I have to say that recently I have seen many interesting similarities to the downfall of iRiver being relicated by Sansa.
EXTREMELY poor reponse from Tech Support, poor documentation, battery life, inconsistent functionality between units, “enhancements” that are actually regressive.
Sansa is actually much worse in many of these areas, particulary support and documentation.
iRiver used to have a forum like this and it is now gone.
While, on balance, I’m happy with my e280 and Fuze, I can’t help but think that Sansa is doomed to be the next iRiver.
You shouldn’t have to be a tech geek to perform basic functions with a player.
I still have an iRiver T30 that I use occasionally and find myself thinking that yet another DAP company will fail
because they simply refuse to listen to the requests of their paying customers in the worlds largest consumer market.
The reported possible aquisition of Sandisk by Samsung doesn’t give me much hope.
Message Edited by tmarkoski on 09-26-2008 06:19 AM
I have to say that recently I have seen many interesting similarities to the downfall of iRiver being relicated by Sansa.
EXTREMELY poor reponse from Tech Support, poor documentation, battery life, inconsistent functionality between units, “enhancements” that are actually regressive.
Sansa is actually much worse in many of these areas, particulary support and documentation.
iRiver used to have a forum like this and it is now gone.
While, on balance, I’m happy with my e280 and Fuze, I can’t help but think that Sansa is doomed to be the next iRiver.
You shouldn’t have to be a tech geek to perform basic functions with a player.
I still have an iRiver T30 that I use occasionally and find myself thinking that yet another DAP company will fail
because they simply refuse to listen to the requests of their paying customers in the worlds largest consumer market.
The reported possible aquisition of Sandisk by Samsung doesn’t give me much hope.
Message Edited by tmarkoski on 09-26-2008 06:19 AM
I think you might be a little over harsh. The Clip has had several FW updates bringing great new features and fixes. Initially, they were equally responsive with the Fuze.
However, I will agree that the current state of the Fuze is worrisome. We’re about 1 week away from it being 6 months since the last FW update. This is way to long to wait for fixes to known significant problems (several of which were fixed on the Clip months ago). I’m sure they are having trouble with the new Ogg and FLAC support, but it’s really no excuse for not releasing a minor patch or two in the interim.
I manage several large software products and I never tie important bug fixes to new feature releases for this reason. A patch will be released every couple months for important bug fixes and minor enhancements with major features coming every 4-6 months. If some unexpected complication is going to cause a major slip, I yank the problem feature, release what’s been completed and reschedule the problem feature for the next cycle. Customers become confident that their problems will be addressed in a relatively short time and and become much more positive about the product. Even when a particular customer’s problem isn’t addressed in a patch, they still are much less negative because they see progress. When you go half a year with zero visible progress, you have to expect very frustrated and negative customers.
I’m also concerned about the Samsung news. I hope it’s not causing a loss of focus on getting the next FW out.
I wonder if Sandisk is working on some new models to be released soon? If so, that would explain delays in getting out new firmware for the Fuze. Sandisk needs a model with a full sized SD card slot and longer battery life than the Fuze. It would be nice if we could get such a model that navigates by folders or by tags.
Apparently you have not done any research on this issue.
the sansa connect was designed by a company named zing (bought out by dell)not sandisk. Additionally yahoo stopped offering yahoo music to go effectively rendering the connects wifi features useless. since firmware for the connect was made by zing when yahoo stopped offering the service the connect was discontinued instead of having zing port it for another software.
last i checked sansa had 16% market share. that may not be what you consider a lot however compared to their closest competitor at less than 3% i say they are doing pretty good.
samsung is interested in sandisk because sandisk owns a lot of the intellectual property that samsung uses. they not only would samsung gain royalty revenue they would save about 450 million a year in licensing fees according to reports. it is unlikely sandisk will sell until the offer get closer to $40 per share not the $26 samsung offered. it is pretty clear samsung is trying to take advantage of the downturn in the us markets and the weak dollar to get sandisk on the cheap.
in my opinion even if samsung does buy out sandisk it is likely they will leverage teh sansa name for the market share.
