Sandisk updates Sansa e200 Series, offers AM tuner

There are still MP3 players on the market that have no radio functionality whatsoever, but you can usually find one that will let you listen to your favorite FM radio deejays without too much scrounging. That said, you’d be pretty hard pressed to find a DAP that rocks an AM radio. That is, until now.

Sandisk (to my knowledge) is now third in the MP3 player market, having been leapfrogged by Microsoft, so they need to do something to make up their market share. They’re not expanding the capacity or tossing in some nifty new designs. Instead, they’re updating their Sansa e200 line by adding in an AM radio tuner.

It may not sound like much, but there appear to be more sports and news-oriented content on the AM bands than on the FM side. This extra tuner seems to come with about a $20 premium over the garden variety Sansa players. Pre-orders are being taken right now.