Product Description
The Sansa m200 Series MP3 players offer great sound, ease of use, and high quality sound with virtually no weight. Created by the leaders in flash memory, this flash-based model provides high-quality digital music playback at an affordable price. As a replacement to our original Digital Audio Player line, this improved look also includes Sansa's excellent navigation: songs sorted by title, artist, album, genre and more. The Sansa m200 Series MP3 players are the first to provide Microsoft PlaysForSure Subscription Service for unlimited downloads. Choose to play your favorite track repeatedly, in random sequence, or play all the songs continuously Hi-speed USB 2.0 connects to almost any computer for hi-speed music transfer (backwards compatible to USB 1.1 ports) Comes with sleek carrying case and armband to protect your player and keep your hands free Easy to use - plug and play, no drivers required (except Win98SE requires driver) Indigo backlit LCD provides ID3 Tag information (v.1 and 2)
Amazon.com Product Description
Take your music on the go with the feather-light SanDisk Sansa M260 4 GB flash memory digital audio player, which is bulked up with a surprising amount of features for such a small device. In addition to playing both MP3 and WMA audio files, it also sports an FM radio and digital voice recorder. It supports the Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 and features PlaysForSure support for portable music downloads. And it's powered by a single AAA battery, which will provide up to 19 hours of battery life.
The Sansa M260 can hold 64 hours of CD-quality MP3 tracks on its 4 GB memory. View larger.
Detailed view of the basic controls. |
The 4 GB Sansa M260 will hold approximately 64 hours of CD-quality MP3 tracks (encoded at 128kps) or 128 hours of WMA tracks (at 64kbps). It's compatible with MP3, WMA, secure WMA, and Audible audio file formats. The digital FM radio allows you to access local radio stations, as well as preset up to 20 of your favorite stations. With five equalizer types for the FM radio and music player, you can optimize your sound for your favorite style of music, such as, Rock, Jazz, Classical, Pop, and Custom (user-defined). You can also use the built-in microphone and voice recording function to capture interviews, classes, and short voice notes to yourself.
The compact yet robust industrial design offers an easy-to-use interface with an indigo-backlit LCD screen showing ID3 tag information from currently playing tracks (song title, artist, and album, as well as battery level and playlist). Sophisticated music library sorting lets you browse the music in your player by artist, album, song title, genre, year, playlist, and other useful criteria. The AB playback feature allows you to select a start point and an end point within an audio file so you can play that segment over and over--helpful for learning languages.
It's easy to transfer songs to the Sansa--just connect it to your PC via the included USB 2.0 connection cable, where it will appear as a Windows Portable Device on your computer. Then, just drag and drop music files from anywhere on your hard drive or use a variety of music software to move licensed music to the device. The Sansa is compatible with PCs running the Windows XP operating system.
The SanDisk Sansa M260 digital audio player uses PlaysForSure technology. Look for the PlaysForSure logo if you're shopping for a portable music or video device and you want to make sure the digital music and video you purchase will play back on it every time. Match the PlaysForSure logo on a large selection of leading devices and online music stores. If you see the logo, you'll know your digital music will play for sure. Choose from a large number of digital music and video stores, including MTV's Urge, Rhapsody, Yahoo!, MSN Music, MusicMatch, MusicNow, Napster, Wal-Mart Music Downloads, and many more.
What's in the Box
Sansa M260 4 GB MB player, carrying case with armband, stereo headphones, AAA alkaline battery, USB 2.0 travel cable, CD-ROM with drivers and online user guide, and printed Quick Start guide
Customer Reviews:
A good value, but overall a mediocre player.......2007-11-12
I've owned this mp3 player for almost 2 years. At the time of my original purchase, this was pretty good player given it's price/capacity/size. Today, given the strong competition out there and this Sansa's many flaws I'll detail below, I'd recommend most people look for a different mp3 player.
Pros:
- Small/Light/Flashbased: The #1 reason I bought this player.... the physical size of this unit and it's solid state flash memory are perfect for runners. I strap it to my arm and hardly know it's there. The included elastic armband and clear plastic case work fine for running and gym use. Yes, the plastic case is cheap and not likely to withstand rough use or repeated trips in and out of tight fitting jean pockets. But this freebie is good for keeping light rain and sweat off the unit.
- Capacity: This model is 4GBs... certainly not huge but MORE than enough for exercising and about just right for normal daily listening. I typically use both MP3 and WMA's encoded using VBR 128 / 96 respectively and my player easily holds 30+ FULL albums. At this bitrate the music isn't anywhere near CD quality, but it's good enough for when I'm out-and-about. With 4GB's, I can go weeks before feeling the need to rotate new music onto my player.
-Backlighted display: The display has a nice blue backlight that allows operation in the dark. It's not fancy but it's very functional and allows me to operate the unit during early morning runs or in the car at night. The backlight duration is adjustable and can be turned off completely to save battery power.
