Bottom Of The Barrel

Equipment Part 2: Music

I started with 20 Gig Dell DJ Jukebox [which they no longer make] and I also bought a Rio Cali Sport 256 Meg player for Lisa [which is also no longer being manufactured]. Both players have there pro's and con's. The Dell has tons of storage room which is great when you want to make your music decision about 10 seconds before you want to start running however it is bulky and not designed for running. The Rio on the other hand comes with a slick arm band and is AAA battery powered but only stores about 50 songs so [for me] I was swapping out songs pretty regularly. Also both devices need their own software to manage your songs.

Now I have moved on to the SanDisk Sansa m240 1G player and [so far] this is the device for me. The size is small - only the space for the AAA battery makes it "bulky", it runs on batteries - which is great because they can be replaced anywhere in the world, no software required - uses windows explorer to move mp3 files to the device, also a portable drive - windows sees it as a usb drive and files can be moved from pc to pc, FM Tuner with 20 station preset - not that I listen to the radio much when I run, but it is good to know it's there, and a stopwatch - for when you forget your watch or if your don't have one.

The slickest part of the device has to be the firmware. It is able to automagically organize your music once the files are copied to the flash drive by Artist, Album and Track using the ID3 tags of your songs [it can also play by genre or year if you wish]. This makes playing back whole albums a snap and you can build on-the-fly play lists as well.

The two con's to this player [and honestly I am really nitpicking now] is the armband is a bit flimsy and I would like it the player had a clock. The armband is simple but dones't hold the player in a single spot unless you really tighten it around your arm - so hard that you will have the SanDisk logo temporarily imprinted on your skin. I'd rather it be a bit more secure and I am end up upgrading the band. As for a clock, it would be nice to know the time, again if you don't have your watch, for when you have to get back to work at lunch time.

Over all, I love this product and it has become my virtual partner while I am running around Marlborough and Milford [and all other M named towns in Massachusetts].

posted by TheWino @ 9:15 AM