What is the Sandisk Sansa m260 release date?

I have been watching for this ever since the announcement and the good news is that last night, I found the first M250 in stock (Circuit City) - even though it was still "backordered" at the Sandisk direct store.

Now, to the M260 - I believe that this model won't be available for quite some time. Considering that Sandisk sells a 4GB Flash drive for $319, how can they release a 4GB MP3 player for $120 less?? The cynical side of me says that Sandisk only announced the 4GB model to generate comparisons to the Nano and to get more publicity.

Also, even though the M250 is listed at the Sandisk store (albeit in "backordered" status), the M260 has never even been there.

I would love to purchase the 4GB model - if it ever arrives. Meanwhile, I am pondering the M250 - as it is finally available.

RB

Sandisk has issued a press release on the M260, in addition demand for the M260 is far greater then for the $319 Cruzer. It's not about the price, it's about sales volume. Sandisk will sell ten M260s for every Cruzer. It'll be out real soon, probably for the holiday rush.

I looked on the Sandisk site, but couldn't find it. I won't debate the "hey, we lose $$ on each one, but we will make it up in volume" because I don't know the cost of 4GB Flash to Sandisk. If they can profitably sell the m260 at $199, then they are making a fortune on the $319 Cruzer.

I am only privy to the margins on server systems, where the gross margins are approximately 50% - which means that if it sells for $2000, the cost of the materials was $1000. If I apply that to the Sandisk world, using the Cruzer as the model, then we would have a cost of $160 for the Flash, and perhaps $10 for the rest of the kit, which only leaves $30 to split between the retailer and Sandisk. Since the retail markup is usually north of 50%, the math just doesn't quite work. But perhaps the costs on 4GB Flash are dropping so rapidly that it only costs $90 to Sandisk - at that point, things are basically fine.

I have 30 days to return my 2GB unit, so if the 4GB comes out soon, I will be quite happy. Actually, based on the 30 day limit, which expires 12/19, I can pretty accurately predict 12/20 as the availability date .

Enjoy,
RB

"it would appear that Sandisk didn't get the supply of 4GB memory chips they needed for a release. I guess we can thank Apple for that."
uh... too bad ipod nano 4gb uses FLASH memory chips which are WAY better than the harddrive versions
Don't hate. Seriously.

The Sansa series uses flash memory, not hard drive storage. The 4GB version was to use flash memory. I have the 2GB model and it's definitely not a hard drive player.

Looks like the 260 has returned from the dead. There it is in the CC web site with a $20 markoff, though not yet in stock on the site or in any stores yet.

None of the CC's in my areas (SF Bay) have it. Even went into a store today hoping that perhaps some had arrived. No luck. The CC web site says "Coming Soon" and clicking on the "Web Only Special" gives a "page not found" error (never a good sign).

But I continue to hope that it arrives before 12/19, because that is when my return policy on the m250 expires .

Went to the Pasadena CC store to get a m260. They directed me to an in-store posting retracting the advertisement. . The notice stated that the product is not available due to a "vendor adjustment."

Not sure what that means and neither did they, but it is clear that the 260 is NOT out, and perhaps doesn't even exist, that is, if you look at the Sandisk web site which pull all references to the 260 around a week ago (except for a link in the Support section).

Hey guys,
I've been eagerly awaiting this product as well. I spoke to a SanDisk representative on Friday and he indicated that the product is still coming out but they are looking at a January 2006 release date.

Circuit City website finally showed it as available. I got a confirmation email saying that it is shipping on Monday so I should have it on Tuesday.

Hey all,
Go to circuitcity.com and search for the Sansa m260, it is in stock and you can buy it right now. I ordered mine last night and got email confirmation today that it has already shipped.

Two weeks ago I broke down and ordered the 2 GB m250 from buy.com. Well they claimed it would ship in 1-2 weeks, but it still hadn't when I found the 260 available last night. Fortunately, I was able to cancel the out-of-stock-not-shipping 250 and am getting what I really wanted. For once I got lucky.

Anyone have opinions on what else might be the best flash based mp3 player right now? I am avoiding the ipod Nano due to price and the screen scratching problem. I've done a lot of looking, and so far the 260 seems like one of the best options.

I've only had it for a day but so far it is exactly what I wanted. I loaded most of my music into it and everything is working fine.

FM radio reception is excellent. I'm not an audiophile but the sound quality is perfect for me. I am very happy with it.