-Uses 1 AAA Battery: Some people might consider this a CON. For me, this was the #2 reason why I chose this unit. When I go on vacation, I travel on a sportbike, sleep in a tent, and hike a lot. I don't generally have access to electricity, nor do I carry a Laptop which many of today's MP3 players rely upon for recharging via USB. This Sansa allows me to take a handful of AAA's and just go without worry. When I'm not traveling, in order to save money and be environmentally conscious, I use 850mAh NiMH rechargeable batteries. The rechargeables only last about 6-7 hrs, a little over 1/2 the runtime a normal alkaline battery provides, but who cares? They're rechargeable! I just pop another one in. One NiMH easily gets me through a workday.
Windows Media Player or straight Drag-and-Drop for music management: In MTP mode, the unit utilizes WMP for music library mgmt and syncing. Personally, I like WMP. It's fast, has a small memory footprint, and doesn't have processes that continue running memory resident even after I exit the application like iTunes. I like WMP. You may not. If not, you can set the Sansa to mass storage mode and just drag and drop files onto the unit. It's your choice.
Auto-Bookmarking function: If you power down the unit while it's playing or PAUSE the unit and allow it to automatically power down after X number of minutes of inactivity, upon start-up the M260 will automatically resume playing from where it left off. This is a must have feature for audiobook and podcast listeners becausing fast forwarding though huge .mp3 files is a pain.
Cons:
Poor Sound Qlty: OK 1st off, this is not an audiophile product nor is it meant to be. Also everyone knows sound quality is only as good as the source material so low quality encodes = poor sound. But regardless, this Sansa like other SanDisk players I've used has "relatively" poor sound. Specifically, bass and mid-bass are really poor and neither the custom EQ nor the handful of sound Presets (rock/jazz/etc...) do anything to improve the sound. Actually, the presets make things worse! Don't get me wrong, this player is NOT unlistenable OK! It won't make your ears bleed :) It's just not a GREAT sounding player compared to other brands, even those considered to have middling sound qlty like the iPod Video and iPod Shuffle in particular. Even my cheap and outdated Creative C100 Sport sounds much better... deeper and tighter bass, fuller mid-range and clearer highs. Plus the Creative's EQ is actually practical unlike my Sansa. In order to get ANY KIND OF ACCEPTABLE bass out of this Sansa, you need to buy headphones that WAY OVER EMPHASIZE BASS. I've found some inexpensive JVC headphone at Wally World that do just this. These headphone sound terrible with a normal mp3 - way too bass heavy & boomy. But paired with my Sansa, these earbuds fill in the low-end hole of the M260's audio spectrum.
Poor software/firmware expertise: As a software developer myself, I'm rather shocked at SanDisk's level of technical expertise, or lack there-of. This is a multi-million (billion?) dollar company! Do these people understand the concept of Software Quality Assurance Testing??? I recently applied their newest firmware, hoping it would fix the music shuffle problem, and had disastrous results. The good news is that my player still "plays" music. The bad news is that the display is totally hosed. As you skip through music, the ID3 tag info like Artist/Title from the previous song is not erased from the LCD display before the next song's data is displayed. In other words, the display just continues to transpose song data on top of the previous song's data. The display becomes unreadable... it looks like the Klingon alphabet!
Now Sandisk tells you NOT to update the firmware unless you are experiencing a problem that's addressed in the new firmware... some might even say, "well you did the update, so it's your fault" I say total B.S!! I'm a developer. I actually TEST MY CODE before releasing it to the general public! Also when I release code, I perform a little thing called Documentation in order to explain exactly what my code is doing. SanDisk doesn't provide release notes with it's new firmware updates so there's no way to determine what problems/fixes are being addressed. Oh, and their auto firmware installer is a horrid piece of software that automatically loads on boot-up and runs continuously in the background monitoring for new firmware updates. The biggest problem is that the firmware updater seems to interfere with the m260's ability to sync with WMP! You have to uninstall the firmware updater application to get syncing to work again! This brings up the question of why a firmware updater needs to run 24x7 in the first place - especially if SanDisk says don't update unless you need to? Me thinks they're sending mixed messages!
Music Shuffle doesn't Shuffle: This unit has a "shuffle" feature but it doesn't do anything. If you activate Shuffle and select PLAY ALL, the unit will play Songs X, Y, Z. If you turn off the unit, turn it back on, reactive Shuffle, and select PLAY ALL, the M260 will play the same songs, X, Y, Z in the exact same order. What's the point? I was hoping the new firmware would fix this... well we know how that turned out!
