I purchased the SanDisk ...Sansa e250(2gb) Digital Media Player a couple of months ago to see if i would like this type of technology. I was looking to purchase one of the way more expensive name brands, but decided to start on the low end of the price scale first. After getting my player offline for $20.00 i was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to work and love it's sleek look and it weights only 2.7oz. and downloading my music was so easy, it uses the drag and drop method. It comes with some great features like a rechargable battery which can be done by hooking it up to yor computer, the battery life is about 20 hours of running time. The screen is in color and easy to read and use. It's designed with a sturdy metal body for durability, supporting variety of image formats, lets you share photos with your friends, has a built-in radio tuner so you listen to local channels, it's also a voice recorder and has a media slot for extra music. It's almost purfect except unlike the more expensive brands, you can only hear the music through earphones and you can't take pictures. I have decided not to get the more expensive brand and give this one to my daughter and upgrade to SanDisk Sansa Fuze 8gb Overall, i would recommend the SanDisk Sansa e250 to anyone starting out with MP3 players,on a budget and for children.
I was in the market for a simpl...e and easy to use MP3 player and after a short search of the web, I settled on the SanDisk Sansa e250. What I like about the unit is that it is easy to use, since it is just a drag and drop action to load your music and the controls are simple. I also love the feature that you can add more memory by useing micro SD cards, this also makes it posible to have different music collections on different cards that can be easily switched out for something new. Only issue that I have is that the battery meter may not be working properly, it seems that the battery is lasting long enough, but the meter seems to drop off very fast near the end. All in all a great little MP3 player for the money!!! David
I bought one of these a few weeks ago to use with Napster ...to go. Although I love the player there are some problems. Sometimes the player will stop playing an Napster tracks but will still play regular mp3s. This just seems to happen out of nowhere and the only way to fix it is to reformat the player using Windows Media player and reload everything. (Updating to the latest firmware did not fix this). Video files have to be converted to quicktime. The bundled conversion app choked on many of my videos. One wouldn't play and with most the others the sound was distorted even at low volume levels (the video looks great however). I have only been able to get a few videos to play with good sound quality but it probably has something to do with how they were originally encoded and is not a problem with the player itself. On the positive side the player is much cheaper than a iPod. Works with Napster To Go so you can pay $14.99 a month and download and load anything in the Napster library that is not 'buy only' (Unlike iTunes where you have to pay for every song you want). The player looks great (I bought a black one) and is packed with features. I love having the ability to play video files and the built in FM turner eliminates the need for any other portable audio device. One other note if you are really looking to load it up with videos spring for the higher capacity versions (they make 2, 4, 6 and 8GB models) 2GB is just not enough for both music and videos and the memory cards you can use to add capacity are limited to 2GB. Update 3/10/2007: I have not had the downloaded tracks refusing to play out of nowhere problem in months. This appears to have been a syncing problem with Napster that has been improved with recent versions of Napster.
This player has a superi...or storage capacity. I put my entire mp3 library on it and still had plenty of room. So I loaded it up with photos of the family and places I've travelled and even a couple of 5 minute long videos. If you ever find yourself nearing the storage limit, there is also a micro sd slot for expanded storage! I also enjoy the battery life I get out of the device. I use the player at work and it will usually last me 2 full 8 hour shifts before shutting down due to low battery. On to the only thing I don't like... The player's volume output is MINIMAL! There is no way to control the volume without entering the settings menu and then you only have the choice of low or normal. With the volume set to normal, I could not hear the music over the (relatively quiet...less than 75 db's constant) noise at work from the equipment on the production floor. In order to make the player worth my effort, I had to purchase an $80 pair of noise-cancelling amplified speaker headphones.
Solid device, easy to read screen, output quality i...s good, in general a very good low cost alternative to more expensive players. Buttons are a little hard to get to, wish they were a bit larger. The expansion slot is treated as an entirely separate device by Windows Media Player (and you have to figure out to use MSC mode before you can even see it). If you have music on the microSD card, the Sansa does a database refresh at power on -- for a full 2G card, this takes over a minute, which I find unacceptable. And finally, album art doesn't transfer automatically in Media Player 11 -- but apparently works OK in 10 (though I haven't tried that yet). I guess it sounds like I have a lot of complaints, but overall I'm glad I got the device. Its a 2G MP3 player in a small, solid package, and I got it for a really great price. I recommend that if you buy an E series Sansa, just plan to not use the expansion port.