2. Sansa E200 Series, Continued

Controls are well laid out, but they could easily have been better. While the wheel makes navigation quick and simple, the rest of the buttons are located too close to it, which makes them impossible to press with anything but the tip of a thumbnail for anyone except those with small hands.

There is no dedicated volume control, and the record button is placed so as to make accidentally pressing it a little too easy; this is made worse by the fact that it stops the music and records your moment of surprise and annoyance. None of these problems are enough to break the deal, but it is still a shame that Sandisk didn't improve upon these minor facets.

The battery is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that lasts around 10-15 hours, with the manufacturer claiming 20 hours across the whole series. The machine is charged through a USB cable with no A/C adaptor supplied. Music can either be dragged and dropped using Windows Explorer, or one can synchronize it with Windows Media Player.

The color screen is of good quality; it's bright and makes the player easy to use. Menus are easy to navigate and the simple and intuitive layout makes nothing hard work. The only problem is that when one goes to the in-song options, it isn't obvious how to get back to the standard view. On the positive side, you can easily jump from the top of a list of tracks to the bottom without having to scroll through everything in between; this can make getting to a specific track considerably faster.

The screen can be used to show both video and photographs, although both require the use of the provided software to get them onto the player. The software is simple to use, but the conversion process into the player's preferred resolution and .MOV format is slow, taking up to fifteen minutes for an hour of video. On the plus side, the software is capable of converting from a large range of formats, including DivX encoded files, .WMV and DVD .VOB files. The screen might not do justice to special-effect-laden blockbusters, but it is fine for watching an occasional TV episode. As video playback doesn't seem to have had any impact on the price of the player, it is certainly a commendable inclusion.

For North American customers there is also an FM Radio (and the ability to record it) but this isn't available in Europe due to cost reasons. To quote the product manager, it is "because you have to pay 12.5% tax in the EU for the functionality...and [we would have to] pass the cost onto the consumer." Voice Recording is the final extra feature - it is acceptable for basic note-taking but little more, thanks to a limited microphone range and no option for an external mic.

Unfortunately the real deal breaker on this player is sound quality, which is disappointing. The supplied headphones are cheap and nasty, but even through decent headphones the sound is quite tinny and constrained. The preset EQ options do nothing to improve matters.

As a flagship player of Sandisk's MP3 player range, the e200 takes a surprisingly cheap and cheerful approach to design. It looks good and is easy to use with an impressive range of features, but it really lets itself down on sound quality and, to a lesser extent, battery life. It's close to being a great player, but falls at the last hurdle.