Customer Reviews

SanDisk Sansa e250 2 GB MP3 Player with microSD Expansion Slot (Black)

5 star:		(424)
4 star:		(255)
3 star:		(74)
2 star:		(45)
1 star:		(76)

 

 

Since I have most of my music files ripped in WMA format, I've been looking for a flash MP3 player to compete with the IPOD Nano. After much research, I decided to take a chance on this newly released player.

I'm very impressed to start. The player is small (just a bit thicker than the Nano), and fairly light. The screen shows excellent color- based on the menus. I'm not planning to use it much for video or photos, so I'm not very concerned with the screen size, which is expectedly small. The player in general is very easy to use. I looked over the quick reference guide and didn't even bother with the user guide (user guide is in PDF format on the cd-rom.) The overall appearance is excellent.

You can load music by dragging and dropping, or using Windows Media Player 10. I prefer to use WMP10 to sync, since I have my music organized well. Syncing in this manner was very simple. I didn't encounter any issues with the first two syncs I've performed. If you have your id3 tags correct, the Sansa will display your music by Artist, Album, Songs, or Genere. There's also a "To Go playlist". The Sansa sorted my music just fine. The display is informative when playing music. The sound so far is excellent. I've used a few different headsets to test it and have no complaints.

The center dial/wheel rotates and glows in a bright blue. It allows you to scroll through menu items and to increase/decrease the volume. The directional buttons around the wheel are a little difficult to use with only one hand. Because the center dial is raised so much, you end up needing to use the tips of your fingers to press the buttons that surround it. I suppose it will take a little getting used to- but it's not a dealbreaker for me.

Following the precedent set by other companies. The USB connector is of course proprietary. This is currently the only way to charge the Sansa, so don't lose it. I don't see any wall/travel charges offered yet- even at the Sandisk Website. Since it's new- there aren't really any accessories offered. This isn't a concern to me personally- so I bought it anyway. I definitely would like a separate charging apparatus, rather than having to charge via USB- so I hope Sandisk offers such an item, sooner rather than later.

It comes with a small velvet pouch. I'll be searching for some sort of "skin" to protect the player, instead of relying on the pouch. It's just not efficient if you want to protect and use the player at the same time.

Pros:
It looks beautiful.
Plays WMA Files.
Easy to sync.
Drag & Drop available.
Sounds great.
Flash memory- so no need to wory about hard drive skipping.
2GB of memory with models that go up to 6GB.
Expansion slot for miniSD cards for more memory.
Lots of features: Music, Video, Pics, FM, Voice Recording, etc.
Price - $159.

Cons:
Buttons can be hard to use.
Charging via USB only (at this time.)
Not many accessories offered (yet.)
Doesn't support many file types.

Again, please understand when reading this, that my primary use is for music. All the other features are merely a bonus for me. So if you're looking for something to use regularly to play video, pics, etc- please do your homework to see if the player is a good fit for your needs. Most of the time when I read negative reviews, it's because the reviewer bought something that did not fit their needs. Companies are in business to sell their products- do your own research to determine if the product is right for you.

When I finally decided to give in to the iPod craze, I went looking at Best Buy for them. At first I planned on getting a ipod nano, but then I noticed this little guy. My friend has a nano and honestly I think this SanDisk is way better. FM tuner, can accept pictures and videos. The record (voice or radio) feature is sweet and it will know what order to put songs in when you transfer an album into it (as well as give you the cover artwork). The menus and LCD screen are top notch as well.

It can only be charged in a USB slot.. which might bug some people. I usually charge it in my Xbox 360 USB slot while i'm playing games.

