CrunchGear

For $59.00 plus $40 for a 2G microSD card you have an Ipod killer for $100. It’s competition for the Nano as well.

Where can i buy it? Havent seen anywhere yet…

Amazon says it will be available April 1, 2007. I hope the sound quality will be good and the microSD card won’t make music skip; seems most Sansa mp3 players are well rated tho. Wish it had direct line-in recording and uses AAA batteries insead of built-in Li — but I guess you can’t have everything. I’ll definitely buy one after the Cnet/PcMag review comes out.

I am sold, I am buying one of these as soon as possible. My 1G iPod Shuffle is finally dying.

I’ve been holding out buying an mp3 player until one was made to suit me. I wanted to get one that didn’t need a cable, had at least a gig of starage, had a buit-in battery, was small enough, and had the option of expandable storage. This will be my first mp3 player once it releases and the oled display is an added bonus. I must say SanDisk knows how to move forward with technology.

The Sansa Express Release For Sale Now at
Best Buy

This device come packed with 1GB of music space (expandable up to 2GB more w/ micro Sd card)
Play MP3, WMA, WMDRM, Audible audio book
Rechargeable lithium-polymer (included)

Playlist
FM tuner
Voice Recorder
OLED display Nice improvement!

I just got one today. It’s such a sweet MP3 player for the price. I have a gateway and Iriver HDD base MP3 player and I wanted something small and fast that was flash based and not too expensive for when I’m at the gym. Transfer rates are really fast and it looks really sweet. Matches my Boss Micro BR Digital Recording studio. It’s a mirror front that shows the OLED when it’s on. The interface is simple and it sounds good. The ear buds it comes with are somewhat lacking in comfort but they do sound decent. It’s very light in weight. I am waiting for some accessories to come out so I can keep it in a case. It shows fingerprints very easily on the surface. I would recommend you get one though.

I picked up one on the 19th @ BestBuy. I love it so far.

Nothing is without fault:

I agree with the fingerprint problem. I have been cleaning the display constantly.

When listening to a podcast, and you are interupted, if you do not resume pause quickly, the express turns off, and you are back to the beginning of the program.
::NOTE- My podcast was stored as music. I do not know if it was stored as an Audio Book if there would be a book mark feature.

Does not sync with Media Player 9, so Win2k is out.

I picked one of these up for work yesterday at Best Buy. I frequently have to crawl around in ceilings for insane numbers of hours doing networking and cabling jobs. I needed something to fill the dead-space in my brain.

Light-weight, feature rich. The “finger print problem” isn’t a big deal for me. Everything gets grimy and icky up there anyway.

The battery life is insanely good. I don’t run the volume way up, so I’m not over-driving the amplifier - probably one reason. Anyway - I worked for 16.5 straight hours, and never stopped it. It was on shuffle/repeat all. It was still showing 1/4 on the charge indicator when I went to bed. I plugged it in before I fell asleep, and it’s fully charged now.

As far as music/podcast restarting, just pause it before you let it stand-by. Mine doesn’t seem to restart the song if I do that. You could also use a splitter and split them into “chapters”.

I concur with Therm - the earbuds sound fine, but they aren’t terribly comfortable, and they don’t stay in my ears with any kind of activity. I’ll be immediately replacing them.

I also couldn’t believe the thing is so feature-rich but doesn’t include a clock! A few bits of scratchpad nv and a few bytes of code. This surely has to be on the to-do-list for Sansa…

The display is awesome. VERY readable and beautiful in a totally darkened space, as are the blue backlit buttons.

I transcoded 293 songs out of my MP3 collection to 64kbit/sec WMA. It required just under half the device’s storage. So at that bitrate, 600 songs may be a fairly accurate accounting with the types of music I listen to at work. I’m sure the sound may lack a bit, but when you’re just using it as background filler - who cares? It’s about the amount of music stored at that point…

Just for kicks, I encoded a 384kbit MP3 track from an SACD (Charlotte Church. Very demanding.), and plugged the express into my More Headroom headphone amp, and that into my HD580 Sennheiser headphones.

There was some identifiable amplifier noise on the Sansa. It didn’t punch the lows or lift the highs. Probably 75% of SNR that I get on the Creative Zen NX. A friend’s Shuffle shows similar characteristics to the Sansa Express (by seat-of-pants method). The Shuffle seems to carry the bass a bit better, the Sansa a bit cleaner on the highs. But that’s just my “golden-ear” opinion.

