This player is awesome. I got one of these last summer for around the same price i think. The sound quality is great. Head Phones kinda suck though but thats to be expected from a cheap mp3 player. The only drawback is that the mp3 player runs on batteries but the batteries last for about 20 hours before you need to change them. I would highly recommend this player as a substitute to say a shuffle or another small device. Great job woot

Runs on batteries

mlembo wrote:Runs on batteries

As opposed to the solar-powered variety?

daschmo1 wrote:This player is awesome. I got one of these last summer for around the same price i think. The sound quality is great. Head Phones kinda suck though but thats to be expected from a cheap mp3 player. The only drawback is that the mp3 player runs on batteries but the batteries last for about 20 hours before you need to change them. I would highly recommend this player as a substitute to say a shuffle or another small device. Great job woot

Actually the "runs on batteries" is a HUGE plus for me. (I assume you mean replaceable batteries or better known as AA or AAA).

PS, just buy rechargeable batteries.

I see major potential in modding with the last couple of woot items. That atomic watch and today's offering could probably both be mangled into something like an altoids tin. Could be good for people who prefer using pocket watches.

schrody wrote:

I can't tell you one way or the other about whether or not this player will remember where you left off (or maybe let you manually bookmark it?), but I have a suggestion that might help. You could take those long files and break them up into shorter ones that would be more manageable, like maybe 5, 10, or 15 minutes each. Then name them, for example, "podcast-1", "podcast-2", etc, and the player would play them in order and it would be easy to skip around, too.

Weren't you just the poster talking about how craptastic and overpriced Apple stuff is. Then you turn around and offer a 30 minutes "fix" for a feature that the Ipod has had from day 1? I also had a 1st gen MP3 player (can't remember the manufacturer) that held a whole 10-20 songs and needed a new battery every week, and it cost $200+. First doesn't always equal best.

Why don't you Apple haters just admit it: the reason you hate on Apple is because you want things to break so you can amaze your D&D friends with how you "fixed" it and it only took 14 hours? Time is money, my man - and 2 hours to fix something that should have worked out of the box equals about $100 to me, my man.

Lastly, if you're SanDick breaks up to a year after you buy it, can you walk right into a SanDick store and have the entire unit replaced free of charge in an hour? No? You can if its an Ipod...

I love my IPOD Nano, but not everyone has the money to afford one. This Sansa is great for people who really want an MP3 player.

You think you could be a little more condescending?

This player is perfect for alot of people who have money but dont want to spend it buying a brand. It has an FM tuner and an expansion slot (giving it essentially infinite storage) I would pick up one of these for myself if I hadn't already gotten another player woot offered a few months ago.

Timing couldn't have been worse on this one for me. I just bought one of these on e-bay 2 days ago, otherwise I'd have definitely taken this woot!

chemical71 wrote:

Weren't you just the poster talking about how craptastic and overpriced Apple stuff is. Then you turn around and offer a 30 minutes "fix" for a feature that the Ipod has had from day 1? I also had a 1st gen MP3 player (can't remember the manufacturer) that held a whole 10-20 songs and needed a new battery every week, and it cost $200+. First doesn't always equal best.

Why don't you Apple haters just admit it: the reason you hate on Apple is because you want things to break so you can amaze your D&D friends with how you "fixed" it and it only took 14 hours? Time is money, my man - and 2 hours to fix something that should have worked out of the box equals about $100 to me, my man.

Lastly, if you're SanDick breaks up to a year after you buy it, can you walk right into a SanDick store and have the entire unit replaced free of charge in an hour? No? You can if its an Ipod...

I love reading all the posts from the iPOD brainwashed crowds. :D

My god, you'd think iPODs were the be-all, end-all of the multimedia world. Now, if you could drag and drop music onto the iPOD like you can with this Sansa, I'd consider one. Until then, no thanks. I've had my Sansa for over a year now. It does NOT eat batteries, it does NOT lock up and ugly is a personal preference. It's cheap, works great for what it's designed for... playing mp3s. If you want more memory, swap out the very inexpensive SD card with another one (I own a couple that I carry with my player). You'll never find an iPOD this cheap that performs as well as this player. Just accept it and carry one.

chemical71 wrote:

Why don't you Apple haters just admit it: the reason you hate on Apple is because you want things to break so you can amaze your D&D friends with how you "fixed" it and it only took 14 hours? Time is money, my man - and 2 hours to fix something that should have worked out of the box equals about $100 to me, my man.

