Comments on: Sansa MP3 player smokes iPod nano for $39.99 shipped

A nano with equivalent storage sells for $60 more and has nowhere near as many features.

[ryes]

$39 is exactly what this player is worth. It puts you at the tender mercies of Media Player for library functions, yet has great difficulty importing Media Player's play lists. You can do next to nothing on the player itself which is a royal pain. Its almost causing me to go over to the Dark Side.

[j_a_s_p_e_r]

You don't know what you are talking about. You can use other audio players to manage this device as well. You can use it in MTP and MSC device mode. Some audio library managers work better in MSC mode, but subscriptions services often require the device to be in MTP mode.

[ryes]

And they are worse than Media Player. I suppose it depends on how much you want to be involved with a rather blank canvas, or if you just want everything to synch easily and dependably. I much prefer Creative's approach with its proprietary software.

[wasimraja1982]

We all understand that Sansa demands are much lower than ipod's and I dont think we need to worry about the fact that they actually reduce prices since demand is low. Who cares anyway? The point is you can get an mp3 player that is cheap and that it can do lot more things than its costlier competitors. Price:Value ratio. Sansa rules here.

[larrytxeast]

I have the e280, same model except 8g instead of 4g, and paid $60 for it. Probably an even better buy.

I got an 8G microSD card for $36, flashed the player to the Rockbox firmware (it was a version 1 player) to make it compatible with the >2G memory, voila--for less than 100 bucks, 16 gigabytes of storage.

I for one can't understand why people don't even consider other brands besides iPod--they're not the only game in town. The non-replaceable battery is a completely ridiculous design. How many digital cameras do you see without user-replaceable batteries? How many cellular phones (besides the iPhone)? (To be fair newer Sansa models also do this.)

Why use iTunes to buy songs which are AAC and have DRM and will play on no other players--when MP3s from Amazon or Rhapsody will play on anything, and can be backed up unlimited totally restriction-free? On top of all this, we have 2 computers here, and no worries about the player only mounting on 1 of the players. Can't say that for the iPods.

Who cares about video? I guess I'm old (39) but if I want video I'll buy a portable DVD player which will do a much better job anyway. And who cares about styling? It's a musical device, not a woman at the beach in her bathing suit. Sound quality matters, not looks.

[AllenKids]

Do You know DRM-Free MP3 works perfectly fine with iTunes? Apple is not forcing you to purchase music through iTMS. It just makes it sooo easy. To Amazon's credit, it has a application which adds your music from amazon straight to your iTunes library, quite neat.

And You can load your iTunes DRMed AAC to as many iPod as you want, Set your iPods to sync with one authorized computer and you're all set. And you can authorize up to 3 computers to have the same library at the same time. So Your 2 computers are pretty much covered.

One more thing. Podcast! Podcast! Podcast! (Steve Ballmer Style)
iPod+iTunes saved me gizillion times from killing myself during commute.

[rickbroida]

@AllenKids: I'll agree wholeheartedly with you there: iPods rule when it comes to podcasts (largely because iTunes makes managing them so easy). I'd be lost without my This American Life 'casts in the car!

[naebanks]

I use to carry an Ipod "Brick" around with me until I found the refurbished Sansa c250 at less than $39.99. It is a great player to store and play music! If you want to carry pictures of your "cat" around with you, buy the Ipod. I would still be using the Sansa if I did not buy a BlackBerry Curve and have consolidated my phone,internet and music player into one device. Steve Jobs can keep his overated Iphone.

[j_a_s_p_e_r]

If you don't like the firmware that comes with this device then check out the compatibile open souce firmware at http://www.rockbox.org/. Great for people that want to have other audio formats such as OGG

[PinkPussyKat]

I purchased this little thing 2 years ago and it has performed flawlessly. I'm no brain surgeon but I prefer to load my music manually and it does that well.
Battery life is amazing.
Playback is also great.
Interface is simple, just the way I like it.
Very durable until I took it to Burning Man for a week of high wind dust storms. In the end I must have pulled too hard sideways on the mini stereo plug, while velcro'ed to my motorcycle dashboard, and something internally died. Instant mono music.
In the end it was the stereo plug that died and that was after 2 years of abuse by the climate and me.

I never use video or playlists. Just music and it does that very well. I cannot speak to whether or not the Nano would have survived the drama to which I subjected my Sansa. Something tells me I'd have gone through several. My Gf baby's her Nano and probably for good reason.

That said.... they're making the Nano in freakin' China. What's up with the HUGE freakn' mark-up in price?
Additionally...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#Reliability_and_durability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#Allegations_of_worker_exploitation
Bueller

The Sansa blue dial button absolutely rocks. i sat on that thing a bunch of times with zero problems.

"Sheeple". Hella' funny. Thanks for that one.
Nay-sayers are a dime a dozen.