With all that said, I am *super* happy with this device, for its purpose and value proposition. In fact, I’m ecstatic. I would give it a 9.25/10 rating. Earbuds are a very personal thing. I’m only docking them 0.25 for the earbuds. I have no problem replacing them. I’d like to hit them another 0.25 for not adding a clock - but heck, the Shuffle doesn’t even have a display. I’m going to hit them another 0.25 for apparent SNR/THD/Amplifier quality. But I’ll apologize for it since other similar micro-players have similar apparent performance.

Honestly, a “fairer” rating is probably 9.90/10 when all factors (cost, size, battery life, display quality, quantity of music stored, overall feature-set, etc.) are taken into account.

This is truly a ShuffleKiller. I just hope SanDisk can push the marketing and advertising hard enough to upset the Apple cart [sic].

Yeah, scratch that… I’d give it a “10″ emotionally for a day and a half of use. ;-)

— Adrenalynn

Oops, one additional note to the negative:

These companies always seem to put the lanyard attachment on the removable cap. How silly is that? Minus 18 points for that. So it’s actually a -8.00. :P

Just kidding about the last, but really - what are they thinking? I like the idea of the lanyard, but why put the attachment on the cheap disposable portion of the device? Oh - guess I answered my own question. ;)

— Adrenalynn

Picked mine up this past Saturday and I’m loving it so far! I have a much bigger, Iriver PMP-140 that was just too huge and bulky to tote around for every day stuff. This is definitely an Shuffle killer. I most enjoy the FM tuner because we have some pretty good radio stations in the Atlanta area. But it’s nice and compact, easy to navigate and operate, and overall, a steal when it comes to the price of the device with all of it’s features. The headphones are pretty uncomfortable, but I’ve since replaced them. Had a few pairs lying around the house. Gonna step it up with the Bose earbuds in maybe a week or so and see how that works out.

Overall though, this is a pretty nice piece of equipment if I may say so myself. And when it comes to electronics, I’m kinda hard to please, lol. But knowing what I know now, I would have payed double for it. I enjoy it that much!

Picked one up yesterday at Best Buy (March 29). Was looking for an inexpensive non-cable unit, small enough to run with and take to the gym.
Was leaning to a Samsung direct connect model, and didn’t expect to see this one on the shelf.

The MicroSD expansion slot and FM tuner were the key selling points for me.
Not quite the ooomph in sound quality as my Creative Zen Vision (but it didn’t cost nearly as much either)!

A great feature rich unit for the money. Fast music transfer, love the direct connect feature, drag and drop, and the FM tuner quality is EXCELLENT!!!

Also have been using it today through the auxillary port on my car stereo, and it sounds fantastic through the car stereo. Love having an aux port so I don’t have to fiddle with an FM modulator.

Very nice unit. iPod killer indeed!

I bought this little MP3 Player because I am sick and tired of the problems and restraints that my Apple IPOD has given me. I was looking for something a lot smaller for working out with, a built-in voice recorder, rechargeable battery, and have always wanted a functional personal FM radio that wouldnt cut out every 5 seconds with static. I think its a perfect match. I test drove it last night after uploading some tunes onto it and man did it blow me away. The sound quality was splendid, although I was using RCA Marshmallow earbuds due to the fact that I have cauliflower ear on both ears from wrestling (Marshmallows are great as well). Then I drove 40 miles down the interstate to pick my fam up from the airport and back while using the FM radio, and it only cut out once when I went through a tunnel! The radio is very user friendly by allowing the user to select Radio presets. After doing so all you have to do is click the select button to scroll through the presets! The appearance is better than almost any MP3 player that I have come acrossed, especially at night when it is lit up. Plus on top of it all you can add more memory with the Micro SD slot. I just wish my camera SD was a micro. It can be used anywhere too with the USB connection. With purchase includes a free month with audible.com which includes a free book. I started my book this morning and it works great. I definetly think that the SANSA will have Apple’s IPOD running scared. The Sansa Express is SICK, and I would recommend one to all my friends.

Could you lucky owners answer a few question I couldn’t find answers to elsewhere?

Which format is used for mic and FM recordings? Is it WAV or MP3? Are you satisfied with the quality of the mic recordings?

