SanDisk Sansa e260 4 GB MP3 Player with MicroSD Expansion Slot (Black
by SanDisk
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Our Price: $259.96 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $52.99 (click here) Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Sansa e260 4 GB MP3 Player with MicroSD Expansion Slot (Black
Customer Review: Amazing MP3 player
Summary: 5 Stars
I absolutely love this mp3 player. I bring it with me everywhere! It is not only cheaper than an iPod, but it has better features. I'm mostly just interested in playing music all day, but having some videos to watch on this player is a lovely bonus. The Sansa Media Converter (which comes with the product) will convert supported video files to a specific file type for the mp3 player. The only thing is, once the files are converted, the file size is still the same or slightly bigger (which I find odd, since I thought they are supposed to be smaller in dimension). The time it takes to convert isn't long either--a few minutes for a video file nearly 200 MB on the computer. The videos on the mp3 player are crispy clear too.
Physically, the Sansa is a small, attractive-looking device. It's lightweight and has an anti-scratch back. The wheel does feel "cheap," but does that really affect anything? The buttons are feel fine and work too; I don't understand the complaints about them. I accidentally dropped this the day I received it (whoops), but nothing happened. I haven't dropped it since, so I'm not sure how durable it is (feels as if it is, though).
The package also comes with a velvet case, earphones, and software. I do wish it is possible to use the mp3 player with the case on, but maybe there will be better accessories in the future. In the mean time, avoid using the earphones the package comes with--you will hear better audio quality with different ones.
Like the package says, simply drag and drop files from your computer into the mp3 player's folder (plug the player into your computer via USB to open the folder). No iTunes or extra software needed to transfer these files.
This handy dandy Sansa is not only a music and video player, but it also stores pictures for slideshows, has an FM radio, and is also a voice recorder. I don't think there are any other products out in the market with the same features...
Customer Review: Very Good but could be better....
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this player a month ago to listen to ebooks downloaded from Netlibrary. It is very easy to get the file on to the player and listen to it. It has a resume feature where you pause the player and turn it off and when you turn it back on it remembers where you are in the book. Very nice!! However, because of my fat fingers I sometimes hit the wrong buttons and lose my place. Then it is a royal pain to fast forward to the spot in my book. It can take 15-20 minutes to fast forward 10 hours in a file and then it can be tricky to get it to stop in the right place. I contacted sandisk about getting the fast forward to have the abilitiy to go really fast forward if you hold the button down for a certain amount of time. Something like jumping ahead an hour instead of 20 second increments like it does now. They said they would think about it. I am looking for something else. In the meantime if I lose my space over 10 hours in or longer I listen from my laptop so I don't have to get frustrated sitting with a slow fast forward. Just thought I would share this with other audio book lovers looking for something to use. I am considering a pocket pc instead which has a mobile version of windows medio player and I can use the seek bar and slide to my spot in the file in 10 seconds. No resume though in those pocket pc from what I hear.
May 2008. There is a happy ending to this story. I found an mp3 player with a slide bar. It is a Cowon D2 and I love it. Been using it for the past 5 months and it works great for Netlibrary books. I highly recommend it for this application. The 2 gb size is plenty big for books, but you can get one with more memory. It has bookmarking and the few times I forgot to bookmark, I was able to click on the slide bar and I was back to my spot in the book. The battery life is phenomenal. Don't need a recharge for the life of a book and then some. Comes with ac power adapter so can recharge very quickly.
Customer Review: v1 refurbs are still out there, apparently. Lucky me!
Summary: 5 Stars
Just got done installing Rockbox on it and am loving it (the only real reason to get v1 over v2, at least for now). The "easy installer" on their site didn't work, but installing manually was a piece of cake. So basically for $40 you get a portable media player that handles pretty much any audio codec (including FLAC) with an FM radio tuner and a microphone to boot.
You can uninstall it if you change your mind as well. Can't go wrong there. Just keep in mind that you can still boot up the Sandisk firmware/UI if you want to while Rockbox is in place.
Another great feature with Rockbox on the e260 is that the player can read sdhc cards! You will not be able to write to an SDHC card via the USB method, but will have to get a separate card reader, load it up, THEN plug into the Rockbox'd sansa. Not much of a hassle considering the benefits.
