Author Topic: MP3 Bargain (Read 169 times)

Halo · « **on:** September 10, 2006, 10:37:44 AM »

If you're looking for an MP3 portable music player bargain, hustle over to Best Buy and grab a SanDisk 512 megabyte Sansa m230 MP3 player with FM radio and voice recorder on sale for only $40. Such a deal, and up to 19 hours on one AAA battery.

My youngest daughter was demonstrating her iPod to me but I hadn't needed more music portability so I let that pass after confirming what's out there with the usual Google research. As usual, lots of stuff, especially from Apple, is pricey, easily into a couple hundred bucks.

Then our community band director got a triple bypass. What would be the perfect get well gift for him? Voila (whatever that means)!

Browsing at Staples revealed the SanDisk Sansa MP3 at a bargain $50. 512MB is enough room for 120 songs, 12 CDs, or eight hours of music. Seemed like enough capacity for most uses.

Took me longer than expected to put some sample favorite tunes on it for him, thanks to bastardization of the English language ("rip" for copy, "synchronization" for copying), but finally I figured it out. A couple years ago I had collected my favorite music on a couple CDs, and it was fast and easy to transfer some from CD to MP3 once I got the hang of it.

The band director loves the MP3. By coincidence an AARP magazine item testified "patients who listen to tunes after surgery have less pain (and need fewer painkillers) than those who don't.... Music's effect was equal to a 325-mg dose of the painkiller acetaminophen [e.g., Tylenol]."

The MP-3 player, a much more enduring gift than flowers, also gives him a good project (transferring his own favorite music) during his lengthy home recovery. My wife liked it so much she had to have one, and at "only" $50 (ours was not on sale), it was a great bargain for her too.

SanDisk's player seems to be a newer player in this arena, and since SanDisk makes such excellent storage sticks I figured it was worth a try. Best buy I've seen, and now at Best Buy store too (end of name puns).

Go ahead, rip yourself a new one! And think about it as a great gift for ailing as well as healthy friends.

Golfer · « **Reply #1 on:** September 10, 2006, 11:26:23 AM »

thats almost exactly the one I use. I keep a box of spare AAA batteries (I get nowhere close to 19 hours of play time of mp3s) in my computer bag and couldn't be happier. Mine has a 1gb capacity, though. I keep the backlight turned off to save battery time and that's really helped.

bj229r · « **Reply #2 on:** September 10, 2006, 11:37:06 AM »

My kid has an Ipod, what a fascist piece of chit--they REALLY make you jump thru hoops to use somethin other than Itunes to populate your library, also quite difficult to use it as an additional computer drive---the Sandisk you mentioned---there are an increasing number of mp3's like it on market that need NO software at all--treat em like a usb thumb drive--copy/paste

eskimo2 · « **Reply #3 on:** September 10, 2006, 11:43:14 AM »

My 83 year old mother in law uses a $35 256 MB Sandisk. I ripper her favorite tunes from CDs for her. She looks so hip when she wears it on the armband.

x0847Marine · « **Reply #4 on:** September 10, 2006, 11:47:11 AM »

It's compatible with MP3, WMA, and secure WMA WMDRM 9 and 10... meaning it works with rhapsody et al, but not itunes.

If you pick one of these up use it as an excuse to try rhapsody, I highly reccomend it. Its free for 2 weeks, you could load your new player full, pay nothing and stick it to the man.

Its like the old "all you can eat" Napster, but costs $9.00 mo. Itunes software is better, rhapsody player sucks, but for the cost of 1 itunes album you can listen to 1000s of songs. Tunebite, or other software, easily converts the rented DRM rhapsody files you want to keep.

During party time, rhapsody is a jukebox with a bazillion choices you can enjoy without .99, plus your friends wont waste your $$ DL'n crappy stuff, and you're not stuck with unwanted tunes.

One thing I really like about rhapsody, if your HD fails and you lose everything.. just re-download the songs you had.

Rhapsody has a few quirks; WMP plays all subscription (rented) files, but not the ones you purchase... these only play using the poopy rhapsody player. Songs purchased from rhapsody are in some funky .rax format from Real.