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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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Sansa e260 4 GB MP3 Player with MicroSD Expansion Slot (Black
Customer Review: Great player especially with a subscription service
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the 4G device, and was so pleased that a week later I purchased a second 6G player for my wife. I read of lot of the reviews here on Amazon, which helped me make the decision to go with the Sansa. I think most features have been covered, I just thought I would add a few tips for people considering this mp3 player.
When I got the player it came with a flyer offering a 1 month free trial for Rhapsody To Go. I had been thinking I would go with Yahoo subscription service, because for years I have not been a fan of Real whose marketing tactics I have deplored. In any event the offer got me to do some reasearch about the various subscription services, and the consensus seemed to be that Rhapsody offered the most features, although it was a bit higher priced.
So I did sign up with Rhapsody for the To Go service, using the one month free trial offer. I can report that I could not be more pleased with the service. The subscription model puts another nail in the iPod coffin as far as I'm concerned, and given Sandisk's aggressive pricing for this player I agree with the Engadget guys that there isn't any reason to go with the Nano.
Now the caveats, and tips. I've not used an iPod and iTunes, but from what I read it is pretty bulletproof. The subscription model and combination of the Sansa e200 series with Rhapsody works great for me...I've got 3 computers authorized and two Sansa players. I've had zero problems with DRM...but if you read the forums there are folks who have definitely had DRM renewal issues.
It's my feeling that the latest versions of Rhapsody and Sansa firmware have got most issues under control. So when you get your Sansa player, immediately go to the Sandisk website and download the firmware updater program and update the firmware on the player...I received my player a week ago, and at that time it did do a firmware update.
Remember to set the USB connection (under settings on the player) to MSC instead of MTP for the update. There are two ways to connect to the player and normally you will use MTP mode, but not for the firmware update. Another point, when I tried to move a playlist created in Rhapsody to the Sansa in MTP mode it wouldn't transfer over as advertised...although the songs in the playlist were moved over. When I connected later in MSC mode the playlist automatically moved to the player. I will assume a further firmware or program update will take care of this issue down the road.
Also Rhapsody recently updated their software, so if you are not just now installing the Rhapsody software I would update their software before plugging in the Sansa. Another important point is that if you uninstall and then reinstall the Rhapsody software, make sure to 'deauthorize' the computer before you uninstall the software. The reason is that you are only allowed to authorize 3 computers (you can only be logged on to the service on one at a time though) and you will use up one of those if you don't deauthorize it before the uninstall. (You can get Real to re-set your list if you make this mistake, but it sounds like a bit of a hassle.)
And if you are going to uninstall the software go to their site and search the forums for instructions on how to do a complete uninstall.
Of the three installations of Rhapsody I performed, one didn't go right and I had to re-do it, but after the second install it worked fine.
Sorry if you think I spent too much time talking about Rhapsody, but my point is that when I purchased the player I assumed I would only use it to play music I already owned that was on my computer. After experiencing the subscription music model (whatever service you go with), I am blown away by how much it adds to the entire experience of the Sansa. I've been waiting for a long time to find an mp3 player that would give Apple some competition and finally, this is the one!
Customer Review: First mp3 player....
Summary: 4 Stars
Only had my e260r since 12/25. I'm fairly new to the whole MP3 generation, but I am quite handy w/electronic devices, and pretty computer saavy. My wife got this for me for X-MAS. I simply indicated I wanted an MP3 and this is what she got. Its primary use is for the GYM, shopping,and awkward "waiting" moments. I also am a recording artist(in my spare time) and wanted to carry around all my music minus all the "cd's" (I'd have to have my friends come out to the car to hear my new songs!!, or bring the CD's where ever I go.) Anyway, wifey did quite a bit of research and did alot of comparing different products, and ended up w/this. Frankly, she doesnt know a thing about iPODs, or MP3 players, but after getting some bestbuy tech help, and advice , she did pretty well.
Overall, I am somewhat impressed. I've toyed w/friend iPODs, etc...before and wasnt overly enthused about theirs.
I've only got to use it a couple of times. I was eager to downlaod "my" songs to it. I initially had to trial and error. I wasnt happy that I had to utilize "their" programs to transfer files. I think all iPODS,MP3's should work universally w/any audio/video/pic file on your pc. USB & GO! Not quite that easy. SO, Once downloading their musicstore/media programs ie. firmware(that comes with it)... the FILE transferring was very quick. It took a little while to figure out initially, but once you've got it, its a breeze. (Just Click file from any program(iTUNES,WindowsMedia) and drag it to the playlist group you desire.(using their program)Songs Xfr's in about 1.5 secs! I havent done any videos, or pics yet, so no input there.
PROS: Comes w/Tons of music already in it. Plays music, videos, pics/slideshows, FM radio, Recording feature. Screen is crystal clear/vibrant color. Very small/compact!(for me, the smaller the better)Sound is decent.