Actually, the reason I hate on Apple, ipods in particular, is because you can buy something with more features for less money made by another company. Sure time is money, but I've also noticed that money is money. More features, lower price? I buy it. Maybe Apple could offer something like that, then I might become a customer. Until then, all they have on their side is style over substance.

I'd jump on it, if I didn't already have a Sansa 2GB player w/ the FM the tuner. This is a great deal - I wish mine was EXPANDABLE, like this one. It's smaller than than the Ipod (good 4 the gym) and you don't have to suck up to Apple (Itunes) to get your music. (I don't understand the hype surrounding the Ipod - yes the controls are nice and it looks slick, but you have to convert all your mp3 files to m4a or mp4 format, and again, your're stuck dealing with itunes, what a pain)

ps - most electronics that are refurbished were never used by someone - during manufacturing, if a product doesn't pass QC (quality control), it's sent back to be fixed and is hence considered refurb (rox0rz!)

This was exactly what I wanted! Curse you sandisk for lack of resume!

outwiththejive wrote:

I don't know if that is exactly the reason. I would say the reason people buy players that aren't from Apple is because for some reason they don't value the characteristics of the product (capability, looks, sex appeal, etc.) enough to pay the price for it. That's the point of selling a high-brand-image product: it may not physically be much better than other, cheaper comparables, and not everybody will want to pay, but the branding adds value for some people to want it (actually, about 75% of the market values iPods this way, so it seems there isn't much of a hurdle to cross there).

thats why I buy Creative ;)

and

finstu wrote:
This player is perfect for alot of people who have money but dont want to spend it buying a brand. It has an FM tuner and an expansion slot (giving it essentially infinite storage) I would pick up one of these for myself if I hadn't already gotten another player woot offered a few months ago.

fits all the cats necessary, and its cheap! yeay!

stinkycheesedudeman wrote:
Maybe Apple could offer something like that, then I might become a customer. Until then, all they have on their side is style over substance.

and they do a damn good job at it!

thadude wrote:
ps - most electronics that are refurbished were never used by someone - during manufacturing, if a product doesn't pass QC (quality control), it's sent back to be fixed and is hence considered refurb (rox0rz!) (rox0rz!)

good information, but this model isnt exactly cutting edge, so i would assume (but not sure) that these are broke-o-z that got fixed.

happy wooting

Bought one for my mom's upcoming birthday. Nice big buttons and display are perfect for that "not quite internet" set.

I bought one of these refurbished players a couple of months ago on ebay for 45 bucks. It was for my 8 year old son as his first player. He uses it daily and loves it, even though I would consider this a very limited player by today's standards. But it serves its purpose very well as a very capable, non-toy, first player for a kid. I specifically got this older Sansa 140 model because it doesn't have all the DRM junk and it acts like a regular disk drive when he plugs it into his old, hand-me-down Win2000 computer. The newer Sansa players required WinXP and WMP.

One more thing... They are marked as refurbished, but they are new (at least the one I bought for my son was). From what I understand, Sandisk pulled them off the shelves, upgraded the firmware and repacked them to resellers to sell as refurbished.

One last thing... my biggest gripe with it (although my son doesn't care) is that albums will list and play songs in alphabetical order, according to the ID3 tag title. It ignores the mp3 file name and the ID3 tag track number.

stinkycheeseman wrote:

Actually, the reason I hate on Apple, ipods in particular, is because you can buy something with more features for less money made by another company. Sure time is money, but I've also noticed that money is money. More features, lower price? I buy it. Maybe Apple could offer something like that, then I might become a customer. Until then, all they have on their side is style over substance.

And what xtra feature would that be? And don't say FM radio because no one listens to the radio...

I've got that same model (512mb) and tore my hair out for the probs you mention---Untill I did all the MS upgrades they tell you to. Now works fine.

jtappero wrote:One more thing... They are marked as refurbished, but they are new (at least the one I bought for my son was). From what I understand, Sandisk pulled them off the shelves, upgraded the firmware and repacked them to resellers to sell as refurbished.

One last thing... my biggest gripe with it (although my son doesn't care) is that albums will list and play songs in alphabetical order, according to the ID3 tag title. It ignores the mp3 file name and the ID3 tag track number.

Must be all those awesome features that the Ipod doesn't have, like listing songs using metadata.

jtappero wrote:One last thing... my biggest gripe with it (although my son doesn't care) is that albums will list and play songs in alphabetical order, according to the ID3 tag title. It ignores the mp3 file name and the ID3 tag track number.