A really good MP3 player and great alternative to the ipod nano

PROS: Fantastic quality, functionality, and price. Durable

CONS: Lack of accessories


In the world of MP3 players, it seems there exists two categories; I-Pod and everyone else. As an employee of a major retail electronics outlet, the sheer volume of customers coming in requesting I-Pods (for no other reason than they saw it on TV), is a testament to Apple's overwhelming marketing success in the industry. However, while I-Pods account for about 60% of all sales of MP3 players, they constitute a larger than average share of our MP3 repairs and service. Additionally, the sheer over saturation coupled with the fact that consumers are forced to use I-tunes to interface their songs encouraged me to think outside of the I-Pod empire, and research various competitor models.
After comparing several models of MP3 players I decided to purchase the Scandisk e250, it has proven to be a great choice. The design is slightly similar to an I-Pod, however its' dark colors and sophisticated design distinguished it from other run of the mill handhelds on the market. The most impressive feature on this unit is its' display screen. While similar in size to some of its competitors, the vibrant display is bright, clear, easy to read, and is advertised as scratch resistant. Best of all, a 2GB model (about 500 songs) cost twenty dollars less than a comparable I-pod.
In terms of overall functionality, I can't praise the e250 enough. A very easy interface by way of USB will load any file format of music and mpeg video for easy organization and storage. The FM tuner provided, delivers a strong signal for radio fans, and the unit also stores digital photos and movie clips. The menu is very well organized and easy to navigate when you're on the go.
In terms of durability, I've owned this player for about a month and it has shown almost no sign of wear and tear, it has gone with me virtually everywhere in various conditions indoors and outdoors. I tend to take care of my gear, but as a 21 year old college student, the e250's durability is tested daily, and has surpassed any MP3 player I have previously owned. Perhaps the only drawback to the e250 is the sparse selection of cases and other accessories for this unit. However, as popularity of the brand increases (which it hopefully will when others learn of its quality value) availability of accessories should follow suit. Overall, the e250 delivers outstanding quality and value for the money.

If you use your MP3 player for music only, my one-star review is very harsh. For the money, it is a decent player if you never listen to anything over five minutes long. However, if you listen to audiobooks or podcasts, do not buy this player. I have used about a dozen different players over the past few years and I have never ever seen one so ill suited for playing lengthy files. There is no bookmarking feature and the fast forward is so slow that it is completely useless. You cannot start and the end of a track and rewind back to your spot either. Worse yet, it seems like the designers almost were determined to make it impossible for someone to maintain their spot on a long track. The record button has a hair trigger and is very difficult not to accidentally touch, and you had better manage to listen to that audiobook on one battery charge, because recharging will also cause you to loose your spot.

I bought this for my wife. She doesn't listen to a lot of music, so I went with the 2GB. She loves it and uses it everyday at the office. And if she does need more room, it has the slot for a card. She also has an IPOD, and doesn't use it anymore after getting this.

I bought a couple of Sansa e250s for Christmas for my kids and have found the units have some great capabilities but they are buggy to some extent. My original intent was to have the kids save videos onto their units and not just songs, and the results on that side have been quite good. Also, the flexibility of having a micro SD slot to store more music was particularly attractive. The other upside was the price: At about $100, this unit provides tremendous value.

The feel of the unit is quite good. It is thicker than an iPod but it is not much larger. The wheel takes some getting use to, but it works wonderfully. The metal backing makes it feel a little more sturdy, and the little extra weight makes it seem less fragile than the iPod.

The unit plays videos quite well. The converting software must be used which is fairly slow and hogs resources on the computer. Also, the only supported format is .MOV which is not the most efficient in terms of size. However, for the price, this unit does deliver video, and while the screen is small, it offers fair quality.

One of the unit works quite well but the other gave me some problems. It often locked up and it was necessary to reboot it literally by removing the battery from the unit. I updated the firmware and it didn't help much. I believe the cause may be pressing a button while the wheel is turning, or some other unexpected button combinations. However, my belief is that this should not halt player operation.

In one case, one unit fell and there were corrupt files in the system! Luckily, I went to an online forum where they mention that setting the unit to a disk-like mode allows one to use chkdsk drive /f so the corrupt files can be deleted. This is extremely important because if you don't do this some memory will be permanently unusable!

On the whole the Sansa e200 series are an excellent value, but they are not perfect. My own experiences have been somewhat mixed, but if I had to buy them again, I would. They offer quite a lot of bang for the buck although they may put some users through a few moments of frustration.

When I went to visit my friend in LA, he told me that he bought one of these. I played around with it, and found it to be a lot better than the iPod. The reason being it has more options, and isn't as pricey as the 2gb version of the Apple counterpart.

