Sansa Connect: Continuation Stuff

A couple of Friday afternoon tidbits to further extend my string of writeups on Sandisk’s Wi-Fi-inclusive Sansa Connect 4 GByte portable audio player:

1. It’s already down to $200, from $250 at introduction. Not bad, considering it’s been in production for less than three months. But then again, its non-wireless sibling is as low as $120, with the 8 GByte Sansa E280 at $150, so I guess it’s gotta keep pace. Right now Sandisk’s probably thinking how nice it is, in times like these (i.e. the iPhone production ramp, which should cause some interesting supply gyrations for NAND flash memory in coming months) to ‘own’ a dedicated chunk of Toshiba’s fab network.
2. Apparently, according to posters on the Sansa Connect Yahoo discussion group, the microSD card slot on the Sansa Connect is pretty much useless at this point (I haven’t personally tried it yet). Instead of appending to the player’s built-in memory, it presents itself to music transfer software as a dedicated storage device, which is a bit of a pain (in fairness to Sandisk, the same thing is true with memory cards inserted in Windows Media Player Mobile-inclusive Pocket PCs and Smartphones, for example). But the bigger issue is that you can’t copy DRM-inclusive music tracks to the microSD card….ruling out Yahoo Music Unlimited content! Here’s hoping they fix that glitch soon, along with adding support for no-broadcast SSIDs. And, while I’m wishing, the ability to direct-browse Yahoo’s entire music library from the player, which has already been promised, will also be nice if and when it ever arrives.
3. I finally found a snug-fitting case for the Sansa Connect, and it was fiscally attractive to boot, even before the now-expired 15%-off Father’s Day coupon I applied to my order.