You can make it not do that by pushing the buttons in a different sequence. Artist> click> Album>click> Play is alpha order. Artist> click>Album>Play will play in album order.

mlembo wrote:Runs on batteries

Runs on AAA that last forever.

stinkycheeseman wrote:

Actually, the reason I hate on Apple, ipods in particular, is because you can buy something with more features for less money made by another company. Sure time is money, but I've also noticed that money is money. More features, lower price? I buy it. Maybe Apple could offer something like that, then I might become a customer. Until then, all they have on their side is style over substance.

Oddly enough, your analogy of money = money is accurate. When Apple can shat out a $30, expandable, flexible, easy to use player, I'm in. The $80 lapel pin of blandness doesn't have anywhere near the features that this unit does. Stylye does not equal substance IMHO.

Does anyone know if this can handle VBR MP3s?

Edit: Ahhh, screw it - I bought one anyway. I've been seeing sub-1GB SD cards all over town on clearance sale for like 5 bucks. That would be handy because I can put audio books on one and music on another.

Virgin Woot. There was a lot of build-up to the release, so I hope I pulled the trigger at the right time!!

$35....I gave that much for my P.O.S. Phillips 1 GB and it doesn't come with any accesories; arm band, case or features; FM tuner, expandable, etc...

mreed911 wrote:My g/f has the 512mb model (the blue one). These have significant firmware problems - they will randomly lock up and require a complex series of pushing/holding buttons to do a hardware reset, then you lose your music, settings, etc. Google for "Sansa hardware reset" and you'll get more than enough info...

Basically? SanDisk made these to get people to buy SD cards - they're cheap and designed to be the "freebie" the review so aptly alludes to...

This *is* the scary Friday the 13th item.

Same here I have the "Red" 256 and "Blue" 512 and they both have firmware issues... I pummeled the red one with a metal spoon until the screen is garbage and it still works though! Just take the battery out and replace it in about 5 seconds and it resets it without losing all of your saved music. I may buy this one though, I am a sucker for cheap music players.

Triple?
How come my camera doesn't work that way?
When I add a 2GB SD card to my 1 GB camera, I get 2GB.

Can you record shows from the built in radio tuner?

FinStu wrote:

You think you could be a little more condescending?

This player is perfect for alot of people who have money but dont want to spend it buying a brand. It has an FM tuner and an expansion slot (giving it essentially infinite storage) I would pick up one of these for myself if I hadn't already gotten another player woot offered a few months ago.

It wasn't condescending. I had to wait four years before I could afford to buy my first IPOD. And if this one had been available, I would have bought it, since it has two advantages over my IPOD. This Sansa takes a memory card and real batteries, two things that should be standard on IPOD but aren't.

Decent price, decent size. Picked it up for the car.

Does not support books on Cd or else I would buy 2.

Anyone know how good the FM receiver is on this thing?

sdkoskey wrote:

I love reading all the posts from the iPOD brainwashed crowds. :D

My god, you'd think iPODs were the be-all, end-all of the multimedia world. Now, if you could drag and drop music onto the iPOD like you can with this Sansa, I'd consider one. Until then, no thanks. I've had my Sansa for over a year now. It does NOT eat batteries, it does NOT lock up and ugly is a personal preference. It's cheap, works great for what it's designed for... playing mp3s. If you want more memory, swap out the very inexpensive SD card with another one (I own a couple that I carry with my player). You'll never find an iPOD this cheap that performs as well as this player. Just accept it and carry one.

Just because I dig quality means I'm brainwashed? What part of "I owned a non-Apple MP3 player and it sucked" portion of my initial post didn't you get? Sirloin is better tahn T-Bone but it must be the brainwashing, right?

Listen, my friend: the fact that you can buy an MP3 player for less than a hundred dollars is a testamnet to what Apple has accomplished. Cheap, substandard knock-offs are the result of the fact that 1 of 10 people now own an MP3 player (what's Ipod's market percentage at these days? 75%?) up from around 1 of 1,000, pre-Ipod. Show some respect.

My Ipod is not a status symbol. Most people don't "show off" their Ipods out of the house because you can get mugged for it. Anybody ever get mugged for a Sansa?

And you can drag and drop onto an Ipod (within Itunes - which also happens to be the best MP3 software out there; Apple lossy also being the best sounding format for the file size). And what about video? The only other comparable Video player out there is a Zune: how much does it cost? Oh, same as an Ipod? And you have to use Microsoft proprietary software too? Now who's brainwashed?

