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"Great Player" on by bdiller
Pros: Price, Size, Easy of Use
Cons: no belt clip for carrying
Summary: I was waiting and waiting for a review of this player to come out or to be able to get my hands on one in a store. I finally broke down and ordered one without one, just because its what I've been wanting. I was leary of an iPod. I know a few people whose skip while jogging, and the hard drive based players scare me. Too much wear and tear for my liking to be caring around a hard drive.
The audio is very good, and I don't find the controls to be any problem. My biggest complaints is you can't adjust the volume while in a menu or built in stopwatch. You have to exit out to the screen showing the song playing. The headphones that come with it are nice, they are the in-ear type I've never had before but I'm getting used to them. Wish they had an optional carrying case with a belt type clip on it. The clear plastic case that comes with it is kind of cheesy and only works with the velcro arm strap.
The fact that the player shows up as a removeable drive is great for just dropping and dragging songs onto it. They tell you that you don't have to put them in folders but I did for organization. Would like to see normal playlist and some software to check/setup ID tags which the player uses to play from. Plus if I want I can add a 2 GB SD card, now that's cool.
Overall its a great player, I'll probably get the wife the 512MB model to save a few bucks. -
"Great overall player!" on by L8toneius
Pros: Flash memory, no skipping. 1GB is plenty if you love an up-to-date fresh selection. Wow effects make the sound great!. Very small and expandable up to 3GB with an SD 2gig card!
Cons: Mmmm, there is just a little hiss with the provided headphones when no music is playing. Getting it out of the case can prove difficult.
Summary: After owning a Rio Nitrus 1.5GB, it's like night and day. I had so many problems with micro-sized hard-drive players so that's why I went flash memory instead. Just plug it in, drag, and drop! It’s that easy. It comes with pretty cool programs like Audiofeast (if subscribed). Battery life is amazing and it’s easily replaceable with 1 AAA battery. The headphones included are in-ear phones which I actually like. Great sound equalizers and a decent FM radio too. There is no voice recording on the Sansa but who needs that. This has to be one of the most easy to use, feature rich players out there right now.
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"not too awful" on by dr_zero
Pros: SD slot, screen, flash based
Cons: song playback format, sound effects
Summary: this thing is much better than cnet would like you to believe. i've taken identical mp3's and put them on the e140 and an ipod and then listened to both with the same pair of headphones. after fiddling with the equalizer / sound effect there was minimal difference. i think the e140 is "duller" sounding at low volumes.
negatives:
the "WOW" effects. these, along with the equalizer give you too many adjustments and i find myself constantly fiddling with this and that. the "basic" setting is not very good. you have to use either the "rock" or "custom" equalizer. the "WOW" makes the vocals better but makes everything else sound too tinny.
player also seems unreliable to sort music by genre and year. i've been trying to "fool" it by taking a bunch of songs and assigning them a year, so that i have a makeshift "playlist". but it doesn't seem to recognize all the year tags.
positives:
flash player / SD slot / regular battery / relatively inexpensive.
overall, i debated this with the ipod shuffle. if the shuffle had as much as a song # display, i probably would have bought it. but this player is expandable, uses AAA batteries and lets me pick an album to listen to. plus i can plug it into any PC without any needed software. -
"This is my 5th MP3 player and I love it the most." on by born2soon
Pros: It works! Great sound. Intuitive easy to use controls. Clear 3 line display for Artist, Song, and Album. Display also shows how far along you are in the song and song#/total songs. Comes with clear
Cons: No belt Clip. No resume to where you left off in song, only to beginning of last song listened to. No playlist support. No bookmark support for Audible books.
Summary: Over all I think this is a great player. Here are some of my work arounds for the most significant cons I had:
MY WORK AROUND FOR NO BELT CLIP: I found a generic black leather phone holster ($10 at Kmart) from ESI Cases and Accessories, Wireless Gear, model IP3012, size small, that has a swivel belt clip built in. The holster is slim with elastic sides that allows the Sansa (in it's included plastic case) to snugly fit (not too snugly though). I only insert the player a little over half way in, so the display is not covered and the side buttons are also free. The back of the holster is higher than the front so the Sansa is covered in the back. There is a small gap at the bottom of the holster, which I found a use for. I had a small spongy foam leashable key chain designed to hold a mini bic lighter that also just happened to snugly hold 2 spare AAA batteries which I then inserted into the gap at the bottom of the holster from the open sides. The front panel controls of the Sansa are covered by the holster, but the panel pattern can be seen ever so slightly through the leather front and you can still press though it, so you don't have to remove the Sansa from the holster to operate the front panel controls. Perfect!
MY WORK AROUND FOR NO PLAYLIST SUPPORT: Since the Sansa organizes music using the ID3 tagsI I found some freeware that allows me to massive update my ID3 tags. I made playlists using the Genre category. So I have Genres like 'My Favs', 'Workout', '1 mile walk', etc. Also, when I want to listen to an album, I like to hear the songs in track sequence. Since the music is played in alphabetical order by song title, I just inserted the track number to the front of the song title. The freeware I used, which makes this a cinch, is called Mp3tag V.2.32. Here is the website where you can download this from: http://www.mp3tag.de/en/. Worked like a charm. -
"Exceeded my expectations" on by diable
Pros: Easy navigation and straightf orward operation. Excellent sound quality. Low price.
Cons: Carring case is difficult to remove
Summary: My third MP3 player (1 Sony and 1 512MB Sandisk). After setting up the equilizer (important as the default is flat) and reading the manual to understand the various navigation techniques this player exceeded my expectations. for one I was expecting those terrible earbuds that came with earlier SanDisk MP3s but boy was I surprised when it came with a great set what can only be described as noise cancelling earbuds similar to some Sony's I had that cost $40, They are among the best I have heard to date (Apparently Sandisk got the message and quit shipping with those other junk earbuds)! I have already used the CD slot and it only took about 10 seconds to update the music library, works great. I used the Jazz equilizer setting for everything except hard rock. the music is as good or better than any of my or my friends other types of MP3's. I have also listened to an audio book and that's when the ability to use an SD card really shines! The case is very light and the buttons and volume/menu wheel are nice and tight. Yes some other MP3's have a sturdier case but for $118 for the E-140 1GB version it is really a steal. I hope this helps some of you with making your decision. Heck in two years from now all of the current MP3 players will be considered antiques so why spend more than you have to.
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