MP3 players: Sandisk

SanDisk MP3 Player Not Recommended

This unit has a fatal design flaw. Other than that, it's okay.

This unit is incredibly tiny. With the single AAA battery, it weighs less than 1.5oz. You could easily carry two or three of these in a shirt pocket (without headphones).

I wanted an MP3 player with replaceable batteries rather than rechargeable batteries to replace my old Intel player. My Intel (128MB flash) takes two AAA batteries. The SanDisk player takes one AAA.

The unit comes with earbud earphones with a very short cord -- too short.

The unit itself has a plastic case which does not appear would hold up to the pounding and drops my Intel unit encountered over the last few years. I wouldn't call this a sport MP3 player although they do provide an armband. It's just too flimsy. While the unit is rectangular, the a round battery compartment juts out from the bottom of the unit in an asymmetric, non-esthetic way. You don't see this in the promotional pictures. The battery door was irritatingly difficult to open. Because it is made of flimsy plastic, I was afraid that by forcing it I would break it. I don't look forward to frequent changes of the battery, although that is one of the reasons I bought this unit. I use rechargeable AAA batteries in my Intel unit and that has worked very well for me. One of the problems with SanDisk's battery door is that it is attached to the unit with hinges. So if you push too hard, you're liable to break a hinge. I found that if I push inward (toward the unit's body) while pushing down in the direction of the arrow on the battery door, that it opens easier.

The unit has an FM radio that plays very well in my area. My Intel also has an FM radio but the reception is not as good as SanDisk's. It will automatically scan for stations and set the 20 presets. You cannot record the FM radio on this unit like some other units can.

It has a voice recorder which only records .wav files although this is an MP3 player! It has a file directory dedicated to voice recordings. Five minutes of voice recording requires 68MB of memory. The built-in microphone is very sensitive. You must be mindful of that if you hold the unit while you record. Touching the unit or moving it in your hand while recording adds unwanted noises to the recording. I found the voice recording sound quality to be decent for such a little device with a little built-in microphone.

Putting your MP3 and WMA recordings on the unit is extremely easy without any special software if you have Windows 2000 or XP, the two computer operating systems I used the unit with. The unit comes with a USB cable. You just plug one end into the unit and the other end into a USB port on your computer. It is recognized as a removeable drive. You can just drag folders or files onto the unit (which can also serve as a removable disk to store no music files).

You can put folders and sub-folders in the unit just like in Windows (I didn't try it with an Apple computer). Then when you want to play songs you can navigate your folders with a little joy-stick like control which is used for many functions. I am not going to go into detail about the controls except to say that it took me a while to learn how navigate through all of the menus and learn how to navigate the file folders. You can access the user manual online at the SanDisk website (www.SanDisk.com). The manual on their website is the only manual there is. I found it to be accurate and easy to follow.

It has a five-band equalizer with presets but it's also customizable. The display is customizable to a certain extents. You can choose whether to display the volume, progress bar, equalizer or level meter (only one of these). It also scrolls the name of the file being played with the option to show the ID3 tag. It shows elapsed time of a song, battery strength, the name of the song is in, etc. The display is very small (approximately 1.2" x .7"). It has a blue back-light which can be set to stay on from two seconds to always on. I found the display difficult to read even in indoor light without using the backlight.

MUSIC QUALITY
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Here is where I found an apparent design flaw since the problem has been mentioned by others. The music quality is good except for a periodic distortion (crackling sound) that occurs when the beginning of the scrolling file name reaches the left side of the display. At that point the scroll hesitates for a moment and there is an irritating crackling sound. The crackling sound always happens right at the point where the scroll reaches the left side of the display. The crackle varies from very noticeable and irritating when playing a quiet classical piece to barely noticeable when playing hard rock. The only control you have over the scroll is to vary the speed from 1 (extremely slow) to 10 (very fast). I tried every speed setting from 1 to 10 and the crackle sounded like clockwork when the scroll reach the left side of the display.

It is this crackle which caused me to flunk this unit as NOT ACCEPTABLE. I'm not willing to tolerate crackling sounds introduced by the player. This is something which should have been detected by SanDisk's quality control department before the unit was ever released to production. I have heard that this unit's firmware is not upgradable by the user. So there is only one thing that can be done...return it.

In reading other reviews of this product, I am amazed at the number of people who have reported that it sounds great and who have not reported the problem with the crackling sound.

I paid $132 for the unit with a $20 rebate.

Firmware release seems to fix design flaw

I purchased the 512MB version of this player in Dec 2004, and also noticed the flaw mentioned by edmccloskey.

Fortunately, it looks like Sandisk has fixed this problem with a firmware update released in mid February 2005. The old firmware version was something like 0.98, the new version is 1.02.

I'd agree that it's pretty sloppy for Sandisk to release a product with such an obvious bug (my guess was they were trying to release in time for Christmas.) But I'm happy that I waited for the firmware fix before returning the player.

One advantage of this player over others (as far as I can tell) is that it doesn't require any software to load songs from a computer, you can treat it just like a normal flash card.

A disadvantage I notice is when I use it in the car, it's a little troublesome to turn on. First I have to hold the play/pause button for 2 seconds to turn it on, then I have to wait for about 5 seconds for the welcome message to disappear, then I have to press the play/pause button one more time for the music to start. Not a big deal, but would be nice if there was an "automatic play" feature so that I could avoid the 2nd button push.

Overall, I'd rate it 8 out of 10 (after the firmware fix.)

Not so good

I think it's just not as good as the iRiver 799 or the iAudio U2

(NT)

troubles finding a 1 GB review too

I have had the same problem. I think i'm going to just buy one and see how it works. There is a great review of the 516mb version on epinions, and one link that says its actually a review of the 1gb version too. Based on what i read, sounds like a good unit. I'll let you know what i find out in a week.

Avoid Epinions

Just a warning to all to AVOID epinions. I tried this site once and got abusive email after I posted a review. You cannot trust this site. People who write (true) negative reviews are attacked by the usual internet trolls we all know and hate.

Anyway, I just bought this player and it seems ok. Nothing special. I just wanted to try a different brand since the Creative player and Memorex player I had before both broke. The Creative came out of the box defective. The Memorex broke a year later.

The sound on the Sandisk is definitely better than the Memorex. Battery life also seems better. I have the 256kb model. $60 at Kmart.

m200 series track order fix

for my m240 1gb player i had the same issue with imported cds not playing in correct track order, but playing in alphabetical order instead. from the sandisk website:

"All of the songs must have ID3 tags with the correct track number. Once all of the songs are transferred to the player, go to Menu, Play Music, Artist, choose the artist you want, then choose the album you want, then Play All. If it is not done in this manner, then it will be organized by song name instead."

after messing with it a bit, i figured out the way to get the tracks to play in the correct order, you have to edit the files ID3 tags and make sure theyre formatted like track "1" instead of "1 out of 10". i went into itunes and got rid of the "out of" total track # for all my songs and they play in the right order now! hope this helps