Sandisk's Sansa Connect: Updates

Following up on last week's two-part writeup on Sandisk's Sansa Connect Wi-Fi-inclusive portable audio player, here's a few more tidbits:

• First off, I wanted to make sure you saw something I appended to the end of my prior writeup post-publication. Sandisk's PR representative had incorrectly told me in the midst of my review that the Sansa Connect took up one of the three maximum simultaneously authorized computer 'slots' available via Yahoo's subscription music service, since it acted like a computer in logging into the service. A subsequent online dialogue with Yahoo technical support contradicted what I'd earlier been told, and " mixodorian" confirmed that the Sansa Connect didn't use up an authorization slot when he told me that his records showed I had two authorized machines….my and my wife's laptops. Unfortunately, I had to go this route because Yahoo doesn't give users direct access to the current authorization count, and user-controlled deauthorization is only available on a PC-by-PC basis via the Yahoo Music Jukebox software.
• You may have wondered why I wasn't more specific about battery life in my prior review. That's because particularly with a flash memory-based player (where, unlike with a HDD-based player, there are no energy-consuming moving parts) the primary power burners are the LCD backlight, the volume setting, and whether or not audio processing circuits (such as equalizer) are enabled. These are user-specific variables and therefore battery life can widely vary from one user to another. Right now I'm getting around 8 hours of operating life per charge. It's not clear to me from the product documentation (and Sandisk PR hasn't helped here, either) to what degree the Wi-Fi transceiver still burns power even when the user isn't proactively employing it to stream LAUNCHcast online radio, download tracks from Yahoo's servers, etc….since the Sansa Connect needs to still be available to respond to wireless connection attempts from other nearby Sandisk player users. I've just manually disabled Wi-Fi (there's a 'flight mode' option in the player settings) and I'll report back if doing so dramatically increases per-charge operating life.
• Speaking of audio processing, the one feature I really miss from my previous player, iRiver's H10, is SRS WOW. Admittedly, the audio alterations that SRS Labs' algorithms induce (a 'wider' stereo image, bass virtualization, etc) aren't universally admired by consumers, but I personally prefered them; I normally left SRS WOW enabled whenever I was using the H10.
• Again speaking of audio processing, the Sansa Connect has a quite-low peak volume. I was using it with my AFT-100 FM transmitter yesterday and the AFT-100 kept shutting off in-between songs, even if I had the Sansa Connect volume at its maximum setting. Slightly irritating….iPods also have a low peak volume by default (primarily as a lawsuit-dodging hearing preservation measure), but users can override this in the settings menu (except in Europe).
• Finally, right now I've got the Sansa Connect jammed into my iRiver H10's armband case for when I go running, which is workable but not ideal. DLO (Digital Lifestyle Outfitters) makes an Action Jacket for the unit, and I've requested a review unit. I'll report back once it arrives.

Happy weekend, all!