Author - Jerry Paxton

This weekend I reviewed the 16GB Sansa View media player. As I’m still sporting a first generation iPod, the Sansa View immediately captured my attention with its pencil-thin sleek black design. Forget carrying cases, or interchangeable frames, I’m sticking with this baby as stock.

As with any personal media player the Sansa View comes standard with the ability to play all your mp3s, digital photos, and sports a 2.4 inch screen for viewing your video files (WMV, MPEG4, and H.264). What sets the Sansa View apart from the competition is the built in digital FM tuner, and an integrated microphone for all your personal recording needs. Additionally, the Sansa View has an expandable memory slot (microSD) to store even more random stuff on!  Sandisk claims the battery lasts up to 35 hours when playing audio, and 7 hours for video, a good long while!  Needless to say, I was ready to put this puppy though the paces!

The Sansa View ships with the View, headphones, and a USB plug/charger. If you want a wall or car charger, you have to buy one separately. The View does not ship with any software. Once attached to your computer via the supplied USB cable, the Sansa View is recognized as a removable drive, ready to go, asking you, no, begging you to load media on to it.

I threw some songs on there as well as a episode of Scrubs that I had previously downloaded. Uh oh. First set back. I was advised the format of my video was not supported (Xvid). Silly me to have forgotten about the need to transcode the file into the proper format. Ok, so step 1 was to find the software.

It turns out this is harder to find than one might expect. I went to Sandisk.com and could not find it anywhere in the support section of their site. Turns out Sandisk really has two versions of their website for showing their mp3 players, one which is Sansa specific, and one which is generic to all Sandisk products. The transcoding software is only linked through one, not both. After some searching, I finally located it, but ran into troubles during the install. The setup program does nothing for a good minute or two after the program is started (looking all the while like it froze). I tried to run the setup program on both my desktop and laptop with similar results. I finally just let it sit for a while, and eventually did get it installed properly. In order to successfully transcode a video file, you need to have the Sansa View connected to the computer. The final product is transferred to the View during the conversion process. It would have be nice to have been able to transcode files to transfer to the View at a later time, but this wasn’t a major drawback to me. The whole process took about 75 minutes for a 175mb, 22 minute video file. I don’t know if that is average or not as the View is my first foray into personal media players.

I will say that the final result was well worth the wait. Video playback and the audio synch was perfect. The View delivers smooth motion (up to 30fps), even during high action sequences.

The digital FM tuner is also a fine addition to any mp3 player. Sometimes I just want to listen to random music that I haven’t pre-selected. With the View, when my attention span for my personal music wanes, it’s right there with the FM tuner to keep me going.

The built in microphone is fun and has decent recording quality. Honestly, though, I’ve got the same feature on my cell phone and never use it, so I don’t know how much use the recording feature will have with the average user. Still, it’s better to seldomly use a feature than to not have it when you desperately need it.

The only complaints I might have are that it is not intuitive at all how to stop a file (music or video) once it starts playing. You can pause it, but if you’ve ventured into any of the other menus, including the main graphic menu, you have to return to the category playing the current file in order to do so. There does not seem to be a stop feature at all. You can only pause, or switch from one file to another. I know this sounds weird, but I’ve read the manual twice now to make sure and there is absolutely no mention of a stop button. I don’t have anything against pausing per se, but sometimes there’s something nice about being able to instantly stop a device.

Conclusion: All in all, the Sansa View is my top choice for compact personal media players. Priced, on average, about $50 cheaper than comparably sized (both physically, and in terms of storage capacity) Nanos, the Sansa View is the obvious choice for consumers.

Logitech has a history of making very good gaming mice. I owned an mx512 and a G7, enjoying them both very much. In fact, I originally owned a Logitech ‘huge’ trackball I used to play Tribes with…but I digress. Enter, the G9. This is their new flagship unit and we got a chance to put it through its paces.

The first thing you notice about the G9 is its peculiar form factor. It seems to ‘bend’ to the right the further towards its input cable you go. This design fits very nicely with the natural architecture of your right hand. Its outer shell is a rugged black plastic and has a ‘braided’ input cable unlike most other mice which have standard rubber cables. This braided design makes the cable very durable and tear-resistant.

The mouse comes with two interchangeable outer grips that are made for different uses. The first is called the ‘Wide Load Grip’ and, as the name suggests, is the wider and more contoured of the two. It features a black satin finish for what Logitech calls the ‘ultimate in comfort’. The second grip, called the ‘Precision Grip’, has a much more narrow form with an outer coating of ‘DryGrip’ technology. The DryGrip coating is suppose to help wick away moister during long game sessions. Of the two, I found the Wide Load Grip to be the best for my large hands, with the Precision Grip feeling just a bit too narrow for me. Although I like the DryGrip coating alot more than the satin finish of the Wide Load. They unlock from the base mouse unit with the touch of a button and go on with a snap.

A large assortment of weights come with this mouse as well, in a very handy and portable aluminum casing. You get four 4 gram and four 7 gram weights in the set. The mouse features a retractable weight tray in the palm rest capable of carrying any combination of four weights inside the unit. I like my mice heavy for better control, so I loaded it up with the full 28 grams of weight. The mouse feels much more solid at this weight and is less prone to jumpy movements.

Logitech uses a 3200 dpi Laser sensor in the G9, and the sensitivity can be adjusted by a rocker switch below the primary mouse button on the fly, and without any software needing to be installed. A set of LED lights give you a visual cue as to what setting the mouse is using. While a very solid sensor, it can be a bit ‘jumpy’ at its highest sensitivity with no weight in the mouse. After adding the aforementioned weight to the unit, this was no longer an issue.

Even the G9’s scroll wheel is unique in that it can operate in two modes. The first is what is called ‘MicroGear Precision’, in which the user receives ‘detentes’ while scrolling. The wheel is more ‘locked-down’ in this mode, allowing one movement between detentes for better control of selection. ‘Hyper-Fast Scrolling’ is the second mode and releases the wheel from the detentes, allowing it to spin freely. It spins so freely, in fact, that if you roll it quickly and let it go the wheel continues to spin for a while after. This mode is great for making your way across very ‘tall’ documents or web pages in an extremely timely manner.

Using the included Logitech ‘SetPoint’ software, you are able to program the G9 with five unique profiles for various needs from gaming, word processing, you name it.

The biggest issue I have with the mouse are the narrow buttons. I, as previously stated, have large hands and I find that my forefinger has a tendency to set off to the left of the primary button a bit. This can make it a bit of a strain sometimes to keep my forefinger in the correct position. If the primary button was slightly wider, this would not be an issue.

Conclusion: We have found the Logitech G9 to be a joy to use and, despite the narrow buttons, it offers a HUGE degree of flexibility and options to its handler. From gaming to desktop usage, it performs exceptionally well.