- Doesn't play songs in Album order, uses Alpha Order instead: This is a huge problem if you listen to Ebooks, podcasts, or are the type of person who enjoys listening to music in album order. This Sansa does not obey the ID3 tag for TRACK #. Instead it plays all music alphabetically by title. This is beyond annoying if you listen to audio books or podcasts... You'll have to go in and rename all your files alphabetically like "Chaper_01-01.mp3, Chapter_01-02.mp3, Chapter_01-03.mp3" instead of relying on the ID3 Track# tag. I have ebooks that are made up of hundreds of MP3 and this renaming is a royal pain in the a$$.
Random Lockups / Crazy Static sounds - Now this is NOT a huge problem. It happens infrequently, maybe 10 times in 2 years. But it's still not very assuring. A solid state piece of equipment should not randomly lockup. Also on a few occasions the unit just starts putting out static laced music and really low audio volumes for no reason. The rectify either problem, you simply have to pop out the AAA battery and restart the thing. Takes like 5 seconds. With players without removable batteries, I've read these types of issues can be terminal. Again, not a game stopper by any means, but just one more negative issue a "modern" mp3 player should not have!
Windows Media Player: In general, WMP works just fine as a syncing/music manager. But occasionally, it does not recognize the Sansa upon plugging in the USB adapter. You then have to go through the process of unplugging, waiting, re-plugging, waiting.... with the Sansa until WMP recognizes the unit. Again, this doesn't happen very often... maybe I'll have an issue 5% of the time. But still, 5% of the time is still NOT GOOD ENOUGH for a piece of consumer electronics gear. CE gear should work 100% of the time.
Flimsy battery cover: I'm not a huge stickler for build quality. I don't require my things be made out of aircraft aluminum or titanium for me to be happy. As long as something is constructed fairly solid I'm good. That said, the battery cover on the M260 is definitely CHEAP. It has 2 TINY plastic points on one end that act as a hinge. The other end has a really weak plastic clip that holds the battery cover on. If you are not an extremely careful person like myself, I can easily see you breaking the plastic points or clip off the cover. Even just putting on the included plastic carry case can be dangerous to the battery cover. The plastic case has 2 snaps on the back to keep it secured. If you press too hard on the snaps, it puts pressure on the battery door and can easily break door's plastic tabs!
In summary, this is not the worst player out there. It's great for exercising, but so are a TON of other players on the market today. If I had to do it over again, I would not buy this unit. But in the 2 years I've had it, it's be useful... painful and annoying at times YES... but useful. Even with the screwed up display, I'll continue to use my m260 for my morning runs, but I'll have to find a better behaved unit for daily use.
The anti-Ipod MP3 player.......2007-09-04
Sansa has created an easily usable sturdy MP3 player that is $50 and can be used with Napster and Yahoo! Music. As an anti ipod parent this is a great thing for me. Of course, there are still daily calls for their own "iPod", but they love being to fill their MP3 with all new music on a daily basis if they choose. My 2 eight-year-olds both love their Sansa MP3 players.
Flawless and Easy to Use.......2007-07-26
I have had zero problems with this unit. I've had it for over a year.
1) It syncs perfectly in Windows XP and Vista. Don;t even need included software.
2) Drag-n-drop. I often drag files to it over the usb cable.
3) It's easy to find and play songs.
4) The sound quality is very good. Sounds awesome when connected to a set of good computer speakers or a boom box.
5) AAA battery provides about 16 hours of listening - sweet!
6) Tough, yet very light. It gets banged around and always works.
nice idea but poor quality.......2007-07-19
I bought this a year ago and had some problems with it. It was defective from the factory. Trying to work with Sandisk customer support was not a positive experience. I am about to throw it away and buy another brand.
Don't buy this player nor anything from Sandisk.......2007-05-09
I was happy with this player in the beginning until I began having problems with some WMA and MP3 files. They just won't play on the device unless I reformat it and copy them back on. Sandisk support always say it's a normal process to reformat a device once in a while. I don't think so! Well, at least not every 2 weeks... Now my warranty is expired since a week and Sandisk completely refuse to exchange it. They just say "sorry for the inconvenience". Well, I say "sorry, but you lost a customer!"
Also, be aware that they only support Windows XP under the MTP mode. I tried putting some files on the device using the MSC mode which is compatible with Windows 2000. The device will play the files but when you try to play a complete album, the songs will play them sorted by title instead of track number!
Product Description
When Powel Crosley built his first hand made radio set, he probably never envisioned that 80 years later it would include not only an AM/FM radio, but also a 3 speed turntable, cassette deck and yes, even a recording feature and a CD player. True to original Crosley stylings, the 4-in-1 entertainer features a hand rubbed wood veneer cabinet, wrap around woven grill cloth corners and quality components that only Crosley can deliver. Experience the soft crackle as you gently lay the needle down on your favorite vinyl that's been buried in the attic for decades. And while careful attention to original detail lends an air of authenticity, modern technologies add the perfect finishing touch. The Crosley Entertainer comes complete with discreetly integrated solid state AM/FM radio, programmable CD player, side mounted cassette deck, illuminated LCD display, EQ presets, built in amplifier, full-spectrum speakers and multi function remote control. All this, plus the option to record your records, CDs or radio programs on to a cassette, along with its witty design, makes it a must-have in any home.
