[vox-tech] Sandisk sansa view review (from a linux perspective)

[Bill Broadley]

> I remain shy of Sandisk stuff due to some consistently bad experiences
> with various flash media.  

Reviews on this unit still seem to be good, as long as you update
the firmware.

> I'm partial to the iAudio stuff from Cowan, in large part because they're

How does the Cowan interact with linux?  Via libmtp?  Just as a storage 
device?  Do the artist/album tags work?  Can you rate music on the cowan
and sync it back to you library?  Playlists?  Album art?

As for the View I did manage to get libmtp working, and as a result album art 
works.  I fixed my tagging issues by being careful about the version of tags I 
use and use easytag or id3v2 to upconvert any old tags I have.

Sound Juicer annoyingly doesn't set the genre, but I can't blame the player
for that.

> openly supportive of "alternative" OS's.  You can flash their firmware
> simply by copying it to the root directory of the device.  But their 16GB
> product is currently more like $250.  The pros/cons are similar: sturdy
> with a decent UI and GUI; flexible media organization; nice, but small
> screen; but no way to encode video on Linux.  They do include some *very*

Wow, really?  Proprietary video format?  Seems like dvd::rip, handbrake,
ffmpeg and related manage all the portable devices (video ipods, psp, nokia 
and 770/800 among others).

> nice-sounding earbuds (easily better than the other half dozen cheap and
> mid-range sets I have lying around).  
> 
> But... I recently got mine tangled and destroyed on my seatpost so I'm
> looking for a replacement set.  Any suggestions for nice-sounding earbuds
> suitable for wear during aggressive trail riding?

Shure.