SanDisk

Prizefight: iPod Nano vs. Sansa Clip+

In our latest CNET Prizefight, two clip-on MP3 players (the Apple iPod Nano and SanDisk Sansa Clip+) battle to determine which one is best suited to be your ultimate fitness-friendly audio distraction.

Apple pretty much wrote the book on tiny clip-on MP3 players, but SanDisk has been a quick study. The Sansa Clip+ doesn't have the brand recognition of the iPod, but it's been quietly racking up rave reviews for its ample features and ridiculously affordable price.

Based on the opinions of three CNET editors, which of these pinching players will prevail in a five-round battle royale? Click throughRead more

Crave 16: Where my baby daddy? (podcast)

It may not be a creepy Kaspar baby, but the lead item on today's show is its very own brand of disturbing: a belly band that plays music to an unborn child. It's not the product that bothers Donald and Jasmine, though...it's the eerily happy mother and absentee dad. Also this week: a fan-tastic subwoofer, a new MP3 player that is not a phone, and some sweet street art in Portland, Ore., that Mario-loving cyclists are sure to appreciate. Plus, we get some viewer feedback and sort of drool over this week's heart attack-inducing foodstuff.

Subscribe in iTunes SD VideoSubscribe in RSS SD VideoRead more

Hands-on with the SanDisk Sansa Fuze+

After two years on the market, SanDisk is refreshing its design for the Sansa Fuze--the crown jewel of low-cost portable media players. Priced at $79 (4GB), $89 (8GB), and $119 (16GB), the Sansa Fuze+ is available immediately from SanDisk's Web site, and is rolling out to major retailers in the coming weeks.

For all the the "+" in the name might imply, the Fuze doesn't provide frills, such as a video camera, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi. This is a died-in-the-wool portable media player that delivers a thorough set of features at an outstanding price. You get a 2.… Read more

SanDisk offers super-tiny flash drives

Solid-state drives, the flash memory devices that can replace traditional hard drives, are taking a step away from their roots.

SanDisk announced on Wednesday it's begun testing small SSDs that can be soldered directly to motherboards. This "iSSD" approach contrasts with the prevailing method--building them into hard drive enclosures that look the same from the outside as that of an ordinary hard drive--by offering the smaller size so prized by mobile device manufacturers today.

Each iSSD measures 16x20x1.85mm, weighs less than a gram, and uses the SATA interface used by conventional hard drives, SanDisk said. Its … Read more

Flames scorch Canon 7D, but flash card survives

Laudably, camera makers are steadily improving how rugged and weatherproof their products are. But there are limits, and being in a flaming car is one of them.

So discovered Swedish photographer Petra Hall and her fiance, whose Canon EOS 7D didn't survive when the MG convertible it was in caught fire inexplicably. It and the 24-105mm lens attached were reduced to a camera-shaped mass of scorched, bubbled plastic.

Happily, no humans were injured in the fire, according to Hall's account of the fire. Gear fetishists, though, might want to avert their gaze before seeing the traces of the red band around the rim of the lens indicating it once was one of Canon's high-end and expensive L-series models.

But here's the happy ending: the SanDisk CompactFlash memory card survived within the camera, and necessary photos were retrieved with no trouble once the card was extracted from the camera body's remains.… Read more

SanDisk ships pricey Xbox 360 thumbdrive

Would you pay $34.99 and $69.99 for an 8GB or 16GB USB thumbdrive, respectively? Well, that's the asking price for SanDisk's Xbox 360 USB Flash Drive for gamers to save their games and profiles on-the-go.

These sticks are preconfigured to work out of the box with Microsoft consoles and include a free one-month Xbox Live Gold membership subscription worth $7.99. To give you an idea of how much you're paying SanDisk to format the flash drive on your behalf, its regular Cruzer Micro-series is available on Amazon for $19.29 (8GB) and $32.99 (… Read more

SanDisk ships 32GB memory card for phones

SanDisk announced that it is shipping a 32GB memory card for smartphones--the largest capacity to date.

Currently, smartphone MicroSD cards top out at 16GB. The removable SanDisk microSDHC card would match the maximum internal capacity of high-end phones like the Apple iPhone 3GS and Google Nexus One.

SanDisk follows Samsung, which announced its intention in January to begin mass production of a 32GB MicroSD card this month.

The Milpitas, Calif., company is mass-producing the new cards based on a third-generation 32-nanometer X3 (3-bit-per-cell) technology, which makes it possible to pack 32GB of storage into a tiny MicroSD card.

Buyer beware: … Read more