Whatever. You go with your Sansa. I'm sure its awesome. I just wonder why anybody could post that without taking poorly-researched cheapshots at Apple? Are we that bitter? Or just bored?

stinkycheeseman wrote:

Actually, the reason I hate on Apple, ipods in particular, is because you can buy something with more features for less money made by another company. Sure time is money, but I've also noticed that money is money. More features, lower price? I buy it. Maybe Apple could offer something like that, then I might become a customer. Until then, all they have on their side is style over substance.

chemical71 wrote:

And what xtra feature would that be? And don't say FM radio because no one listens to the radio...

In my opinion, a great MP3 flash player will have:

1. Easily replaceable batteries
2. Common size batteries (AAA rechargeable capable)
3. FM radio (wish for AM too)
4. FM recorder (yes, important)
5. Voice recorder
6. No cable (should plug-in like a flash drive, USB 2)
7. No software (to make it simple, should be “drag & drop”)
8. A display for controls (not just a shuffle mode)
9. Simple display commands
10. None proprietary (can play MP3, WMA, AA, FLAC & OGG files)
11. Small size

And I listen to the radio all the time.

Ok, I waffled for a while but jumped on this one. I have a shuffle and a 3rd gen 40gb ipod but have longed for something with an FM tuner so if I want I can tune into what's showing on the TVs at the gym. Plus thanks to slickdeals I have stacks of SD cards at home and only one camera to use them in.

chemical71 wrote:

And what xtra feature would that be? And don't say FM radio because no one listens to the radio...

Actually, a lot of people use the FM radio in gyms that use FM transmitters for their TVs.

When it comes these cheap players, I love them. Last year I bought a Lyra from woot and it finally died on me last week (well by died I dropped it one too many times and the hold button broke). I have one from two years ago that still works. I figure if I spend $20 - $30 a year on a new cheap MP3 player I'm never bummed if it breaks. I use them at the gym and on my motorcycle, two places damage is likely. At this rate it will take me 7-10 years to break even on an iPod (or other large capacity MP3 player).

outwiththejive wrote:

Right on. Just like not buying "generic" brand OTC medicine, because Tylenol is somehow better.

Except I like the refurb (rox0rz!) candy bars...easier to chew.

YOU SO YUUCKY! >:P

Ive got the prvious model to this, the m240 in 1GB. Ive been quite pleased with it. The FM tuner can be a little weak at times, but overall is not bad. I like the fact these use easily replacable batteries, in case you need to buy one while out on the road somewhere. If I hadnt just bought the m240, Id get this, since it has the SD slot. My m240 by the way has not had the firmware problems so often heard about. It has the newer version, and Sandisk has a patch for the old version as well.
Just my 2 cents.

CNet review:

http://reviews.cnet.com/SanDisk_Sansa_e140_1GB/4505-6490_7-31326052.html#more

"The good: Lightweight; supports DRM-protected WMA and Audible files; built-in FM tuner and stopwatch; decent navigational menus; expansion slot; attractive street prices.

The bad: Poor scrollwheel (for navigation and volume control); mediocre sound quality; no playlist support.

The bottom line: The SanDisk Sansa series will be the pick for those looking for an affordable WMA-friendly player packed with more features than the Apple iPod Shuffle, but if you want top-notch sound quality, stick with the latter."

Remember, they were reviewing it with the retail price ($190 list, at the time) in mind. Not $35, shipped.

mitchwooter wrote:Does not support books on Cd or else I would buy 2.

That kept me away at first, too, but there seemed to be conflicting information about that. Sandisk's website says it does NOT, but I think they are probably referring to the inability to resume in mid stream as someone mentioned earlier. How else would the player know the difference between a 1 hr mp3 of an audio book and a 1 hr mp3 of a symphony? Some of the reviews on other websites mentioned audio books specifically. For the price, I figured it was worth a shot. I can cope with the inability to resume mid-stream As long as the FFwd is fast enough and if necessary, I can break the files up into smaller chunks.
My old cheap player (RaveMP, which was junk) said it resumed in mid-file, but it never worked right anyway. The timer would resume in the correct spot, but the audio that was playing would start at some random point near the beginning of the file. I always turn the sampling rate way down when ripping audiobooks though, so maybe that was the problem.

roxannez wrote:I love my IPOD Nano, but not everyone has the money to afford one.

Could you possibly be more of a snob? I don't see how. Maybe when you upgrade, Ms. Hilton, you should give your old Nano to Juan, your undocumented houseboy. He might be able sell it to buy medicine for his dying mother.