Between loading music, searching through menus and listening to it, I probably played around with it for about 6 hours yesterday and the battery gauge is still showing full.

Got mine yesterday, too. But afterloading 3.5GB of music this morning, when I turn on the power, the screen flashes on and off like there is some sort of loose connection. It did not do it before the music load, but I can't believe that the two are related. It goes to the local CC store today, where they actually have two in stock for an exchange. Took 1.5 hours to load the music by hand. Oh well. And you know, it's HARD to fill 4GB up, at least for me it was (I use it to jog so I am selective about the music on the unit).

I still don't see availability in the Circuit City stores in Northern California, but based on the posts here, I am going to return my 2GB version (I think it had a 30 day return policy) and order the 4GB version.

The DRM issue is scary - as Yahoo Music Unlimited says you only get to use two players. If the first 4GB version is bad, then I will have to deal with Yahoo to see if they can reset. My buddy has Rhapsody and has had major problems along these lines.

I will keep folks posted with the adventure - it is interesting to note that with subscription music, you can fill up 2GB pretty fast (e.g. I had 400 songs in My Music and that filled up the 2GB entirely). I guess when the marginal cost of the music is zero, one collects a lot of it .

Thanks for the updates and information. By the way, the 2GB has been just fine - no hassles at all. Yes, I realize I am tempting Murphy's Law with the swap.

RB

By the way, Rhapsody told me that the DRM expiration date is your monthly renewal date for Rhapsody. Yahoo seems to renew on the first calendar day of the month, from what I can tell. It gets confusing when you have a portable device with DRM subscription music, because how do you know when to renew.

I suppose the answer is to dock every couple of weeks and resynch the device. If you're using it for jogging and only use a subset of your downloaded library, I suppose the easiest way is to do what I have been doing: make a ''jogging'' playlist and resynch the playlist. If you want different music, then you need to hand delete it from the device, then adjust the playlist and resynch. Unfortunately, the two services will add new music to the player, but then won't delete music you have removed from a playlist. This makes the process much more manual than it needs to be. Still learning how to easily use DRM subscriptions. If anyone has advice, please chime in.

It arrived today in my local Circuit City (all three). I returned the 2GB version and bought the 4GB version. I synched my Yahoo Music Unlimited songs to the new player with no problems (yet). And I only sacrificed a AAA alkaline battery to the DRM gods - no barnyard animals necessary .

I had a 1 and a 2 GB Sansa m200 series player, but now I have the 4GB. The 4GB player came with newer firmware than the 2GB, version 2.2 vs 2.0. I swear that this 4GB player has better sound than the other two models. I found the first two models to be a little lacking in the highs and a little muddy in the midrange. While the mids on the 4GB are slightly muddy, the highs shine. Maybe it's my imagination, but it sounds great. I called Sandisk but they don't know what changed between 2.0 and 2.2 firmware. The new firmware is available for download on their site, but they don't know exactly which version is up there. They advised not to upgrade to 4GB as it certainly contains the latest version.

By the way, the 2.0 and higher firmware added support for auto bookmarking of Audible files. Has anyone tried it out yet? I assume it works like the iPod, that it remembers where you were on an Audible book. Very nice.

One thing I wish they would add is a memory for the shuffle mode. If you listen in shuffle and then switch to FM radio, then back to music, it doesn't remember which songs you have already heard and will likely play some of the same ones over again. I think the iPods have this memory feature. Tech support told me there is no memory feature for shuffle, that "you get what you pay for." I still think they could add in in firmware.

By the way, someone asked how long the startup is for the 4GB model. I have 3.5 GB of music on mine and it takes around 5-7 seconds to start up, maybe 10. Whatever it is, it doesn't feel very long to start up. And the database rebuild after music downloads on a fully loaded 4GB model is very quick, around 15-20 seconds or less.

Hey all,
Just wanted to let you all know there was nothing wrong with my Sansa. I had formatted the drive using Windows ME when it requires Windows XP. So that caused the glitches. When I formated with XP it worked fine.

This flash MP3 player is awesome--I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I have the same trouble not being able to see any of this information, even though it is all there when I open the drive and see the folders, it is also ALL THERE in my windows media player. What is going on? I formatted the m260 with Windows XP this morning and still nothing. In which state should I be synchronizing the player in Autodetect or in MSC?It used to be that only some songs wouldn't have ID tags, but right now none of them have them. All 2.5 GB of music with no info!!