Sansa-ble MP3 player (Updated!)

Author's Rating:

Pros: Small form factor Excellent feature set Great sound Low price AAA Battery

Cons: 'Unusual' song categorization (Please see updated notes in review)

The Bottom Line: 
Low price, easy functionality, 1GB of storage and self-replaceable batteries make this MP3 device a sensible alternative to the iPod crowd.

Author's Review
I purchased a Sansa c140 in early March from Best Buy. I had been in the market for a reasonably priced 1GB player, and I looked at quite a few models, including the iPod Nano and the Samsung Yepp player. Ultimately, I chose this model because of what I can only classify as 'my' reasons. I'll try to summarize them in this review.

First and foremost to me was the ability to change batteries. This player does not have an internal rechargeable battery, rather it uses 1 AAA alkaline. The player gets approx. 15 hrs. of playtime per battery. I'm not overly fond of rechargeable batteries that I can't replace, and the iPod and the Samsung have that limitation.

Second, I was interested in listening to FM radio from time to time. The Samsung does have this option built-in, it would have been a $30-$40 option for the iPod. The c140 has a decent FM receiver, and it can store 20 presets so you don't have to manually tune all the time. It also has the capability of recording directly from FM so you can capture and replay some of your favorite radio shows (up to the available memory, of course). It would be nice if it had the option to key in radio station call letters, but maybe they can offer that as a firmware upgrade later.

Third, I just wanted something small to listen to music on. The 'face' of this device (where all of the controls are) is no larger than a pack of chewing gum, and it's 'depth' is equivalent to stack of playing cards. All in all, its a very small, compact, but functional package. The display is in color, and the menu system is easy to navigate, although it isn't quite as intuitive as the click-wheel on an iPod. The Samsung menu was pretty complex. I like the simplicity. The Sandisk device is a 'Plays for Sure' device, meaning if you're an Windows XP and Windows Media Player person, this device will seamlessly sync with your computer. Adding files is as simple as adding the songs to the synclist and clicking 'sync'. With a USB 2.0 port, you can transfer files pretty quickly. NOTE: Even though this device says that Windows XP is a requirement, I have been able to sync with my Windows 2000 device at work as well. I do not know if you can sync with a Mac, but my guess is not...however that may not be true. This is only speculation, but there are two modes of USB communication between your device and a computer. By default, it uses something called 'MTP'. A bit of digging on the internet, and I found this is the new Media Transfer Protocol used to sync video, music, and other media to portable devices. There is a way to change this under the 'Settings' menu on the device to 'MSC'. Not sure what this one means, but when in this mode, the c140 doubles as a 1GB flash drive. Then, you can drag and drop any files onto the device.

This brings me to an area that some might like, some might not like. I'll report, you decide. I'm still early in my workings with the device, but I haven't found a way to sync a true 'playlist' to the device. Sandisk seems to have developed a proprietary cataloging function into the device that will use the ID3 tags of your MP3 or WMA file to categorize your music. You can play all songs, select songs by artist, album, song, or genre, or play what is at least a default playlist called the 'Go List'. While listening to any song, if you press the 'list' icon on the play wheel, you can add the song to the Go List. If I figure out how to play true playlists, I'll be sure to update my review.

(UPDATE 3/14/06) I sat down last night with Windows Media Player 10 and started to try and tackle the playlist issue. I found a little blurb about playlists that worked for the Sansa m200 series players, so I thought I'd give it a try with the c140. Essentially, if you click on the 'Sync' tab in the interface, there's another button for synching options. If you go to options, it will ask you if you want to manually synch your playlists or automatically synch your playlists. If you select 'automatic' and then select the playlists you'd like to see, it will synch the songs to your device. The nice thing about this is that the playlist will now appear on the device under your 'Playlist' heading, and the songs are still stored on the device in the fashion that will let you play them individually, by artist, by album, or by genre. With this little bit of knowledge, I now have exactly what I'm looking for in my device!

Once the songs are on the device and you start listening, I think most would be pleased with the tonal quality. It's not quite as 'thin' as some players I've heard in the past, and you can customize the tone with pre-defined or custom EQ settings. I'm sure better headphones would make the c140 sound better, but I wouldn't chuck the headphones that came with it. They have good sound, good enough for most of us mortals.

All in all, I spent $120 and got:
FM radio
MP3 player (approx. 240 MP3s or 480 WMAs)
Flash Drive
Picture Viewer (not used at this point, so I won't include it as part of the review. Although the interface on the device is in color, it's really too impractical to look at pictures on it.)


So far, I haven't found any reason to take it back. I think anyone not wanting to fall prey to the iPod trap (must-buy-iPod-and-multiple-accessories-or-I'll-never-be-happy....) will be very pleased with this device. For those wanting a little more storage space for a cheaper entry price than the 2GB iPod Nano, look at the Sandisk c150 for roughly $150. Same form factor and functions as this device, just 1GB more space.

I hope this review has been helpful.

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