Cheap (and good) MP3 Players (again)
Circuit City is selling the Sandisk Sansa m240 for $49.99 again.
I have one of these 1GB MP3/WMA players and it works great. There are a couple of occasional non-annoying quirks, as you get with most non-iPod players, but they’re not too common. Like the backlight doesn’t come on sometimes. Not a big deal.
The Sansa m240 is easy to navigate and hold, and the battery life is a decent 9 hours (hint: buy some NiMH rechargable batteries and a half-hour charger).
Best Buy had the Sansa recently as well (for $35), though they went pretty fast. The Sansa m240 is a pretty good deal. Even though Sandisk’s price is $79, it’s very frequently discounted to the $35-$50 area.
No drivers need to be installed. Just plug it in and drag your music onto the player. You can use both MP3 and WMA formatted music, even subscription music from services like Napster (or others that do Playsforsure-compatible music). Also note that WMA-formatted music is often half the size as music in the MP3 format.
I’ve been using the Sansa m240 since Thanksgiving without any major problems. It’s a great player for the price (though I’d still like a 2-8GB iPod nano). If you have a low budget for an MP3 player, I’d recommend the Sansa m240. If you have no problem spending $150-$600, buy an iPod.
carl said
am May 11 2007 @ 8:04 am
The M240 sounds like a good MP3 playing device for the price. Does it have a neckstrap or an eyelet to attach one?
redwall_hp said
am May 11 2007 @ 8:54 am
There’s a small eyelet to attach a strap.
Marc said
am May 14 2007 @ 12:26 pm
The M240 sounds SO much better than ANYTHING Aple makes. Not even a fair comparison. The difference is not as telling with the cheap earbuds that come with the players, but if you use these things in the first place you get the (lack of) sound quality that you deserve. Step up to a set of Shure or some other decent ear phones the difference is profound. And if you are lucky enough to have a car that allows you to plug an mp3 player directly to the stereo (not an RF converter) you will notice a major difference. I have several Sandisk players and this is the best sounding of them all. For less than $50 it is also a heck of a bargain. Maybe not as easy to use, but not bad when you get used to it. And not being forced to recharge the player is a major advantage. Chargeable AAA’s and a charger cost about $15, and they last 12-15 hours. Plain old AAA’s last 8-10.