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[vdex34]

Hmm, I just got a refurbd View 8gb from buy.com. I wonder if they will exchange it for a fuze. I was hoping SanDisk hadn't given up on the View yet. I would love slotMusic support, or just bug fixes.

Message Edited by vdex34 on 05-13-2009 06:21 PM

[mischasansa]

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

[bratboy]

I have to admit its a fustraiting situation. Sure would of been nice if SanDisk had posted something here a bit back BEFORE I blew money on 2 of these player, one for me and one for my significant, that they were planning to abandon it. Blew a fortune on an 8 and a 16 gig version because I thought I was getting a good product with support behind it. Now the feeling I get is their saying "So sad,too bad... spend more money with us for a Fuze instead".

I've been fairly happy with mine but there are issues and I kept hopeing they would work on them not just leave us out to dry. Anyone have some suggestions on a GOOD brand/make that one can rely on for proper support?

Message Edited by bratboy on 05-13-2009 04:07 PM

[miltst]

---

@bratboy wrote:

I've been fairly happy with mine but there are issues and I kept hopeing they would work on them not just leave us out to dry. Anyone have some suggestions on a GOOD brand/make that one can rely on for proper support?

Message Edited by bratboy on 05-13-2009 04:07 PM

---

Although I don't (yet) own anything from either of these, I'd bet the support from either Samsung or Cowon is far better than SanDisk ever will be. Take a look at the lates models from those two companies over on Anythingbutipod.com. Sounds like they put out new firwmare every few weeks if there's anything that needs to be fixed, improved, or for additional enhancements.

I would think Samsung in particular would be really good since they also make cell phones (and the processor chips in these players are actually made for cell phones, they just don't use everything). They may be a bit pricey, but they also have touch screens (which none of the current Sansa players have).

[AngusM16G]

Fantastic Letter MR. Now to send it to Audio & Electronic Magazines to get as much exposure to their apathy. This is really stupid. Releasing a product with bugs and the last firmware update was in June 08!! What are they thinking. We need to get as much detail out in the public to get them to realize that the pubic will not stand to be treated as equipment testers. Hey- we are PAYING good money for a supposedly good product. It has no sleep function and my cheap chinese mp4 player has all the features AND IT WORKS.

Gus - Florida RSA

[yelped]

OK, guys! Calm down! There is no point in circulating this to various websites, as it's not going to help. SanDisk, unfortunately, cannot do anything to help you, for a certain reason, so please just stop protesting because it's not going to help.

[shadow98fl]

Yelped, you sound like you have a job application in at Sandisk.

Let us know how that works out!

No one is going to "stop protesting" (unless they just give up that they wasted their hard-earned money on a product that doesn't do as was promised). They shouldn't. You are *supposed* to get what you pay for. We didn't. Simple as that.

Maybe if all the dissatisfied owners spread the word loud & long, something would get done, but I doubt it. At least it might  help stop others from making the same mistake.

...Too bad "the lemon law" only covers vehicles...

Message Edited by shadow98fl on 05-28-2009 12:48 AM

Message Edited by shadow98fl on 05-28-2009 12:50 AM

[bratboy]

I for one an very dissapointed over Sansa's handling of the situation. The whole idea of updateable firmware is so they can fix the problems ppl have. Instead it seems they just want us to write off the money we spent and then give them more for a Fuze. Not going to happen. I will put my money where my mouth is and take my business to another company that will actually stand behind their products.

Which one that is I havent decided yet but I certainly am not going to reinvest in a company that basically has said "screw you, were not going to fix the existing problem". Money is way too tight these days to just throw it away on crappy support.

[Conversionbox]

I dont own a view... I bought one and then returned it in favor of 2 connects. However the realization must hit the owners of any product that eventually they get discontinued or at the very least that when new products come out the old products take a back seat. I doubt very much that threats about taking you money elsewhere will resonate at Sandisk, when the Clip and the Fuze sell so well. I also doubt very much that publicity stunts by users will achieve anything. I feel for you all, but I have to laugh sometimes at just how mad people get over an object that in the grand scheme of things is really not important. When will Sandisk make an official statement about the future of the View? Nobody but Sandisk knows. Will they release a firmware? I doubt it. Also keep in mind that there were people using players before you that got treated the same way, and there will be people in the future in this same boat. I hope for those of you who have spent your hard earned dollars that some news comes but I wouldnt suggest holding your breath or wasting said breath ranting and raving and threatening to leave. 

[DemonView]

I just gave up on the View. I took it in to BestBuy for a 8GB Zune, which was signifigantly cheaper, and bought the 2 year product plan and two energy drinks. The Zune works much better; no waiting for the stuff to be written after you disconnect, awesome software, and faster scrolling. I love it! Here's the kicker: they have support! I'm not trying to convert y'all to the Zune, but with better pricing I can't really sing of the View, except for the...uh...SDMHC slot. Thats the only thing the View has over the Zune.