sending us off to a user forum that is apparently unsupported and generally ignored by SanDisk. Out of sight, out of mind?
I will extend to you the benefit of the doubt … that you simply did not understand the issues involved when you referred me there.
For YEARS apparently, there have been longstanding BASIC usability issues with the Sansa View — when compared fairly to many other higher-end digital media players manufactured both by your own company and your competition!
These include:
1 - unstable, fault-intolerant, and inadequately tested firmware releases, the most recent of which is nearly a year old!
2 - unacceptable and unusable navigation of long audio tracks especially for audiobooks & podcasts … due to the total lack of BASIC firmware support for accelerating fast forward and rewind operations and no rotating scrollwheel support at all … as there is even with the e200.
3 - unstable, unreliable, useless battery metering on the current firmware release.
4 - extremely dimished operating time on a single battery charge with the latest firmware release … which even has legal implications because it is way below your advertised specification.
5 - problems with the firmware such that with NORMAL use …e.g. routine addition and deletion of content … there is some kind of data corruption that routinely leads to unacceptable and unstable performance and loss of functionality.
(Some determined users have even resorted to EXTREME preventive maintenance measures … like ROUTINELY having to flush all media content, reformat both the internal and external memory in BOTH MTP and forced MSC modes! Then of course start from scatch with reloading content.)
6 - problems with registering content loaded via MTP vs. via MSC.
7- problems with audio/video synchronization and the reliable and reproducible performance of video transfered in MTP vs. MSC mode.
8 - poor design, performance and integration of the Sansa Media Converter application with the View that has led folks to buy and experiment with 3rd party software to FINALLY get consistent results from the hardware.
9 - <added here after the original was sent> lack of “wraparound” navigation … a very severe inconvenience and functional limitation for users with lots memory and lots of loaded content.>
10 - & MANY OTHER ISSUES … please read the forum thread yourself and please Richard, and/or anyone else reading this … PLEASE forward this on to your senior colleagues and on to management
This is reflective of frankly unacceptable corporate management policy … leading to all of this customer dissatisfaction, and an unnecessarily negatively skewed public perception of the quality of the Sansa View and other Sansa products.
I asked you a simple question previously, and I am asking it again here:
Will there be another, timely Sansa View firmware release after 1.03.02A to address any of these issues?
In other words, is Sansa still supporting the View in even the most basic of ways?
(I just purchased my View within the past week. How can SanDisk market and sell a product that is no longer supported and that the most recent firmware is deemed broken and unacceptable by even loyal repeat Sansa customers?)
In your previous correspondence, you did not answer the question, and apparently did not refer it to any other appropriate personnel within Sansa Tech Support or Firmware Development or Management. Instead you just sent me to a forum thread that is apparently no longer read or supported by Sansa.
You must know this is completely unacceptable business practice. Please do the right thing and pass this along to all of the potentially responsible parties within Sansa and management, and senior management if possible.
I can also call or write to them directly, but for now I will “go through normal channels.”
It does seem this is a management issue and that resources must be reallocated to address this serious issue upon which SanDisk’s future business and reputation depends.
I await your satisfactory response!
Respectfully, M. Rinder
CC: Also posted to the Sansa View Firmware 1.03.02A Support Forum Thread.
Message Edited by mischasansa on 05-13-2009 03:30 PM
