Sometime ago I mentioned the Creative Zen V Plus (see Get them while you can) as a previous generation good MP3 player at a decent price.

Another “good deal” is the popular but underrated SanDisk Sansa e200 series of MP3 Players. SanDisk media players are usually quite competitively priced, and this one can be found at bargain prices. SanDisk also still sells it from their website. The Sansa View, possibly intended as a replacement, is larger and heavier than the Sansa e200 series.

The e200 series is available in capacities from 2GB to 8GB. The rather confusing model numbers indicate the capacity: e250 is 2GB, e260 is 4GB, e270 is 6GB and the e280 is 8GB. The Sansa e280 was the first 8GB flash player available. The best values are probably for the 4GB and higher models. The e200s have microSD expansion card slots, so they can be expanded by up to 2GB. It is about the size of the second generation iPod Nano, but thicker. It is small enough to fit easily into just about any pocket.

One thing I like about this player is that it supports MSC (Mass Storage Class) and well as MTP (Media Transfer Protocol – Windows Only) USB modes. MTP mode requires using Windows Media Player or the Rhapsody software, but in MSC mode the player appears as a drive on your computer and you can just copy music files to it. This also means that it can be used with Mac and Linux PCs. The player has an FM Radio, which you can record from, voice recording and video playback – although at only 15 fps. All videos have to be converted by the SanDisk Media Converter to play on the 1.8 inch, 220 by 176 pixel resolution screen.

This is one of the few MP3 Players available today which has a user-replaceable battery. Instead of having to crack open the player and void the warranty, there are 4 screws on the back to remove the back plate and reveal the battery compartment.

Of course one of the advantages of buying a player like this over two years after it has been released is that most of the bugs have been ironed out with firmware updates.

Posted on March 10th, 2008 by mervyn