As far as sound quality goes, the Sansa View only lacks power when it comes to bass. You’ll also want to probably want to upgrade the headphones to some that are less tiresome on the ears.

However, that’s where the moans stop. The options for playing music have to be singled out for special praise, bringing in the usual playlist support and allowing tracks to be sorted by artist, album, genre, rating, podcast, audiobook or recordings. The reception on the FM radio is also as good as listening to your regular MP3s, which shouldn’t surprise us as it was also good SanDisk’s tiny Sansa Clip player.

But it’s the super screen that gets the most glory. In most cases this offers pin-sharp playback, making films easy to watch even in the brightest light. Oddly, it does show up some pixilation of edges when displaying clouds, but all other images in the time we used it remained intact.

SanDisk has also taken a leaf out of Apple’s book by making the Sansa View very easy to use. The interface may look like something a Blue Peter presenter knocked up with its basic icons, but you could happily hand this over to your granddad and expect him to have it up and running in minutes. The only niggle is that the voice recorder and radio are hidden under the ‘More’ icon, rather than getting their own top-level spot in the main menu.

So should you buy the Sansa View? It basically comes down to what you want for your money. The View will give you 16GB of memory (a 32GB version is on the way) compared with the iPod Nano’s current 8GB. And whereas the Nano is fixed, the View has a MicroSD slot to help you get more life out of the device. At €210 including VAT (about £155), that extra space will only cost you around £25 more than Apple is charging. If you’re seriously thinking about using this for movies, the View’s double capacity is a great start even before you go down the MicroSD route. The only area the Sansa View really disappoints is in the lack of case, as you’ll want to protect that gorgeous screen in your pocket or bag.

VERDICT: 8/10