Just given a new SanDisk MP3 Player - worth keeping?

[kexodusc]

One of our clients gave me a SanDisk 2GB MP3 Player. Flash Memory.
I was thinking of buying an iPod to replace my old broken MiniDisc player but I've got everything in WMA and MP3 and didn't want to go through the iTunes hassle.

Not sure if this jobby is any good or if I should get something else - I don't keep up on portable media trends. Lemme know, I'll probably ebay this unit real fast if there's something better for $100 USD or so, otherwise I'm opening it.

[Kaboom]

definately nothing better for a hundred clams. I'd say keep it
keep off ipods, i'm completely against them. That's the reason i just bought myself a Creative Zen Sleek Photo, to save myself the itunes hassle and the restrictive standards and abusive policies. I don't really fancy being client to a company that's breaching my presumption of innocence.
However, don't take my word for it, there are a million comparisons floating around in the web. research that sandisk a little bit, and decide for urself.
i'd sure keep it, though.

[audio_dude]

HEY, don't bash the iPod, it may be stupid expensive, but its the best MP3 player i've used...and i've used LOT's. keep the sansa, it's a very nice player, a lot of anti-ipod friends have them.

hey, once you start on iTunes, you will never be sorry!

[N. Abstentia]

Definitely keep the Sansa. Personally I feel it's MUCH better than an iPod...does everything the iPod does and more (iPod does not support WMA) but does not have the iTunes hassle. It's drag & drop...don't get no easier.

[kexodusc]

Definitely keep the Sansa. Personally I feel it's MUCH better than an iPod...does everything the iPod does and more (iPod does not support WMA) but does not have the iTunes hassle. It's drag & drop...don't get no easier.

Thanks for the votes of confidence, folks...

N. Abstentia, was this the player you nabbed too?

Cool, this thing's coming out of the package then. Guess it's a keeper. Good thing too. I hate jogging in the mornings without music...I've been using the death of the MiniDisc as my excuse to quit exercising. Now I can get back to my 10 Km running routine....

(Well, maybe not 10 Km's...)

[bubbagump]

Same goes for the 260 and 270. Same players but with more memory. My favorite and still available here and there is the Rio Carbon. When Rio closed it's doors, it was a sad day. Unlike iPods and almost every player on the market, the Carbon is a ums device, is Audible compatible, has hard bookmarking, 14 or more hours of battery life, plays for sure for other subscription services and is well made. The only downside is a fragile volume wheel that seems prone to breakage. But I digress. The Sansa has received good reviews and is surely more feature packed and probably more durable than the iPod Nano. Another thing about nano's: the quality seems to be crap. I was in an Apple store recently waiting for an appointment. I sat in the store for about an hour next to the 'genius bar'. I'd say at least 80% of people coming in for help had iPods, many of which were about a year old. Most had problems severe enough to justify the Apple employee having to replace it or repair it. I've had two ipods, a 2G which had battery life issues after a few months and a 4G which had battery and logic issues after about a year. As much as I like the ergonomic design, the quality has been horrible in my experience. I haven't had similar issues with my Rio, iRiver or even Sony MD players. To make matters worse, I hate iTunes. It feels bloated. Unlike a ums player, you're tethered to iTunes. Come to think of it, I hate iPods and iTunes.

[N. Abstentia]

Seems to be lots of anti-iPod folks here

Kex, yeah I have a 2gb Sansa..love it. You'll be very happy with it and you'll wonder why you ever even considered an iPod. If you already have your music in WMA or MP3, just drag & drop them to the Sansa with Explorer...it's that simple. The Sansa shows up as a standard flash drive. You can even put data on it if you need to..it doubles as a thumb drive!

I mainly just put my already ripped CD's on it, but when I buy music I buy them from the WalMart music store. 88 cents each and it's very easy to operate. Find your song, add to cart, download it. You can listen from there, or drag it over to your Sansa.

It's so easy, even a monkey could do it. Not sure about an iPod user though...

JUST KIDDING!

[paul_pci]

Definitely keep the Sansa. Personally I feel it's MUCH better than an iPod...does everything the iPod does and more (iPod does not support WMA) but does not have the iTunes hassle. It's drag & drop...don't get no easier.

That's because WMA is proprietary, something you've expressed contempt for in the past. How quickly we don the cloak of naked hypocrisy.

[N. Abstentia]

That's because WMA is proprietary, something you've expressed contempt for in the past. How quickly we don the cloak of naked hypocrisy.

