SanDisk Sansa m240 (1 GB) MP3 Player

The 1GB iPod Nano is close to the Sansa. The iPod Nano does include some nice features like a color screen and photo display, but it's expensive at $149MSRP. The Sansa comes close and is only $89MSRP (and of course, you may get it for a lot less on eBay)! It doesn't have a color screen or photo support, but it has excellent sound and some features that the iPod Nano doesn't have.

Pros:
- Excellent music and sound quality. This is the most important thing in a portable MP3 player, and it is indeed good.
- Good display screen with bright blue backlight. It's not really big, but the display is legible and easily seen in the dark with the bright blue backlight.
- FM tuner. Why listen to FM when you have music already? This may not sound like a big thing, but it's so useful! If you go to the gym with TV audio broadcast on FM, it's great to have a portable FM player to listen to the TV. The quality is very good, and it has 20 station presets.
- Voice recorder. Need to make a quick memo? The voice recorder records pretty good quality voice recordings.
- Accessories. The Sansa includes a clear case, armband, earbuds, and a USB cable.
- PlayForSure support. Most major online music stores (except for iTunes and Sony Connect) support PlaysForSure so you can buy/rent music from a number of stores and they all will play on the Sansa just fine. This way you can pick and choose music from multiple sites, and you're not tied to just one online store like iTunes.
- Audible support. You can listen to audio books from the popular Audible.com site.
- Good battery life. There's no rechargeable battery, but a AAA battery gives anywhere from 15-20 hours of life which is quite good for just a AAA battery.
- Easy to use. The player is very easy to use with simple menus. You should have no problem figuring it out!
- Good search features. Search your music by album, artist, genre, year, and more. This makes it very easy to find what you want.
- Stopwatch. This is a neat little add-on and it's handy for tracking how long you have been jogging or whatever!
- No drivers needed! One of my favorite features. There is no driver needed. All you need to do is plug it in and it will work. No complicated driver installation is required!

Cons:
- Short USB cable. The set includes a really short 6 inch USB cable which is way too short for most computers unless you have a front mounted USB port. However, it uses a standard 5 Pin Mini B USB cable so you will probably want to buy a longer USB cable which is pretty inexpensive.

Believe it or not, but I bought 4 of the m230 model (the 512MB model) for everyone since it was such a good player. I enjoyed the m230 so much, I decided to upgrade and get the m240 model just for the extra storage space (nothing was wrong with the other models). This is an excellent MP3 player and has lots of good features, and I highly recommend it! Rated 5 of 5.