Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)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.
Added on 0725/05:
After having a chance to live with the player for a few more months, I have to downgrade the rating to 3 stars. The player has become harder to live with. It plays reliably and the sound is good but it is still drinking batteries like crazy and the rotary volume knob hasn't loosened up much. Sandisk hasn't offered any software upgrades to address the lack of being able to organize your files any way you want to and it is still very difficult to remove the player from its holder. Having owned several makes and models of players before, this is still better than those players because each of those players died 2-8 months after purchase. Shop around and get what sounds good to you.
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SanDisk Sansa e130 512 MB Digital Audio Player with SD Expansion SlotSanDisk 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 SanDisks tradition of distinctive styling.
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