SanDisk Sansa m240 1 GB MP3 Player (Silver)
by SanDisk
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Our Price: $99.95 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $39.99 (click here) Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Sansa m240 1 GB MP3 Player (Silver)
Customer Review: Best MP3 Player I've Used!
Summary: 5 Stars
I hated my iPOD Mini so I tried a small flash player that was OK but hard to read & use. Then I found the Sansa M240 (1GB) for only $87 (Circuit City) and I'm thrilled with it.
Sound quality is very good with the supplied earbuds and using the Custom EQ. Without the Custom EQ I might not be so happy. A neckstrap with the earbuds would be nice but can be added. There's a hole to add a lanyard.
These 55 year old eyes found the Display easy to read even in the dark with a large, bold font and good contrast. The backlight is good but I'd prefer a lighter shade of blue for even better contrast. Very minor issue and really a matter of preference.
The controls are outstanding and one of the best features! The LARGE buttons are very easy to use and provide good tactile response.
Build quality is typical of similar products and seems well made with good fit and finish. Lightweight and handy size. Overall design is excellent in that they've put a large display and large buttons into a unit only slightly larger than a thumb drive!
I haven't gone through a battery yet but I do like the fact that it runs on a single AAA battery and doesn't need to be recharged with a cable or charger. I always keep a few AAA's in my briefcase anyway for "in-flight" replacements.
Connection to a PC is simple with the supplied standard mini-USB cable (same as for my phone and camera!). I like that there are no proprietary cables or connectors. I prepared my playlist with WMP and synched the M240. The M240 automatically sorts by artist, album and genre.
Although I haven't used it yet, the subscription compatibility is something I will probably use.
The FM Tuner receives even weaker stations and has 20 presets. With that many I can use different groups of presets for favorites in multiple cities. It would be nice to be able to record from FM as some units do but it's not a big deal.
There is a voice recorder funtion that might be handy but I don't really need it.
If you like simple & easy and eschew tiny, hard to use buttons and miniscule displays, you will like this a LOT - and it SOUNDS good.
Bottom Line: YES, I would buy it again!
Customer Review: Sansa Super for Simple User
Summary: 5 Stars
Several years ago I bought my son an Archos player. Last Christmas I got him a Video iPod. I knew both were too big and bulky for my needs. A few months ago I got an iPod Shuffle and loved it but there were three problems. One, the lack of any display, two, the controls were a bit small for my fingers and three, it can only charge off a USB port. I'm headed to Odessa, Ukraine later this week and won't have access to a computer's USB port so I wanted something that runs off good old-fashioned batteries. So I bought the Sansa m240 from Amazon while they were running the $[...] rebate. [...]
I've read the complaints of some of the reviewers and so let me say upfront that I don't need or ask much from a player. If I can load the songs that I want and then be able to listen to them, in sequence or shuffled, I'm happy. The Sansa lets me do exactly that. I spent last weekend loading my MP3 collection into Windows Media Player 10 on my XP SP2 Home machine and rating the songs to get 1 GB worth of music with 4 stars.
Today I connected my newly arrived Sansa m240, copied my four-star listing to the sync playlist in Windows Media Player and downloaded the music to the Sansa without a hitch. It couldn't be simpler. I set the Sansa playback to shuffle and life is good.
Someone commented on the lack of documentation but the user guide available on the mini-CD or from the Sandisk website seems more than adequate. I've also heard the arm band and case is a bit cheesy. Perhaps, but it does what I want it to do which is hold the Sansa on my arm (the iPod Shuffle lived at cord's length in my pants pocket).
Finally, someone complained about the size. Well I'm not sure if there's anything smaller than the iPod Shuffle and I don't consider the Sansa much bigger. Given the display and the ability to swap out an AAA battery on the road, I'll take the Sansa over the Shuffle anyday.
The Sansa m240 is perfect for my needs, which are to have my music on the road in a light package, be able to see what's playing to appease my occasional curiosity and be able to use easily replaceable batteries. That's why I give it 5 stars.
Customer Review: Caveat Emptor (Let the buyer beware).