For transferring files MTP mode seems to be used by default. Is it possible to switch to MSC mode similar to the Sansa c200? With MSC the Express would not be limited to Windows Media Player 10.

Thanks,
Gigi

I checked the format of a voice recording that I have and it was in WAV format. After listening to it, the quality was much, much better than I ever expected. And to think I almost bought a $50 digital voice recorder that wasnt any better quality than this. :-)

About the transfer modes, Im not sure, and I didnt see anything in the quick start guide either. Hope this helps.

I have several questions. It says that u will need eventual replacement of the batteries is that true? If we do need them where can i find polymer batteries. How does the thing charge? And which mp3 u guys think is better sansa express or the 1 geg sansa m240.

Hey guys,

I’m thinking of buying this for my brother for his birthday–would you get him this one or the Sansa c240?

As best I can tell, the only real differences are that the c240 is slightly larger, has a bigger screen, and the Express plugs in directly to the USB (i.e., no cable).

Is there any appreciable difference in sound quality? Suggestions?

Thanks so much.

Sup yo guys i just go this mp3 player yesterday. Its awesome. I brought a 2 geg micro sd card and i have almost 3 geg of space in mine. I love the charging just plug it in and it gets charge. Transferring is easy too just connect drag songs to the device and you are done. I still don’t get it it says that the batteries might eventual replacement i dont know if we actually need to change he batteries. The headphones look like ipod ones but black. There is also a radio recording which records songs from the radio. and ((( MSR))) i would highly recommend u buying this mp3.

MSR:

I’ve been looking at both the Sansa Express and the Sansa c240/c250.

I’ve determined that the Express is the way to go.

The c240 has a color screen which Sandisk says will display some album art and photos, but from the reviews I’ve heard and read, the c240’s screen is subpar - it’s not very sharp and photos and so on don’t look that good on it. I’ve also read that the battery can be overcharged so you can’t just charge it and forget it. You have to keep an eye on it, which is lame. And I read that when you connect the USB cable to the c240, you have to be careful because the pins on the connector located on the end of the c240 can be easily bent. In other words, Sandisk needs to go back to the drawing board with the c240/c250.

The Express, however, has the same amount of internal memory as the c240 (the c250 has 2GB), and has the same microSD slot that the c240 has. The Express may not have a full color screen, but at least the OLED screen on it is sharp, which can’t be said for the c240. Not to mention, the Express doesn’t need a USB cable - it has the USB jack built in like a thumb drive. I’ve also read that the Express can also work as a typical thumb drive storing data files, not just music (although I have to yet to determine this personally. Maybe someone here can shed further light on this).

Based on this, it seems the Express is the best choice (it’s what I’m choosing myself). Hope that info helps.

I just got mine today and so far I am very impressed! Granted, time will tell if it holds up. The Express was exactly what I was looking for in an MP3 player. I was initially going to go with the E200 series, and I’m sure that I would have been satisfied with it, but I really didn’t want video and I didn’t want to use a proprietary dock to charge and download, etc. I owned a Samsung YP-U2J and it crapped out the first day–it did have good sound though. So I returned the Samsung and got the Express and I couldn’t be happier. So far it seems relatively bug-free and it goes plenty loud for my tastes. I am using it with Yahoo Unlimited and it works flawlessly. It’s also a big plus in my book that it works with Audible.com as I would really like to try this service–this is something that the E200 series could not do. All for $59 US dollars…color me impressed!!! I hope word spreads on this player because I like it a whole lot better than my 2G iPod Nano.

I’ve been looking into getting a new mp3 player, and just found this site. I didn’t know about the Sansa Express before, and it looks pretty impressive for the price. The only complaint I have so far is the removable cap. I had a flash drive with a cap like that, and I lost it in the 1st week! It would be nice if the cap was attached to the player somehow, so it couldn’t get lost.

Hey guys do u know a website where i can update the firmware of sansa express if u do plz write back thanks.

Here’s a link… http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/DriverDownloads.aspx

Hi everyone, I bought this MP3 player on 4-12-07 From BestBuy and after listening to it a few times, I really like it. The only question I have for anyone here that owns one is, does your square silver button in the middle uneven and seem flimsy? Also, the silver “Hold” button that you slide over seems very flimsy too. That is my only concern. Thanks.

