SanDisk Sansa Base Station

Flash, aha!

Getting hold of the second Base Station, we uncovered the problem; the Sansa needed to have its firmware flashed. It's a simple process, despite the fact it took members of both the bit-tech editorial and sales team to find it out, and within ten minutes of downloading the update from the site were rolling - Lionel Richie all the way to the bank!

The reason that we didn't discover this earlier was that the firmware update isn't mentioned at all in the manual, but is instead covered on a slip of paper which floats loosely in the box. As soon as somebody bothered to read it, we knew what we had to do.

Once working, the remote wasn't a problem. The infra-red beam worked from a comfortable distance of at least twelve to sixteen feet, which is what we reckon the size of any reasonably impressive living room is, though we've heard that it may work in living rooms of up to thirty feet too - though somebody with that much room available probably has a butler to press the buttons for them.

At close range the remote works if not aimed directly at the sensor, i.e aimed backwards or straight up at the ceiling. The further away you get from the station the more directly the sensors need to be aimed at each other, so at the maximum distance we tested from the remote needed to be pointed straight at the station, though that's not a massive hassle at all, just common sense.

Conclusions

So, the Sansa Base Station held up fairly well in our testing and use/abuse. The largest problem we had with it was that the firmware needed to be upgraded - a process which is simple and easy to do despite needing a system restart or two - and this fact is never mentioned in the manual.


To be honest though, I'm not a big believer in the concept of a speaker-less MP3 player dock and, while other bit-tech writers have tried to convince me that it's worth spending £35 in the UK, or $50 in the USA, on a dock which allows an MP3 player to interface with a Hi-Fi via a player dock, I still remain unconvinced and would personally rather spend a few pounds on a line-out cable and get off my ass to touch the buttons rather than pay £30 for a remote control.

But maybe that's just me.

Stacked up against other iPod docks and MP3 stations, the Sansa Base Station is OK in value terms and even I have to admit that the price isn't exactly sky-high. In fact, it's quite reasonable for an MP3 player hub and, while I personally remain unconvinced of exactly how useful the product is, it's a sure thing that the Base Station makes cables less of a hassle and is going to be a valuable addition to the auditory arsenal of any audiophile on the go.

As long as they don't listen to Lionel Richie.

• Build Quality
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Ease of Use
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

What do these scores mean?