Summary: 1 Stars
If you're considering the purchase of this item you might want to consider some similar-priced alternatives. I can honestly say I loved this player for the two weeks that it worked, great price, great sound, easy to use, long battery life...nothing but accolades in fact and morning I got up to take it running with me and the standard Sansa screen comes up as always but freezes there, after trying all the basic troubleshooting steps I could think of I accessed the technical customer service phone number which was on their website and after 30minutes of exhaustive troubleshooting from one of their experts the gentleman ( a very patient and courteous fellow) told me it was a lost cause and it would have to be replaced, as I ordered this from Amazon I will say they were super , put in a free replacement order for me right away. I guess these things can happen to any product but given several reviews on this website with the same issue (and numerous other review sites with this same issue on this product) I am inclined to believe this item may need to be returned to the drawing board, also from all the websites I check any troubleshooting once the firmware freezes is pointless as there seems to be no instance (reported anyway) that this situation has even been resolved. I'm hoping for better luck with the replacement but I'm not overly optimistic.
THE NIGHTMARE CONTINUES!!! First thanks to Amazon for promptly replacing the first unit but guess what...same problem with the 2nd unit. I sent email to Amazon advising them I won't be returning the 2nd unit, I do not even want to see another SanDisk product EVER!!! I did also send an email to Amazon customer service suggesting they might look at the HUGE number of negative reviews on this item and the number of reviews where customers had more than one of these units go bad. SanDisk spells "JUNK" any way you slice it, if you have had this same issue at least let Amazon customer service know it may not make you feel better about the wasted money but maybe people will wake up and not patronize SanDisk...really shameful product of which SanDisk should be ashamed.
Customer Review: Great MP3 Player, Terrible Recording Capability
Summary: 2 Stars
I've been using the Sansa 1 GB for several months now and while I am happy to use the Sansa as an mp3 player, I am terribly disappointed in its subpar and unreliable recording capability.
As an MP3 player, this device is as simple and easy that it can be. Copying files is as easy as plugging in the device and dragging and dropping audio files. The size is wonderful and light. Battery life is more than sufficient.
My big complaint other than the device's poor recording capability is that the battery gauge is terribly unreliable. Particularly when the player is running low on battery, the battery display will jump between "full", "semi-full", "low", and "downright empty". This is frustrating when trying to figure out whether there is enough juice to get through the next hour of use.
A big downside is the device's poor recording capability.
- Recordings are very soft compared to other recording mp3 players. I've tested this side-by-side with other devices, including iRiver players and Sony Clie recordings.
- The software to record is very buggy as recordings would frequently disappear. At first, I thought it was because of the way I was using the device but despite my best efforts to consistently use the device according to the manual, I would frequently find my recordings disappear. I would approximate that I'd lose about 1 recording every 30 recordings for no reason at all. While that may not seem very frequent, there should be no reason that a recording device will lose recordings without my explicit instructions. This is poor software design. I checked and double-checked everything about how I was using it to confirm whether or not it was user error but I've tried many things like making sure to lock the device whenever I'm not actively pressing a button and making sure to follow the instructions in the manual.
Recommendation: Do not purchase, unless you get a really good deal and/or don't plan to use the recording feature at all. There are better models out there, especially nowadays (as of April 2006), at the same or better prices.
Customer Review: Flimsy, cheaply made toy that breaks too easily.
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this MP3 player as an Xmas gift for my 14-year-old niece. Within 3 weeks the unit was dead as a doornail. Now, my niece is not rough with her possessions; she never even took this device out of her home. Her mother attested to the fact that she was very careful with it and it simply wouldn't boot up one day, never getting past the splash screen (must be the "freezing" problem others are reporting here).
Even if this device worked properly I'd steer clear of it. Here's why:
1) It is VERY cheaply made. I'm talking thin flimsy plastic. I took it out and loaded it up with songs for my niece before Xmas so that she'd have something to listen to right away, and I was stunned at how cheaply put together the thing is. Even the buttons are loose flimsy plastic, which surprised me coming from a big company like SanDisk. The thing is so poorly made it practically rattles.
2) The screen is pretty bad -- the font is big and blocky and not at all attractive. I have a Cowon iAudio U2 player, which has a screen even smaller than the SanDisk, and even though the font on mine is smaller it's also FAR sharper and clearer.
3) The backlight is a joke -- it's literally a light bulb on the right-hand side that lights up and shines across the screen like a mini-flashlight! I couldn't believe that when I saw it. So the right-hand side of the screen is brighter, and the left-hand side is dimmer.
4) Ever wonder why you rarely see a photo of this device from the back or edge-on? It's because it's not as slim as they want you to believe it is. The back of the device is actually convex, curved outwards to accomodate the battery. That also shocked me when I took it out, because it's about twice as thick as I was expecting.
So, I'll be returning this defective piece of junk toy. I already bought my niece a replacement: the Creative Labs Zen Nano Plus, which runs about the same price as the worthless M240. It certainly looks like a better unit, but I'll be back with a review once it's gone through a suitable trial period.