I got the actual unit and it looks even better than this rendering.
Audio performance is stable. The shinning and mirror effect are the key item for this stylish design.
Easy to use and the micro-SD just make me love the unit more.

I saw the Sansa Express and had to have it! The OLED screen is great indoors (though it takes a hit outdoors), the direct connect ability is a big convenience and the sound quality with replacement ear buds is just absolutely great. The interface is really simple and easy to figure out and to top it off, the bass is better than that of my friend’s iPod Nano. Oh yeah, there’s also a MicroSD slot so I can expand the memory. While this isn’t the MP3 player I intended to buy yesterday at Best Buy (mainly because I hadn’t heard of this model before), I just happened to see it sitting on the shelf and I couldn’t put it down once I had it in my hands.

Hey

Do the files on the microSD card merge with the files on the built-in flash memory?

I’m curious about how well it works with the SD:

If you put in a full micro-SD card into the unit, does it take 30 seconds or so to scan the card? (I’ve heard of that from reviews of other Sansa models) Does it do that everytime you turn on the unit with a micro-SD card inside? Any idea if it is capable of handling larger the 2GB micro-sd? (I don’t know if anyone makes larger than 2GB right now)

To answer the questions about the Micro SD cards in the Sansa Express, I just bought a Sandisk 2 GB card, put it in my player and it works fine. The music I had in my internal memory and the music I put in the card memory are all together on it. I put the card in and when I went into the settings, to the system info, it showed the card memory right away (it is near the bottom of the list) It doesn’t take any time to scan the card memory when I power my player on. I like this player and the sound is great. I do have to reset it once in a while because it freezes but I guess that’s why they included the reset feature. I’m not a pro on mp3 players but I know that alot of them need reset from time to time. When using it with Windows Media Player 11, it detects the player and shows the internal memory and card memory separately on the left of the screen. Make sure that when you add music to it, you choose the internal memory or card memory from the top right corner of the screen, where the Sansa Express is shown. This is where it shows “next device” and it shows which memory is being used. Hope this helps!

Scott,

Thanks for the info about the microSD card!

Yo guys my sansa express malfuntioned for the second time. I gave up on sansa and got the ipod nano 2 g. I have had enought of the express. I had it for 3 days and it malfuntioned. I have had the nano for a week now and its pretty good. Guys trust me if i were u i would return the express and buy something durable. The reason it malfunctioned was one of the pins in the usb port on the express broke and so the whole thing wouldnt work. IPOD NANO ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. I am happy as ever with my nano.

does anyone no how good the recording is?

also, can u save documents on it totransfer 2 a diff. comp?

is it compatible with the 4gb micro hcsd?

just got one of these babies. sounds great and loving the size and storage expansion options

Ipod Shuffle move out… the way bit*h, the Sansa Express is in town. I got drunk and left my Shuffle at the pool… and boy I am glad I did… This little device is amazing, and the nice thing you have to deal with the announce of Itunes! Just drag and drop the songs right in… too cool, not to mention screen and all the features… I don’t need to go through them because you have probably already read about them… so all I got to say is this thing kicks a$$!

so i got this today, of course the biggest problem is that it doesnt understand track number metadata. i dont mind re-tagging my albums…but for some reason some albums end up listed in reverse order on the express! i dont understand, some albums will be okay 01 02 03 04 05 06 but then others will be completly backwards 10 09 08 07 06 05……anyone figured out why this happens?

one more thing…it looks like some albums dont need to be retaged with the number first…but some do…which ones require this seems to be random….some still end up in reverse order…

hmm i used realy player to transfer and delete songs but for some reason the sansa express doesnt show up in my real player anymore and i dunt knw how to edit my songs. how can i add, delete and modify?? how do u guys add and delete songs??

I’m 12 years old and I got mine for christmas but the only thing is that I can’t figure out how to delete songs on it!!! It’s really annoying. Also, the earphones always fall out of your ears!!! Thats even MORE annoying!!! Oh well, its better than a portable cd player!

Ok I got this player for a few days now. It’s pretty darn impressive because it sounds great and has a oled screen to choose your songs unlike the shuffle which is it’s main competitor (because it’s cheaper). The packaging is awesome because it has a lanyard and a usb extender in case it can’t directly plug into the pc (if the usb on the tower is narrow the sansa express won’t fit). The first gen shuffle had a note saying that they have adapters available if you have the issue!!