CONS: DIAL/wheel IS SURPRISINGLY plastic!? & seems flimsy. It gives it a "cheap" feel.(I was impressed w/the touch sensativity of the "iPOD" wheel and just spinning your finger round the dial(thats was cool),cool isnt always better. Sometimes I'D PRESS TOO HARD OR NOT HARD ENOUGH ON THE the iPOD it would go to far...etc Anyway, It's alot better when its dim and the wheel is lighted up blue. But the wheel seems at first glance a "turn off". It will grow on you in no time. It serves it purpose and no complaints about its effectiveness. So that will go away. ( I like leather not cloth, Air Jordans not reg b-ball sneaks.- point is: I have pricey "taste", so dont let that deter you) Next, Buttons are too small for my liking. I have to press a button sometimes 2-3 times for it to take, Or use the tip of my finger/fingernail! I'm 6'1 w/pretty big hands. The buttons are (as others have said) too low compared to the height of the wheel. Hasnt really FROZEN up on me, but its had minimal use. NEXT, I've read that you cannot "create" your own "playlist" but I've yet to really research it. I just add songs to a pre-determined playlist on it and delete any songs I dont desire. Not sure if any MP3's can do this, but you cannot delete songs manually using the player. It has to be done using the computer program. (At least I think so) womp-womp. NEXT, Doesnt come w/AC adapter!?!?!? What if i have no access to a computer(traveling) etc?? earphones are OK, but seem to be a bit wide to fit inside my ear?
OVERALL: I've still gotta invest some more hours into it before giving it my best opinion.(havent tried video OR pics yet) For now.. It's GERAT! Not too complicated to use. Many great features. Great SCREEN QUALITY. Good memory, and able to install more!. I like it and am satisfied w/it. Just that darn wheel seems so "cheap"(NOT A BIGGY)
Hope this helps.. --- I've READ MANY REVIEWS and ALOT OF THEM HELPED ME!! PEACE!
Customer Review: finally a formidable opponent to IPOD
Summary: 4 Stars
sandisk is off to a great start with the sansa e260. i actually have the e260r with built-in rhapsody support.
i have had a lot of experience with sandisk/rhapsody customer support and have explored a lot of the technical aspects of this device.
there are so many methods to transfer music to this mp3 player. you can do it right from windows explorer or use any of the several file sync applications like realtime, rhapsody, windows media player, etc. i have only used rhapsody and windows explorer.
i've actually been looking for an mp3 player that allows me to explore my songs in a directory-like structure. this is not one of them. in fact i've given up. so in light of this, i had to find a different method to organize my songs (besides the id3 tags, not a fan at all of that system). so i made playlists by artists, and that seems to be working ok.
CONS:
i had some trouble figuring out how transfer video... supporting documentation for this device is absolutely terrible. even the configuration dialogs are sub-par.
although customer support agents attempted to be helpful, the 3 i spoke to had very thick asian accents and their working knowledge of the product was very limited. so not only was there a slight language barrier, they couldn't help me with either of my two problems.
somewhere along the line two of my playlists were duplicated (title only). i think it had something to do with switching from "Plays for sure" and "Rhapsody" modes. i had to ultimately edit a .toc file and delete some files from a hidden system file on the player.
the buttons surrounding the scroll wheel are too far under the scroll wheel to be pressed with the blunt of my fingers so i have to use my finger nails. this would be alleviated with either a lowered scroll wheel , enlarged buttons, or buttons that required less pressure to press.
as expected with such an immature product, there isn't a very large array of accessories to choose from. this is probably just a matter of time.
can't delete playlists from player. (as might only be a problem in the case where playlists were duplicated and the duplicated playlists showed up on the player only; rhapsody showed only one copy)
*****PROS*****
a beautiful graphical interface. the icons and navigation are very well designed.
F.M. tuner!! i have a speaker set plugged into my laptop and now i can just move the audio plug into my sansa and listen to F.M. while browsing the internet. and sometimes you just don't want to listen to mp3's. the reception is as clear as could be and you can set presets and change them with a click of the center button. another benefit is the recording feature. you can record clips of F.M. broadcasts.
expansion slot!! where is apple with this?! this was a huge selling point with me. if i ever run out of space, i can purchase one of the several different size microsd flash cards.
FAT file system (USB flash drive-type). another huge selling point for me. i like that i can add files through windows explorer.
photo and video support. on a scale of 1-10, i would give the video and photo playback and support a 7. the video looked great and i personally didn't need a full-featured video player. but the reproduction is great.
external appearance. i like the smooth black surface and solid metal scratch-resistant backside.
user changeable rechargeable battery.
it's not an apple. when comparing an IPOD and Sansa there is just no question. almost every aspect of the Sansa is better.
Customer Review: Regarding video & conversion
Summary: 4 Stars
Overall I like the player, especially what I paid for it. Albeit it has a small screen, I'm interested in how it does with converting movies. I couldn't find any good reviews that covered this, though I didn't read them all. So here's a little info regarding video and video conversion...
Converting your personal DVD's... It's fairly easy, however you'll need to use DVD Decrypter or DVD shrink or some kind of ripping software first. The reason for this is because most DVD's have various audio tracks and for some strange reason the "Default" audio track seems to vary within the VOB file of a movie. So your converted content may switch from English to French in the middle of the movie. So you need a ripping tool like the ones mentioned above to remove all but the one desired audio track.
