I bought my View at Best Buy on 10/23/07 and none of the salespeople even knew it had arrived.  I had waited a couple months for it to come out and I was very excited.  They sure seemed to take their time releasing it.  Did they do it to make sure they got everything right?

My unboxing photos show how it compares in size to the 2nd Generation iPod 20GB, and my wife's Sansa e260.

This next photo compares the View to the iPod Nano and the new Creative Zen in size.

As you can see, the View (4.3" x 1.95" x .4) is quite a bit taller than the Zen and Nano.  Yet it sports a 2.4" screen, compared to the 2" iPod Nano screen and the Zen's 2.5". 

The View costs $150 for the 8GB version, while the Nano and Zen cost $200 for the same capacity.  The Nano costs $150 for the 4GB version, something the View doesn't offer.  But it does have a huge 16GB flash version for $200, something the Nano does not offer, and the Zen offers for $50 more.

The View supports JPEG photos and MPEG4, WMV, and H.264 videos.  It plays music in the form of WAV, AAC (unprotected), Audible, and both protected and unprotected WMA. 

The View should give you 35 hours of audio playback and seven hours of video.  It records voice memos and sports an FM radio with 20 presets.

The left side has the on/off, hold and microphone button control  The opposite side holds a microSD/SDHC card slot.  Currently the maximum size card is 8GB, which gives this player tons of capacity. 

The scroll wheel works smoothly.  It contains a center button to select choices.  Above and to the right of the scroll wheel is the Home button.  It is very intuitive and simple to use.

To load photos and videos you can use the Sansa Media Converter.

More on the Sansa Media Converter later.

Software

The player comes with a software cd that contains the Best Buy Rhapsody music manager.  It is similar to iTunes.  When you first open it, it looks for music on your hard drive.  To make playlists you must register and be logged into the Rhapsody service.  That doesn't mean you have to buy from them, however.  I had no problem making playlists. 

The first time I attempted to sync my View with Rhapsody I was surprised to see transfer errors upon transfer errors.  I don't know why.  But when the sync finished, only 650 of my 2000 songs transferred.  Ouch.

Next I tried Windows Media Player.  It was simple enough to make playlists, but I personally was not thrilled with the sync.  Again, not all my nusic transferred.  Hmmm. 

I formatted my player for the second time, and attempted to transfer the music via Windows Explorer.  Finally I succeeded!  But wait, now I had no playlists.  Grrrrrr! 

After doing some research on the Sansa Community Forums, I figured out how to utilize Windows Media Explorer to transfer just the playlists.  Bingo!  Now I had music and playlists.  Sweet.

MSC v. MTP Mode

Both modes are available on this player.  The MTP mode assures it will work with the "Plays for Sure" profile.  When you load music in one mode, then connect with the other, you won't see your music, so you must be sure to use the correct mode.  Both modes allow for draggin and dropping files.  With Windows XP you need to have WMP 10/11 installed.  Vista ships with native support.  UMS shows up as a drive, such as "E:\" rather than an icon of the device that MTP uses.  The MTP protocol is newer and is being standardized.  This article explains it more thoroughly.

But the long and short of this side discussion is that if you attempt to drag and drop files to your device, you'll have to choose one of these two protocols.  This is an advanced feature and is not easy for many people to understand.  With an iPod, you just plug it into your computer and transfer everything via iTunes.  It is radically easier and more intuitive.

Photos and Videos

I then attempted to transfer photos.  I hit the Add Media button on the Sansa Media Converter, then hit Convert.  It then uploads the photos to the View.  And sure enough, the thumbnail photos were there.  But when I clicked on one to enlarge it, I saw a blank screen.  I then removed the photos and manually loaded the photos using Windows Explorer, but no love there either.  This problem has plagued me for days, but I can't find a solution.  I had the same issue loading videos.

Firmware Update

I expected the minor firmware update, currently 1.0.03, would solve my problems.  Yet, when I tried to upload it I again had no luck.

Above is a screenshot of how the View appears in Windows Explorer, and the right pane contains the 5 files of the update.  The firmware update somehow didn't take effect, and I was stuck with the original firmware.

Music Player

As you can see from the photo above, you can use the scroll wheel to select the function you want.  The headphones stand for music, the treasure chest takes you to the Radio, Voice Recorder and Settings/Options screen.  A camera stands for photos, and a film reel indicates video. 

Sure enough it is simple to use the controls.  The music sounds good, and the volume goes fairly loud.  You can tweak your settings with a built-in equalizer.  Oddly, the headphone jack is on the bottom, right next to the cable connector.  You would expect the jack to be on the top. 

The screen is very bright and shows video and photos very well.  The unit came with some sample photos and videos. 

Accessories

I have found very few accessories on the market for the View.  It will share many accessories with the e200 series such as speakers and docking kits because they share the same 30 pin connector.  But when it comes to cases and screen savers your choices are severely limited.  I found just a couple choices at Best Buy, but not nearly as many as for other popular players.  I'm sure soon, if this device makes it in the markeplace, companies will begin to offer accessories for it. 

Summary

I have spent hours upon hours trying to get all the functions to work, to no avail.  Even loading music was difficult and time consuming.  I read the User Manual over and over.  I scoured the forums.  I did everything I possibly could to load photos and video.  Over two weeks, I have spent over 20 hours trying in vain to get everything to work.  In comparison, when I first bought my iPod 5 years ago, everything worked flawlessly and simply.  The forum is full of frustrated users.  Some have even returned their Views.  And after two weeks of frustration I will likely return mine.  It has been a great disappointment.  So is it ready to do battle against the iPod or is it "not ready for primetime?"

There is your answer.  Not ready for primetime, like the old Saturday Night Live crew was named, when it was thought they wouldn't make it.  But they went on to fame and fortune.  Perhaps with time and many firmware updates, so too can the View achieve success.  But for now, if you want a proven, easy to use mp3 player, photo viewer and video player, look elsewhere.