SanDisk Sansa m240 (1 GB) Digital Media Player

The 1GB iPod Nano is close to the Sansa. The iPod Nano does include some nice features like a color screen and photo display, but it's expensive at $149MSRP. The Sansa comes close and is only $89MSRP (and of course, you may get it for a lot less on eBay)! It doesn't have a color screen or photo support, but it has excellent sound and some features that the iPod Nano doesn't have.

Pros:
- Excellent music and sound quality. This is the most important thing in a portable MP3 player, and it is indeed good.
- Good display screen with bright blue backlight. It's not really big, but the display is legible and easily seen in the dark with the bright blue backlight.
- FM tuner. Why listen to FM when you have music already? This may not sound like a big thing, but it's so useful! If you go to the gym with TV audio broadcast on FM, it's great to have a portable FM player to listen to the TV. The quality is very good, and it has 20 station presets.
- Voice recorder. Need to make a quick memo? The voice recorder records pretty good quality voice recordings.
- Accessories. The Sansa includes a clear case, armband, earbuds, and a USB cable.
- PlayForSure support. Most major online music stores (except for iTunes and Sony Connect) support PlaysForSure so you can buy/rent music from a number of stores and they all will play on the Sansa just fine. This way you can pick and choose music from multiple sites, and you're not tied to just one online store like iTunes.
- Audible support. You can listen to audio books from the popular Audible.com site.
- Good battery life. There's no rechargeable battery, but a AAA battery gives anywhere from 15-20 hours of life which is quite good for just a AAA battery.
- Easy to use. The player is very easy to use with simple menus. You should have no problem figuring it out!
- Good search features. Search your music by album, artist, genre, year, and more. This makes it very easy to find what you want.
- Stopwatch. This is a neat little add-on and it's handy for tracking how long you have been jogging or whatever!
- No drivers needed! One of my favorite features. There is no driver needed. All you need to do is plug it in and it will work. No complicated driver installation is required!

Cons:
- Short USB cable. The set includes a really short 6 inch USB cable which is way too short for most computers unless you have a front mounted USB port. However, it uses a standard 5 Pin Mini B USB cable so you will probably want to buy a longer USB cable which is pretty inexpensive.

Believe it or not, but I bought 4 of the m230 model (the 512MB model) for everyone since it was such a good player. I enjoyed the m230 so much, I decided to upgrade and get the m240 model just for the extra storage space (nothing was wrong with the other models). This is an excellent MP3 player and has lots of good features, and I highly recommend it! Rated 5 of 5.

The Scandisk Sansa m240 is an INEXPENSIVE 1GB MP3 player which supports MP3 and WMA audio file formats. Audio quality for the low price is very surprisingly good when using upgrade earbuds. The included earbuds leave MUCH to be desired. Other features include FM stereo, digital voice recorder and a 5 band graphic equalizer which functions exceptionally well. Unlike many other MP3 players, you need not wait for an internal battery to recharge. It uses ONE commonly available AAA cell battery, which may be alkaline or rechargeable. I use 1000mA NiMH (rechargeable) AAA cells, so the player can run continuously, aside from quick battery swaps. Run time on a fully charged 1000mA NiMH cell is very good. Alkalines make it run even longer. There have been reported issues with firmware freezes and lockups, but I've not had any issues with mine. I suspect that many of these issues arise from users who assume they can repeatedly add & delete files while never formatting (thus never cleaning up) the 1GB of memory. ScanDisk does offer VERY SIMPLE firmware support utilities. Just go to WWW.SanDisk.com (yes, that is spelled correctly) to see the DOWNLOADS for m200 series products. There are also some great tech tips for correctly resetting and formatting these units. Just use this link: http://www.howtomendit.com/ans​wers.php?id=53212


Product PROS:
1> You never need to wait for this unit to "recharge". Just swap out the expended AAA cell with a fresh one.
2> Excellent 5 band graphic EQ in the SETTINGS menu
3> USER SELECTABLE USB modes (Auto Detect or MSC). MSC is my preference with Windows XP, just open MY COMPUTER and there it is.

Product Cons:
1> Poor, muddy audio quality with the included earbuds, so better earbuds are definitely required. Find me a cheap MP3 player that actually DOES include great earbuds and I'll find you a flying elephant. There are many inexpensive earbuds that will bring out the full audio capability of the m240. The white earbuds that come with Ipods (even the Nano) sound pretty good with the m240, as well as the Visual Land SSB-10 (BASSY for about $10) or Tritton Extreme earbuds (CRISP & CLEAN for about $20).

Final synopsis: Great for an inexpensive MP3 player, IF you are satisfied with a storage capacity of 130-160 songs of medium audio quality (bit rate). KB1BBY / Scott

The m240 is the first mp3 player I have owned. I read a lot of reviews before I bought it and most were good but there were some bad reviews. After getting the player and using it for awhile I realized that the people who wrote the bad reviews obviously did not read the instruction disk that comes with the player. I have never owned one before and found the m240 to be quite intuitive to operate. The music is easy to get onto the player from your computer, an I found it quite easy to navigate the menu. You can search for your music once on the player by album, artist,song,favorites,genre,ye​ar,playlist,or spoken word. Songs are easy to delete from the player although they have to be deleted using your computer. The player also has a FM tuner and voice recorder in it which is a added plus. This is a great easy to use player and the price is right. The only complaint I have with the player are the earphones that come with it, they were very uncomfortable and did not fit in the ear very well, so I did have to buy another pair that were more comfortable and fit better. Other than the earphones I have no complaints and am 100% satisfied with the m240. Also in case you were wondering it uses one AAA battery that lasts approx. 15 to 18 hours and it comes with a clear plastic case and a armband. One last thing that I should mention is that the backlight display does not come on after the battery is about 3/4 drained, this is NOT a malfunction, it is a power conserving feature. The backlight works fine and will come back on when you put a fresh battery in.

This is a *great* little MP3 Player. We bought one just like it (silver) for our son (then 13) Christmas '06 for $70, and bought my daughter (11) a different brand Christmas '07 because it was cheaper. The screen broke out of hers the first week, and the case broke within 4-6 weeks. My son's SanDisk Sansa was still in great shape, and since he took it with him everywhere for over a year, that seemed a pretty good recommendation. The price has come down a lot since then, as well, only $20, so it should have been a no-brainer to begin with. My kids use it with our Napster subscription, and they've never had a problem. It has great sound, even good bass (according to my now 15 yr old son). My dad also carries a SanDisk Sansa to listen to audio books. He likes the menu and interface better than any other player he has tried (which is several at this point). I've been through 4 different types of players in the past year, and finally bought a 2 GB SanDisk Sansa which looks and interfaces exactly the same as the 1 GB. The 1 GB holds plenty of music, but I use my for audio books as well, and I like being able to download the whole thing at once to my player. It doesn't even seem to run through batteries terribly fast, which is great when you have so many going at the same time! We will buy SanDisk again!

I love this MP3 Player!! Very durable I have owned one since christmas of 2005 and I drop it be accident atleast once a week if not more and it STILL WORKS!!!

The head phones lasted for quite some time but finally stopped working about 3 weeks ago. It was a "wear and tear" issue because i always put it into my pocket. but still very durable and long lasting for headphones.

1GB is surprisingly a lot for this little toy. and it even includes a recorder and an FM tuner! very good plus to listen to your favorite music station on the go.

Has many features too! I like the sleep mode feature because I like to listen to music when I go to bed but don't want to leave it on all night and kill the battery, so I use the sleep mode.

And if your wondering about the battery I use it atleast 2 hours a day every day and it lasts for over 2 weeks.