Great Hardware But Needs a Fully Functional OS

The ideal MP3 player has not yet been created, and while the Sansa e2xx series is very good for many of the things, the software is poor for podcasts. Also, it should be possible to put the software into a reduced eyesight mode (for someone with less than perfect vision; i.e., anyone over 50). Reduced eyesight mode would eliminate all the fancy screen graphics and provide the largest text possible so that the screen can be read without glasses by the average 50 year-old or in less than ideal lighting conditions. (The screen of the Sansa is washed out in bright sunlight.) The size of the screen is large enough to provide terrific readability -- if the software supported it. (I really enjoy my Canon D40 digital SLR because it provides an option to display shooting parameters in large type on the big rear LCD.) In addition, there should be a mode that alters the display to show as much metadata as possible, including the full title of the file. This would allow the user to have as much information as possible about an individual file, without actually listening to it. It is very difficult to browse through podcast files on the Sansa.

In fact, the Sansa e2xx series is not good for podcasts. The reason is that the tagging scheme for podcasts is not uniform so a useful "directory" of podcasts can't be generated by the software. Using the factory software, it is difficult to navigate among many podcasts and podcasts are organized haphazardly. Sansa should provide an alternative operating system that allows Windows-style navigation, with automatic display of full metadata. Rockbox (an open source operating system that works with Sansa e2xx; www.rockbox.org) is a pretty good alternative solution. However, it is still in beta and it is buggy. Sansa should provide a fully operational operating system that is fully functional for podcast (and also audiobook) users.

Finally, there really should be a taskshifter built-in to the software. For example, if you are listening to a podcast and decide you'd like a musical interlude, there should be a way of easily jumping to the music and then hop back to the podcast in exactly the same spot you left off. This is a no-brainer, but there isn't an easy way to do it with the factory software. It is possible with RockBox using bookmarks, but rather unwieldy.