Actually, an iPod is about the only thing I can think of that does NOT play WMA files so how does that make it proprietary? If you want to talk about proprietary let's talk about an iPod requiring iTunes to work.

[Mike Anderson]

That's the reason i just bought myself a Creative Zen Sleek Photo, to save myself the itunes hassle and the restrictive standards and abusive policies. I don't really fancy being client to a company that's breaching my presumption of innocence.

Every time a thread comes up about this, we go through the SAME DAMN THING.

For the thousandth time, the iPod does NOT require that you get your music from the iTunes store.... I have an iPod, and I put all kinds of music on it from dozens of different sources.

Why people repeatedly buy into this falsehood is simply beyond me...

[Kaboom]

when did i say the iPod requires you to buy from the itunes store.
i'm saying it one:
Forces you to use iTunes. i don't care whether its a great program, its FORCING ME because i don't have any other option (and yeah, there's ephpod and ****, but its not really a "choice")
I cannot use my ipod as a music backup device. why? because apple won't let me copy music back to my computer once a virus has eaten the hard drive with my 10.000 bucks worth of sound-quality-crippled songs i bought from itunes. great.
Oh! and no matter my fair use rights. If i buy a song off itunes, i have the damn right to share it with all my friends if i wish. But iTunes doesn't think the same way, restricting the number of times you can copy a song.
And you know what's great? it also applies that policy to music you ripped off your OWN CDs.
Excellent. I hope you now see why i'm not running to spend 400 bucks on an MP3 player whose batt dies way too soon (and i've owned three) is fragile as hell, has crippled functionality as an external drive and doesn't let me make decisions concerning my music or my rights.
cheers!

[Mike Anderson]

when did i say the iPod requires you to buy from the itunes store.
i'm saying it one:
Forces you to use iTunes. i don't care whether its a great program, its FORCING ME because i don't have any other option (and yeah, there's ephpod and ****, but its not really a "choice")
I cannot use my ipod as a music backup device. why? because apple won't let me copy music back to my computer once a virus has eaten the hard drive with my 10.000 bucks worth of sound-quality-crippled songs i bought from itunes. great.
Oh! and no matter my fair use rights. If i buy a song off itunes, i have the damn right to share it with all my friends if i wish. But iTunes doesn't think the same way, restricting the number of times you can copy a song.

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

1) You do NOT need to use the iTunes program to manage your music. There are other programs you can use to manage your iPod. Check out iPodLinux or Rockbox: http://www.rockbox.org/

2) You do NOT have to buy music from iTunes. You're complaining about the music you got from iTunes -- fine, don't buy from them, but it's not an iPod problem -- you can put music from other sources on your iPod;

3) You can do ANYTHING you want with music you've ripped from your CDs.

It sounds to me more like you just don't know how to use the thing.

[audio_dude]

yup, well said!! (clap clap)

[paul_pci]

The reason music only goes one way on the iPod is out of a compromise with the evil recording industry who wanted to minimize file sharing. The fact remains, an iPod is not a archive device, nor was it ever intended to be. That's what discs, be they CD or DVD are for, duh. Why anyone would want to archive a music collection in a device that can be stolen, dropped, lost, or otherwise cease to exist makes no sense to me.

[kexodusc]

Really wasn't my intention to start an Ipod pissing contest here, but I will say that I just don't find them as convenient or inexpensive as some of the other offerings out there. They do look kind of neat though.
I never use iTunes, don't want to start.
Will an iPod play MP3's and WMA's straight up without any sort of file conversion?
If not, they're out for me. I just came from MiniDisc-land - ATRAC 3 sounds better than MP3, but was just too much of an inconvenience. Not going back to that.

[N. Abstentia]

Will an iPod play MP3's and WMA's straight up without any sort of file conversion?

Nope. None of the iPods can play WMA files.

[Mike Anderson]

The reason music only goes one way on the iPod is out of a compromise with the evil recording industry who wanted to minimize file sharing. The fact remains, an iPod is not a archive device, nor was it ever intended to be. That's what discs, be they CD or DVD are for, duh. Why anyone would want to archive a music collection in a device that can be stolen, dropped, lost, or otherwise cease to exist makes no sense to me.

I agree, but it is certainly possible to do so.

[Mike Anderson]

Will an iPod play MP3's and WMA's straight up without any sort of file conversion?

MP3 yes, WMA no.