The reviews for this player are all great but i’ve learned not to trust reviews as much anymore because I had a serious problem with mine. In the 5 days i’ve owned it, it’s been used 6 times and the menu button that also turns the player on and off when you hold itlost it’s “click”. It became mushy and it gets stuck half the time so it could turn off when I mean to go back to the menu!!!

I’m not going to tell you not to buy it because it’s a good deal and I am going to assume most people will be fine with it. But that one experience killed it because I’ve never had that problem with and ipod (and i’ve owned 4 of them) so I’m sticking with my 2nd gen screenless shuffle. The buttons on it don’t feel tacky (sorry sansa) and I’m very indecisive when it comes to listening to music lol.

So if your looking to buy it BEWARE! Try it for 30 days and it it works great!

I have had this player for about 2 months now. I absoultely love it. I am a computer guy and I had been waiting for a few months for this to come out. It has full drag and drop capabilities with out having to have a cable or a dock. Just plug it into the usb port and go to “My Computer” and it will be right there as Sansa Express. To add/or delete files you will need to drill down to the “Music” folder on the Sansa.

Great battery life, I haven’t ran out yet when I needed it. Fast transfer speeds. Takes a Mini SD card. Screen is great indoors, outdoors you can hardly see it. Radio is good and the Voice Recorder is good. Like another person said, the only thing it is missing is the clock.

I also don’t like that the attaced the neck lanyard to the cap that covers the usb port. Seems like it will eventually fall off at some point. I wish that had fixed the strap to the actual player somehow. The player is extremely portable though, and wearing it around your neck with some good headphones makes it easy to tuck in the wires for running, etc..

This is buy far the best MP3 player I have owned. I have owned 2 40 gig Dells, 1 Ipod 40gig, and one Ipod Mini. Can’t stand the Apples anymore, they are never worth the price, but are so cool when they are working. But at 59.99 this player is almost throwaway after a few years anyway.

I give it a 9 out of 10.

P.S. I don’t buy “I-tunes” music, can this player play Apple purchased music? I was thinking about getting my Mom one for her Birthday and she gets all of her music throught the Itunes store.

thanks, and enjoy..

Wat if my mp3 wount turn on what do i do

Do you know if I can download radio podcasts from I tunes and play them on the Sansa Express
Thanks for your answer

Do you know if I can download radio podcasts from I tunes and play them on the Sansa Express

Thanks

When is the 2 gig version coming out?

um hello…i have a Sansa c240. I have trouble getting music onto it, but I keep reading things that you can drag and drop the music you want. But how? Is it copy and paste?? But is it the fact that I need a hard drive disk first to put the music on..and then transfer them onto my mp3? I cant friggin find the user manual thingy…grrr. help please…lalalalala

The biggest thing that attracted me to the product was the price. Not only was it cheaper than other players in its categories, such as the ipod shuffle, but it also has a nice OLED screen, fm tuner, voice recorder as well as a microSD slot to currently expand its capacity by 2 GB. Sadly I found that the player had a number of flaws. First off when charging, there is no indication that it is fully charged since the battery indicator keeps going back and forth. It also had the habit of resetting the settings in roughly one out of 8 restarts. This was especially annoying since all the brightness settings and FM presets would be reset to defaults. Lastly the microSD card feature seemed to stop working after a certain amount of time. This happened to two units. The second one faced the exact same problems even though it had a newer firmware. I ended up getting the much more expensive, but much less problematic e280. Hopefully sandisk will try and fix these problems.

hi
i want to buy one of these, but am curious how MP3 files are handled in terms of directory and file structure.
This is because I want to use the device as a bootable linux device via USB drive and as an MP3 player.
The linux boot iamge will have to be at the top level of the device.
Can i put all music in a subdirectory called music, such that the MP3 player will still work?

Jo

Sanctumus: the latest firmware has solved the issues you describe.

Jo: you can have the directory structure any way you want it.

Cheers,
Col

I’m sold except for one thing.

I’ll be copying music in and out of this thing a lot, and I want to know how to tell if a track has been played, or if tracks can be deleted on the fly or marked for deletion later somehow (that’s what I use the ratings for on the ipod). I don’t want to listen to the same tracks over and over.

I haven’t used Windows Media Player much, but will it keep track of these things on the Sansa? Is there some sort of playlist or