First, I’d like to say hi as this is my first post here. Next I am soliciting opinions as to which sansa player to buy. I am looking hardest at the 1 GB Sansa Clip but when I went to buy it today the store had the 2GB Sansa Express on a huge sale ($29). Going on what I have read here and on Amazon, there are a decent chunk of bad reviews out there for the Express and one post here said it may not be getting anymore firmware updates to fix any issues. On the other hand it is a good sale and twice as big and has the expandable memory. As for the clip it seems to have better reviews, better support but is more expensive for smaller memory. That being said, if my 512mb player had the ability to sort by artist, album etc. I would probably not be buying a new mp3 player. I don’t need huge size, 1-2 GB is plenty plenty big for me, don’t need video either. What are your opinions? Advice? Suggestions?
Thanks,
KTorrison
PS I have posted this same question on the clip board too to get the “other side”
Edit: One more question for Express users… Is there any was to charge this player without a computer? i.e when traveling to I have to bring my laptop or is there a connector or something to charge from a car or wall?
Message Edited by KTorrison on 02-21-2008 03:48 PM
I am also new to this forum. Based on reviews, there is no doubt that the clip is a much better player.
I was about to buy a clip when I also discovered the $29 sale for the 2GB Express. So I took the chance and bought the
express. The only glitch I have seen is that it often initializes the data base each time I start it and also asks if I want English.
I did install the latest firmware update.
Suprised that it sounds very good using diferent headset. Have also listened to both overdrive and netlibrary audio books.
For audio books it doesnt have any book mark capability so you have to shut if off to retain placeholder of the book you are
listening to.
so for me the $29 seems like a good decision because I doubt I would ever have more than 500 songs and the prompt
for english doesnt bother me much. If you decide to get a clip you can use the promo code on this site to get a 10% discount.
Bestbuy recently ran a sale on the 2GB clip for $59 - maybe they will run it again.
I think the express is dead - when I went back to buy another $29 express, they told me there were none left
and that they were being discontinued.
And maybe sandisk might reduce price on 1GB clip when they disco express and when they have general availabity
of the new 4GB clip.
harivney wrote:
I am also new to this forum. Based on reviews, there is no doubt that the clip is a much better player.
I was about to buy a clip when I also discovered the $29 sale for the 2GB Express. So I took the chance and bought the
express. The only glitch I have seen is that it often initializes the data base each time I start it and also asks if I want English.
I did install the latest firmware update.
Suprised that it sounds very good using diferent headset. Have also listened to both overdrive and netlibrary audio books.
For audio books it doesnt have any book mark capability so you have to shut if off to retain placeholder of the book you are
listening to.
so for me the $29 seems like a good decision because I doubt I would ever have more than 500 songs and the prompt
for english doesnt bother me much. If you decide to get a clip you can use the promo code on this site to get a 10% discount.
Bestbuy recently ran a sale on the 2GB clip for $59 - maybe they will run it again.
I think the express is dead - when I went back to buy another $29 express, they told me there were none left
and that they were being discontinued.
And maybe sandisk might reduce price on 1GB clip when they disco express and when they have general availabity
of the new 4GB clip.
the companies that make the product dont determine the price. Its the retail stores. SanDisk releases an MSRP (that usually never changes)
the companies that make the product dont determine the price
That is patently false. The OEM has the power not only to determine what price they sell to retailers, but in many cases the minimum pricing that the retailer can use. This is in part to minimize grey market influence.
In the case of the 2g Express, since so many retailers are selling at the same price ($29), I suspect that SanDisk sold units to the retailers stating that they sell those units at that price.
Why? The unit is clearly at EOL, and with the introduction of the 4g Clip, a 2g Express with 2g uSD will cannibalize the Clip. The want to rid their stock of Express players (and probably forget they ever produced it IMO).
timboaz wrote: the companies that make the product dont determine the price
That is patently false. The OEM has the power not only to determine what price they sell to retailers, but in many cases the minimum pricing that the retailer can use. This is in part to minimize grey market influence.
In the case of the 2g Express, since so many retailers are selling at the same price ($29), I suspect that SanDisk sold units to the retailers stating that they sell those units at that price.
Why? The unit is clearly at EOL, and with the introduction of the 4g Clip, a 2g Express with 2g uSD will cannibalize the Clip. The want to rid their stock of Express players (and probably forget they ever produced it IMO).
I realize the companies determines an MSRP, but If i (for example) sell you 1000 mp3 players for 20 bux a piece, you can turn around and sell them at whatever price you want. Sure the companies will somewhat team together to elimate the grey market influence as you said.
If SanDisk sold the express at 100 bux a piece, and the store is sitting on 80/100 unsold units, they can go right ahead and just sell them for 20 bux just to a. get rid of stock, and b. make at least part of the money back that was spent.
I’m not a big ol’ company selling these things, so i dont know much about the contractual agreements, but a minimum price that the store would have to sell it at makes sense.
The clip is overall a better player. If 1 GB is enough – about 500 128k mp3 songs – you’ll do fine with it.
The Express has some nice features, but also has some quirks which can get annoying. The memory expansion looks nice, especially if you use micro-SD in your camera or something.
Biggest express quirks:
Uncontrolled resets. You’d think that the reset/clear settings thing would be hard to trigger, but it is easier to reset the Express than it is to turn it off. You can reset it by putting it in a bag with other things which happen to press against the buttons.
Not-really random shuffle. If you like to listen to a totally random set of selected songs, the Express makes it difficult by making the shuffle in the same order every time. This may be related to the reset thing – it “resets” when turned off instead of shutting down?
1000 song limit. Given the expansion slot and a big memory card, this is a crippling limit. If you run 64k songs, you can come close to it with 2 GB.
If they did another firmware update for this, it would help with customer relations. The Clip has fairly frequent firmware upgrades, and more are expected.
Charging without a computer just requires a usb charger. The express (or clip) aren’t too demanding, so any charger for any usb device should work. Plus is that you can play the device while charging, which you can’t do when it is attached to a computer.
At this point, I wouldn’t buy any Sansa products. Bought an M240 in late January. One week later, the on/off/power button refused to depress so that the player could turn on. No help at all from support except to say that I must have deliberately broken it and was SOL. 5 days ago, bought a Sansa Express. It won’t transfer files from Rhapsody for love nor money. No help at all from support except to say I’m still an ■■■■■. These players will go in a prominent place to remind me never to buy Sansa again. My old Phillips works fine, even after being dropped - I’ll stil with that.
If you want, PM me with your Case ID or with any of the registration information you gave support when you called and I’ll look into it. Outside of certain circumstances, I don’t see why we can’t replace your m200 over a stuck button. The Express should work in Rhapsody as well (in fact, it’s meant to do so.) So, I’d like to look over our notes on that as well, and see what we can do to rectify the situation.
