SanDisk is better known for flash memory than mp3 players. If their newest product offering is any indication, that may be changing. The higher capacity Sansa, weighing in with 8GB of sweet flash storage love, bests Apple's current highest capacity Nano by a margin of, well, another Nano.
The new player will retail at $250( the same price as a 4GB Nano), hitting Apple with an uppercut to follow the storage capacity body blow.
"The most costly ingredient in a flash-based (music) player is the flash memory," said Eric Bone, director of audio/video product marketing at SanDisk. "Since we make the flash memory, we essentially remove the middleman and pass that savings directly to the consumer."
I think we're guaranteed an 8GB or 12GB Nano for Christmas this year, but I'm hoping for Apple's sake we'll see a significant price readjustment as well.[via Reuters]
1. And don't forget the other features the Sansa has that the nano doesn't. FM tuner with the ability to record, user-replaceable LiIon battery, built-in voice recorder, microSD slot allowing a 2GB bump in memory for cheap...
Engadget also reported in June that we will likely see the alterna-awesome Rockbox firmware available for the Sansa. If this port of the firmware is as good as Rockbox has been on the iriver H100 series, I can find even less reason to buy an iPod.
Posted at 5:10PM on Aug 21st 2006 by Monoto