SanDisk Sansa e100 series of small, highly portable digital music players use embedded flash memory to store many hours of digital music. For an enjoyable music-listening experience, the new music players feature high-fidelity sound, a sophisticated yet easy-to-use song navigation and sorting system and a unique design that continues SanDisk's tradition of distinctive styling.The SanDisk Sansa players can store hundreds of songs and play up to 15 continuous hours on a single AAA battery. The new players feature an SD card slot to conveniently add more storage capacity, which can be significant since SanDisk and other companies have recently announced SD cards up to 2GB in capacity. The new players are designed to work seamlessly with a wide range of popular music formats such as MP3 and Windows Media Audio (WMA) in both unprotected and protected files (such as those WMA files purchased from music service provider sites). The SanDisk Sansa music players include stereo headphones, carrying case with armband, USB 2.0 cable, AAA Battery and Install CD with value-added software. For added flexibility, they can be used as a USB storage device. Furthermore, the new industrial design was created with future accessory options in mind.
1 Depends what you want it for...
I bought this player for one reason: It's the cheapest device compatible with Audible and AudioFeast. The integration with AudioFeast isn't elegant, but it works and I'm happy I can now easily use both services without all the workarounds necessary on my other player, which I now just use for music.
The interface will never be confused with that of an iPod, but with relatively limited memory that shouldn't be too much of an issue.
It's a pleasure to now be able to listen to public radio programs like This American Life and Talk of the Nation whenever I want. I can highly recommend this player for users of Audible and AudioFeast, but if you don't subscribe to those services and just want it for music, there are better designed players available.
2 the best new mp3 player in the market
i love it, its easy to use, the music is orgenized so i dont have to search and search for the exact file i feel like hearing,
pros: easy to use, looks good, light, good price
cons: no direct USB connection
summary: o love it
3 Pretty good piece of music equipment
This mp3 player is pretty darn good. It is light weight, easy to handle, and fairly inexpensive ($103 from Amazon). I bought the Sandisk over the Rio and RCA offerings because Sandisk, at least in my research, didn't seem to have the number of complaints about product quality and lack of customer support that the other two brands had. Also, it seems as if getting at least a 512MB flash memory player with an expansion slot is going to cost around $100.
This player represents the second Sandisk mp3 player in our household. We were impressed with the ease of use and tranfer speed of the 512MB flash memory player (with no expansion slot). The Sansa player is no different. It is literally drag and drop on to the Sansa. The number of features also put it over the top versus the RCA and Rio.
Overall, you can't beat the usefullness of this little gadget.
Pro's:
--Small size, light weight
--USB 2.0 file transfer speed (transfer 100mb worth of songs in seconds)
--Backlight display
--Plays mp3 and WMA (you can put both on the player at the same time and it doesn't even blink)
--Radio reception is fairly decent here in the hills, but still won't pick up all of the available stations in your area (none of the small mp3 players on the market get anything more than decent reception so don't use this as a selling point regardless of what you buy)
--Sound quality is decent even when playing songs at 64Kbps. If you use this compression level, get good earphones.
--Lots of features including a customizable 5-band eqaulizer with presets, WOW surround sound simulator, and other sound effects. Also, has stopwatch timer and a host of other settings you can play with.
--Battery life is excellent. Not as good as some, but still near the top of players that have good battery life.
--It comes with pouch, armband, earbuds, usb cable.
Minor Con's:
--When you purchase this player, buy headphones. The included earbuds are pointless as the sound quality is barely adequate and the included 3 sets of earbud covers can't keep the earbuds in my ears.
--The battery cover door comes off fairly easily. It looks like it's on there pretty tight but it's not. I think Sandisk did this because of the many complaints that the battery covers on their mp3 players were too difficult to remove causing many people to break the battery cover (like my fiancee did with her own player).
--Your music files need to be properly tagged. I thought my files were appropriately named but this player doesn't seem to recognize the songs. I think the ID3 tags on my music are not correct as the player will display the music title you typed in but it will also show the album, song title, and artist as unknown.
--The buttons on the front are hard to push if you are not expecting it. You just have to adapt to pushing the button deeper than you would think.
--The volume is controlled by a rotary wheel on the top right side of the player. It is very difficult to turn, especially when it is in the holder. I would have preferred two more buttons on the front or side than the wheel.
--Getting the player out of the holder is incredibly difficult. Wipe of the display of the player and the inside of the plastic holder before putting the player in the holder. The plastic film that protects the display during transport leaves either static or a light adhesive film on the display that makes it stick to the plastic holder after you put it in. It took me five minutes and many attempts to get it out before I realized what happened. Also be careful not to yank off the battery door when pulling the player out of the holder.
There you have it. None of these gripes add up to more than a minor irritation which is why I gave it five stars (I would have given it 4.5 starts if I could have). However, having experienced other mp3 players, this one has the best combination of manufacturer product reliability and product support, versatility and expandability (up to 2GB SD card), features, and sound quality. My finacee has started using my player instead of her own player.
Added on 4/25/05:
In my initial review, I forgot to mention two things. The Sansa ignores your file organization so don't bother trying to setup seperate folders for different genres of music. This is why I warned before to make sure that the music you have is named and tagged properly because it does allow you to play songs by artist, album, date added to player, and so on (let's hope SanDisk fixes this with some software upgrades). Also, there is about a 1-2 second lag when switching between songs. This can get a little annoying at times but you will get used to it. To be fair, one more upside is that I added a 1G SD card (SanDisk Ultra II) and after the initial 60 seconds to read the card and update the playlist, it doesn't miss a beat. I still really enjoy this mp3 player.
Added on 05/02/05:
My Sansa has started to drink batteries like I drink Coke. Not sure why; it could be using extra juice to read music on the SD card. I may have to purchase rechargeable batteries if this keeps up. I got 6 hours of playing time out of my last battery. My fiancee's Sandisk (a flash memory player, no expansion slot) goes about 15 hours on a AAA battery. Not sure why the huge discrepancy between our two Sandisk players but my best guess is that my batteries are being drained reading the memory card. It would be helpful if someone out there with some knowledge about this would write a review.
