“To iPod or Not to iPod is the question!” Well, in my full honest opinion the iPod is a great MP3 player, however before you go rushing to the Apple website to buy one, why not consider all of your options first. Here’s a quick list of several mp3 players of similar quality:

Sandisk Sansa
Creative Labs Zen Players
The iRiver

So, the next question is how do they stand up to the iPod? Well, in general they all really do quite well compared to the iPod, the only reason why you don’t see people using them is becuase Apple has just a great marketing campaign which has transformed the mp3 player to the iPod only. However, if you keep your mind open, you will find that they are all roughly the same minus price differences, and some minor features such as FM radio, and video, and pictures.

First, the Sandisk Sansa, which I personally own, is one great little player. It is comparable to the iPod Nano in size and features. However, the Sansa does have a twice as large vertical color screen, and it can also show pictures and small short video clips. Here’s what CNET has to say in short,

“The good: The compact SanDisk Sansa e200R Rhapsody can play back music, video, and photo files and is available in capacities of up to 8GB; works well with Rhapsody; includes dual Rhapsody and PlaysForSure mode; includes an FM tuner, a voice recorder, and innovative Rhapsody Channels feature; improved interface; user removable battery; expansion card slot; good battery life.

The bad: The SanDisk Sansa e200R Rhapsody’s tactile scrollwheel is both a blessing and a burden; must convert photo and video files using bundled Sansa software; occasional low-level system noise underneath audio; proprietary USB dock connector; no AC adapter in package; no custom EQ; you must be playing a song to add it to the Go list.

The bottom line: Thanks to an improved feature set and GUI, the Rhapsody version of the flagship Sansa player is better than the original.

Read editors’ review below

Note: This product is part of the SanDisk Sansa e200R series. See all products in the SanDisk Sansa e200R series.”

Overall, CNET gave the new version of the Sansa a 8.3/10. I personally love the FM radio, and at storage up to 8 gigs plus a external SD drive, I’ll have plenty of more room for a long time to come. The sound quality of the Sansa is probably at the same standard of the iPod and so you can’t use that excuse not to look at it. And at around the same price depending on the size of the flash HD you get, price isn’t another excuse. Finally, of course I usually buy all my electronics off Amazon, and I got my 6gig Sandisk for $170 which was $50 off the retail price at the time.

However there are some issues that I can pick at. The scroll wheel is very solid however it is made out of plastic and feels a bit chunky and at times the 4 side buttons can be a pain to click. Most of the time, this isn’t a problem. Also, once in awhile the player freezes and the GUI goes blank, it’s easy to fix just by restarting the player, but it can be annoying if it happens. Finally, while there is a video option, it really honestly doesn’t work half the time becuase of the crappy conversion program you have to run the videos through. Plus, the filesizes for those vidoes are extremely huge. Otherwise, everything else checks out quite nicely!

Coming up next time I post, will be a more in depth look at the Zen Players and the iRiver!