Amazon.com Product Description
Not all modern electronics sport a high-tech housing. Witness Crosley's CR79CD four-in-one Entertainer, which teams a solid-state AM/FM radio, programmable CD player, three-speed turntable, and logic cassette deck in a nostalgic '40-style cabinet. The Entertainer's distinctive look includes a hand-rubbed, paprika-finished wood veneer chassis and wraparound grill corners made of woven cloth, along with a gold-plated front control panel. The attention to detail lends an air of authenticity to the device, making it a great fit for listeners with traditionally furnished homes. By contrast, the interior electronics are fully modern. The CD player features a 20-track programmable memory and a repeat play (one and all tracks) function, letting you create custom soundtracks for parties or casual listening. The belt-drive turntable, meanwhile, supports 33-1/3, 45, and 78 rpm speeds, giving you access to full-length LPs and classic singles collections.
Should you tire of prerecorded tunes, simply turn to the digital AM/FM tuner, which lets you catch up on the morning or evening news. Finally, the side-mounted cassette deck records all three formats--CD, LP, and radio--letting you easily archive your favorite music. Additional features include an illuminated LCD display, built-in digital equalizer presets that vary based on genre or personal preference, a built-in amplifier, full spectrum speakers, and a multifunction remote control. The Entertainer even offers a pair of external outputs for connecting to detached stereo speakers.
The Entertainer measures 17.75 by 9.25 by 14 inches (W x H x D) and is backed by a 90-day warranty.
What's in the Box
4-in-1 Entertainer, remote control, 45 spindle adapter, diamond-stylus needle, user's manual.
Customer Reviews:
Turntable didn't work (brand new unit!).......2007-08-04
I bought a very similar item (looks exactly the same but it's a 3-in-1 instead of 4-in-1) directly from Crosley's website. It has a 30 day warranty. When it arrived, the turntable didn't work, but the CD and cassette worked. I had read numerous user reviews of the Web, so I paid only $100 for it on the Crosley website (it was on sale), and I fully expected it not to work, so two out of three functions ain't bad. You get what you pay for. Users who sent it back complained that the shipping was pricey (it's a big heavy box) and they still got another one that didn't work, so I am either going to live with the dead turntable, or get a old time radio guy to fix it. I'm sure it's something very simple, like a part got dislodged in shipping. The sound is crappy but authentic - dimensional stereo, coming through really old time speakers with coppery fabric "shields" just like my parents' speakers from my childhood - so when you put 1930's, 1940's, 1950's music on it, it sounds much cooler - how it must have sounded back then. Worth it if you have a "you get what you pay for" attitude. Shipping was quite inexpensive and there was no tax, from the Crosley website.
A very unsatisfactory sound system........2006-03-22
I bought the CR79 because I wanted something that would look nice in my paneled livingroom. I chose this model specifically because of the external speaker outputs. I thought that if I did not like the sound quality of the built in speakers, I could hook up my own.
Let's take the features of this item one by one, in the order of from the worst to the best.
The CR79 has the cheapest looking turntable I have ever seen. It would be very easy to break something just by inattention. I put a good quality stereo record from the 60's on it, and the sound was like something from the 1930's or 40's. My wife described it as "music in a can".
The AM/FM radio is better, but the sound is all in the mid-range, lacking any real base or clear highs. The reception wasn't too impressive, either.
The tape cassette was considerably better. But I had never before seen one where you have to open the door by inserting your thumb into a hole and prying it open. No button to push to eject?
The CD player has better sound than the phono, radio or cassette, but wouldn't you expect that anyway? Even so, it still lacks range.
The CR79's best feature is its appearance. There's no denying it looks nice sitting there in the living room. It looks well put together, and does not dominate the room. The wood finish looks like a rubbed oil finish that might not be all that durable. A coat of urethane would be a good idea.
It's too bad that the Chinese manufacturer of these units did not make them sound as good as they look. This unit is overpriced for what it delivers. It is not a sound system at all, but really just a home decoration item.
I returned it to Amazon the next day and ordered the TEAC DC D6300. It is everything the Crosley is not and five dollars cheaper as well.
Horrible Sound Quality.......2005-10-09
I received this as a gift, thinking that it would be an acceptable way of listening to my old LPs, but it's incredibly lacking in sound quality. There is no low end at all. The unit sounds worse than a 40 year old transistor radio with a 2 inch speaker.
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Portable Digital Media Players
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