If you receive a v2, you might want to hang on to it as they are working on a port for that model. Otherwise, some like the v2 better and will trade. In any case, the refurbs are more often than not v1 still. If you don't care, perfect.
You will have to buy multiple sd cards if you have a huge collection you have to take with you, as obviously this is not the highest storage capacity out there. My collection is fairly modest so I think I'll be fine (FLAC files are pretty big though). Also, the center blue ring control is more like a dial than being touch sensitive like an iPod. Therefore more moving parts.
If bang for your buck is more of a concern than massive storage, then you will absolutely love this mp3 player.
- Make sure to select the top USB option (MSC Mode) if you want to just drag and drop music to it without the need for any software (Watch and learn, Apple).
- Enable view of hidden files and folders in XP or Vista as well (Important, google it), or you won't be able to see the all important "music" folder!
Customer Review: Still Liking
Summary: 5 Stars
This devise was my 3rd upgrade for a sandisk player. This was by far my best investment. I enjoyed my first 2 & pass them to my kids. The video download is what put this over the top. It may take a while to download the DVD but when it was done, the picture was outstanding. The sound is perfect and the size to good. I like the playlist better than the m200 2g. Much easier to work. The dial works great. Downloading picture was nice to have my family picture in the player and show them off. The only things I regret is that it does pick up finger prints & dust very very easily. They don't have a good arm strap or case for it yet (I know one will come), and that I didn't wait and get the 6 gig.
UPDATE:Ok, I have had my Sansa e260 for about 3 months now and I still like it. It was worth it $$. I am reading these cons about this device and please tell me what MP3 player is perfect. I read pros and cons about every MP3 on the market and none of them has gotten a perfect score. Yes it has frozen up when I held the power button too long. But I learned not to hold it for 10-15 seconds. It dont' take much to power on. Is the screen small, yes but when I was waiting in the doctor's office, the Usher video was great to watch and listen to. I also downloaded a Martial Art movie and just to kill some time, it serves it purpose. I purchased a arm band for this device from Best Buy and it was design specifically for this device. So accessories are available from Best Buy, Circuit City, and on Amazon.
So if you are looking for the perfect MP3 Player, give it up, you will never find it. However, if you are looking for something that sounds great, perfect size, and has lots of cool extra's, this Sansa e260 is the one for you. You will not go wrong with this one.
By the way, Sandisk tech support and customer service is great. They replaced my daughter's m200 with no problems and it is now playing great.
Customer Review: Player is good -- software not so good
Summary: 3 Stars
MAN!! I finally was able to figure out how to overcome all the obstacles SanDisk mounts for a non-geek user. The obstacles:
1) The manual included with the player is close to worthless. The one included on the CD is better though, as mentioned elsewhere, is not exactly normal user friendly.
2) Plug in the player to your computer (mine is Win-2000 3+ year-old desktop) after, of course, you figure out where that might be. (Well, ok, not so hard, right next to the plug for my iPod.)
3) Great. Now I can load some songs! I go to Windows explorer to see if I can see the new removeable drive show up. Nope. Mine didn't. So I downloaded the recommended software -- Rhapsody. Can Rhapsody see it? Nope. Tried this and that, looked at the doc and finally called Tech Support. After a minorly tense conversation, I finally understand that the help desk person wanted me to change the USB setting from the default MTP setting to "MSC". Success!! Ok -- that's nice I can see if from Explorer, but I can't see it in Rhapsody, still, after disconnecting, reconnecting, etc. What do I do now Ms. Help Desk? Try it on another computer, she says. Nice.:(
4) After several hours Googling this problem, reading at forums, trying other stuff, I finally hit upon a "Music Manager" that works!!! Yay! So, I hope you might save some of the time I wasted with trying to make Rhapsody work and waiting for SanDisk to get back to me, etc, etc. Go to the Media Monkey site [...] and try out this terrific piece of freeware that (for me, at least) works very well. I still have to address the "playlist" hurdle but I'll leave that for the morning.
I'm satisfied with the player, sound, price, replaceable battery. But until I found Media Monkey, I was planning to return it to Amazon in the morning. (Honestly, if I knew then what I know now, I'd have bought another nano because iTunes is pretty easy.)
Dianne