I decided to buy one myself, and I am extremely impressed. It was a very user friendly interface. It's kind of similar to the iPod, in the sense you have to rotate the round thing with your finger. Unlike the iPod tho, this one actually spins when you rotate it.

This player allows users to listen to music (of course), watch videos, view pictures, listen to the radio, as well as voice record.

The music can be in either mp3 or WMA format. Videos and pictures need to be converted into a special format for the player to recognize. Luckily, the player comes with software which you can use to convert the files into recognizable formats.

Video quality is quite amazing. I was expecting videos to have those blurry squares that you see when video quality is relatively low. However, it's not like that. The video quality will be pretty much the same as how it is when you watch it on your computer.

There are a couple things which I find wrong with this player:

-let's say you decide to transfer a full movie or something big on this player, it basically won't open. I tried opening a 700MB file on this player, and it ended up freezing. So as a recommendation: if you decide to transfer a large file, convert it to several smaller files, and you should be fine.
-the only way to charge the battery is when you hook your player to your computer through USB. Once the player is connected, it will automatically start recharging your battery. As I know from cell phones, charging the battery too often will decrease the life of it, so unfortunately the only way of avoiding it is by listening to the music you have on there until the battery is close to dead, or is completely dead

Those cons won't decrease a star for me.

Overall, this product is definitely worth the money. It has more features than the iPod Nano, and definitely isn't as expensive. I, honestly, have never been a big fan of the iPod, and it seems as if their price is constantly the same, no matter how many newer products they release.

If you are looking for a player which will allow you to, not only listen to music, but watch videos and view pictures, this player is definitely what you're looking for.

I purchased my Sansa e250 (2GB) on Thursday August 10th, it arrived the very next day, and I've spent the last 2 days enjoying it!

Setup was a breeze, the sound is very good. (And I have trained audiophile ears, have worked in audio recording studios since the 80's.) I was actually quite surprised at how good the included earbud headphones were.

After charging the battery, the first thing I did was check out the FM radio feature. Very nice. Easy to program presets. Reception was excellent. My only beef would be that the order you insert your station presets, is how it will search them. There's no way to arrange them to go numerically up the frequency bandwidth from 88.1 to 108.

Later on I loaded up my first 60 or so songs in WMA & mp3 file formats. A snap in the "drag & drop mode" . One thing I must caution people of... Make sure all your meta-data is correct on your song files. I found one or two of my song files hadn't had all the meta-data filled in, so the Sansa player displays "track 8" instead of the song's title. My fault, not the Sansa player.

All in all, the Sansa e250 is an amazing media player! Great sound, plays all my music files, I'm not forced to buy songs from only one source, like Apple's iPod, ( I'd say this player wipes the floor with crud like the iPod Nano...) And this is about $50 cheaper than a 2GB Nano. which doesn't play WMA files, or video files, like the Sansa... It's really no contest! This is definitely the better player of the two!

The only way this could get better? On Thursday, I paid $137. on Amazon for it, on Friday, the price dropped to $120. Oh well, still a better price than if I had walked in to Best Buy.

i had a lot of mp3 players, i switch them every about two months and this is the best yet.

this is like a supped up version of nano, even thou its like 3 mm wider

pro'a
-music is outstandably loud
-songs continue from where you left off
-equalizer
-fast prosesor
-scratch resistant (cary it my pocket all the time and not a scratch)
-easy to switch songs and go throu/make playlists
-YOU CAN WATCH MOVIES ON THIS

CONS
- the video conversion can be a little fast, a full length dvd took about 15 mins to convert and transfer
- sandisk coulda provided better headphones.... look cheapish but feel good
- video quality is great, but not to great for widescreen movies
- the buttons smudge a bit

overall this is a very good product and is worth every peny and more

This is my first MP3 and so far I like it.
I've copied some home recordings of speeches from a cd (WMA file type) and also some music downloads from Rhapsody with out any problems, Downloads are fast And easy to make using windows media 10. The micro SD slot is what really makes the unit stand out Capacity is no longer an issue with the $ price of mem cards coming down and the size of cards going up.
Very easy to operate controls and user interface well designed.

The computer USB port charges the battery so make sure you have a good USB port to charge this unit with.

very sleek design ,small size, very good sound quality happy with it so far.