A Review of the SanDisk Sansa E200 Series MP3 Players

Although Apple would love consumers to believe that iPod and MP3 player are interchangeable terms, there are many options for quality MP3 players on the market that aren't made by Apple. As a long time player in the flash memory market, SanDisk was a logical company to jump in the market for small flash memory based music players. Consumers should be happy they did so.

The SanDisk Sansa e200 series is the top of the Sansa line. I have the e280 series which comes with 8GB of internal flash memory, the most offered by the series. Other players in the e200 series are functionally identical, differing only in the amount of memory. Models with 2GB, 4GB, 6GB and 8GB are offered.

The player itself is quite small, fitting nicely into your hand. I often slip in in to the pocket of my jeans or pants, where it's small enough to not be noticeable as I walk about. It sports a 1.8" screen which is quite bright and pleasant to look at. The controls are simple, with an iPod-like wheel on the front. Unlike the iPod, the wheel does not click, it only scrolls through various menu options. There are four context sensitive buttons on the sides of the wheel for choosing menu options, as well as a master power/main menu button in the lower left corner of the player.

The player has a micro SD card slot on the side. I absolutely LOVE this feature. It allows me to add up to 2GB of expansion memory and even add songs to the player on without having to formally sync it with the proprietary cable. On the other side of the player is a small "record" button, used to activate the recording features, which I haven't used enough to comment on. The top of the player has a "hold" switch for freezing the buttons - nice when you put it in your pocket.

The first thing I noticed when I turned on the player is how long it took to boot up. For some reason, it seems to want to re-index the database every time you turn it on. This can take from 30-45 seconds, which is a really long time and quite annoying.