Cheap Gadget: Sandisk Sansa m230

August 25, 2006 | General | By: Mark VandeWettering

I’ve been trying to get back into exercising at the gym more, which is always a time of intense boredom. I’ve brought my Axim x50v to the gym and used it to listen to podcasts, and my relatively new LG CU500 also works as a pretty good MP3 player, but I thought it might be nice to have a cheap, even lighter device to satisfy my need for amusement while I’m cranking out the mileage on the treadmill.

Sandisk Sansa m230

A quick trip to Best Buy revealed a $40 MP3 player with 512M of memory (enough for my rather modest needs). It’s the Sandisk Sansa m230, a not overly cute but reasonable mp3 player at a near disposeable price. Even at this price point, I wanted a couple of features:

  • Display, with backlight. My wife has an iPod Shuffle, which is fine as far as it goes, but the lack of display (as well as the increased price) made it a deal breaker for me.
  • Reasonable amount of storage (512M is reasonable).
  • Easy “hard disk” interface. I don’t use iTunes, don’t care to use iTunes. I just want to drag music files onto it, and have it work. It does.
  • Fast USB 2.0 interface. Life is too short for USB 1.1
  • Powered by a single AAA battery

The long and the short of it? It’s got all those features. It even throws in a voice recorder and an FM radio (the FM radio doesn’t appear to be very sensitive, but it’s a nice bonus). The build quality isn’t stellar, but it’s pretty reasonable. At $40, it’s a pretty neat gadget.

[tags]Gadgets,Sansa m230,MP3 Player[/tags]

Comments

Pingback from MP3 FM Player Guide
Time 8/26/2006 at 2:31 am

Cheap Gadget: Samsung Sansa m230

Comment from metamerist
Time 8/26/2006 at 8:35 am

Nice price. I really wish more of these players would support removeable CF or SD cards. Big cards are getting so cheap. I scored a 6 gig microdrive for $100 a while back, 1 gig cards are going for $30. Ideally, I’d like a car stereo that supports SD/CF as well.

Comment from Jenn
Time 2/10/2007 at 1:30 pm

do you know how to delets songs from it? I can’t figure it out and its really making me mad.

Comment from Mark
Time 2/10/2007 at 4:28 pm

Ummm. Just plug it into your computer, and delete them using the ordinary file management commands.

Comment from Jenn
Time 3/3/2007 at 7:11 pm

It won’t work. I have tried it many times and the songs won’t come off.