Well, it’s easy. The reason this product is doomed is the lack of distribution channels. You can not distribute a product online only, unless you are only interested in the US market. (Think shipping costs, support, and accessories.)
And the distribution channels, which would typically be your local electronics stores are not interested since there is no wide accessories range to support the Sansa they could choose from.
The margin they make is not on the devices, which are often sold below cost, but the accessories - armbands, docks, what have you, on which the margin is often 60-70%. With only a handful of manufacturers supporting Sansa (and particualrly Sansa Fuze), there is no price competition and no choice for retailers’ procurement managers. No choice ergo no margin and customer satisfaction, ergo no reason to sell.
And yes, I am bitter because I can’t find any accessories for my Fuze in New Zealand, but it does kinda tell the story.
Sandisk basically has two mp3 player models that are worth buying, the Fuze and the Clip. The rest of the product line consists of older products with lower sound quality. If Sandisk does have 11% of the mp3 player market now, that is good, considering everything. Is the 11% by dollars, or by units? Some might calculate market share in dollars, since the average price of a Sandisk player is low, this makes Sandisk look like they are selling even fewer units than they are. A market share number in units would imo convey more information. I guess Sandisk needs to clear out the other models besides the Fuze and the Clip, and come out with new models. Perhaps they should release an imporoved View with the sound quality of the Fuze, a full sized SD card, navigation by folders or by tags, longer battery life, etc. Bringing folder navigation to the Fuze, or a new model not much larger than the Fuze that navigates by folders or tags and has a full sized SD card slot and longer battery life than the Fuze would be good. The competition is heating up in mp3 players. some larger companies that used to sell many portable tape player and portable CD players seem to want to have a significant presence in the portable mp3 player market.
if Sandisk wants to increase its mp3 player market share, they need to sell what most other mp3 player makers don’t sell. Having a micro SD card slot on the Fuze is a first step, but players with a full sized SD card slot are also needed. So are players with a removable, easily replaceable battery, especially those that use a AA or AAA battery. Having models that navigate by both folders and tags would also be useful. Having at least one model with both AM and FM radio would also be useful. Getting rid of the proprietary connector and proprietary cable would also help.
Although one may have higher expectations of Tech Support’s participation in this forum, I am more than satisfied with Tech Support’s responsiveness to phone calls. I have called Sandisk several times requesting support; not once was I put on hold for more than a minute, and once I was connected with a representative, I always found that person to be concerned, knowledgeable and thorough.
@promisedplanet wrote:
Although one may have higher expectations of Tech Support’s participation in this forum, I am more than satisfied with Tech Support’s responsiveness to phone calls. I have called Sandisk several times requesting support; not once was I put on hold for more than a minute, and once I was connected with a representative, I always found that person to be concerned, knowledgeable and thorough.
If you are happy with support, that is good.
However, it doesn’t excuse the pitiful documentation that SanDisk provides for Sansa players.
There have been many solutions to Sansa player problems in this forum over time and not a single one
has ever made it into the documentation.
To me, that speaks of the arrogance of SanDisk management and its disconnect with its own customers.
I’m still waiting for an explanation as to why *.pla playlists worked fine on the e200 series and are
apparently no longer supported. The lack of consistency from one generation of player to the next
is abysmal. This has NOTHING to do with firmware changes.
A playlist is simply a text file. Even a WMP playlist is just an XML text file.
Parsing a text file takes next to nothing as far as code goes.
Consistent playlist support from model to model should be a given, not something a user has to find
out about when it doesn’t occur.
Message Edited by tmarkoski on 09-28-2008 11:07 AM
Playlists in .pla format? That’s all I use on my devices, the Clip, the Fuze, and the e280v2. M3u files are path sensitive, and not as convenient to generate.
SanDisk does listen to customer concerns, as shown here on the board. Promised has a good point, as support is always helpful via telephone. Not many companies offer anything close.