DVD Decrypter is nice in that it will let you rip a DVD into a single gigantic VOB file, and there's a reason you may want to do this, I'll explain later. The other reason is that there is a plug in for DVD Decrypter which will take care of a cylinder redundancy (Copy protection) issue that exists on some DVD's. The rub with DVD Decrypter is that you can not really edit the movie other than removing cells, which is very limited...
DVD shrink has an advantage in that you can edit / crop a movie however you like. However when you go to rip it, it will do it in the standard DVD format, which isn't a problem for the Sansa media converter, it just has to deal with multiple files instead of a single file.
Converting using the Sansa media converter... Basically the converter converts most any source content (including raw DVD VOB files) to a QuickTime format that is not well compressed. The lack of compression suggests a weak processor or cheap codec, not sure which. This is also evident in that pictures are converted into uncompressed bmp files, and recorded audio is uncompressed wav files. So even know it has the power to play MP3 and WMA files, movies, pictures and regular recorded audio are uncompressed and hence large. As an example I converted an MPEG file originally 8 megs and it came out at 47 megs after the conversion. I'm not that familiar with the registered QuickTime Pro which can do all the high tech conversion as it's not freeware. So it may be for the enthusiasts out there you may find a better way to convert things to QuickTime format and just drag & drop to the player...
Overall it's truly a shareware like piece of software. It certainly does what it claims; however there is no options whatsoever, unlike the Quicktime Pro editor. This is truly sad as it could be much more powerful than it is. So it can convert almost any type of content on a file by file basis, but being limited, there's no way to merge content from separate input files into one output file. However this can surely be done via other software out there. Also if you're converting longer content like a TV show or movie, the converter will break up the output files into 10 minute segments. According to a Sandisk CSR, this is because the player will lock up if the files are longer than 10 minutes. Luckily the Sansa player will move from one video file to the next, however there is a few second delay, so it's not a nice seamless transition.
As far as converting normal mpeg & avi files, I haven't done too much of this other than to say it worked somewhat. Some content I converted came out just fine, while other content didn't convert completely or only half of the content converted, so there were some funny things discovered, but again haven't played with this enough.
Hope this helps.
Customer Review: First MP3 player I ever owned and not disappointed
Summary: 4 Stars
I had been talking about wanting an MP3 player, but I did NOT want an iPod, as I heard you cannot add files in Windows format and that's what all of my music is. I received this e260 4 GB MP3 player for my birthday in June 2006, and this is the first MP3 player I have ever owned. Although there are a few little quirks, overall I am not disappointed and would recommend this MP3 player.
Like many rechargeable battery-powered items, it required a lengthy initial charge before first use. After that, the future charges don't seem to take as long. The MP3 player plays for hours on end without needing a new charge. Although I've never run it completely down, I have used it continuously for about 4 hours with no battery issues.
I installed the software on my computer, and the disk is where you will find the owner's manual. I was a bit irritated that there was no hard copy of the owner's manual, and just a few weeks ago it came up as an issue when my MP3 player froze and I had to turn on the computer to look up the troubleshooting guide (turns out if the player freezes you need to hold the power button down for about 15 seconds to reset it).
It came pre-loaded with 20 songs, only one of which I had ever heard of (and it was one of those no-name bands that played once on Saturday Night Live). Although my first instinct was to delete the songs to make room for my own choices, I decided to leave them on there until I need the space. About three of the songs have grown on me a little bit over the past 5 months. I currently have 517 songs on there and still have room for more.
As far as performance goes, it performs pretty well. The buttons are a little difficult to get used to, as you navigate through the functions and the song lists by scrolling a wheel. Not too bad, but when you turn on the player and it begins at the beginning of the list and you want a song that's in the middle and you have a lot of songs on there, you will be scrolling a lot.
I do not use all the functions that came with this MP3 player. It has music, fm radio, photo, voice, video and a settings option. I have used the music function and the voice recorder option, both with good results. The only downside to the voice recorder is that you can't get the recordings you made off the MP3 player and onto your computer. It would have been nice to be able to record things and sync them onto your computer. As for syncing music files, I have not had any problems, although I did have one instance where it shows a song was downloaded, but when you try to play it, it skips to the next song alphabetically in the list. I don't know what caused this. Also, you can only store a song as one genre, which is a little annoying. Be sure you have your genres picked before you sync because once the song is on the MP3 player, you cannot change the genre.
It came with a headset, but I have never used it. Instead I purchased some Panasonic folding travel speakers to use with it.
I do wish the MP3 player had some alternate form of charging other than needing to be connected to my computer's USB drive to charge. Another con is that a scratch of some sort appeared on the inside surface of the screen. I can't remember it being dropped or anything, so I don't know what caused this, but it's pretty noticeable. It doesn't seem to affect the operation, just the aesthetics.
Overall, the cons are little irritations to me and I would recommend this player to someone who doesn't want an iPod.