SanDisk Sansa c250 2 GB MP3 Player (Black)

by SanDisk

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 0.7 x 3.6 x 2.8 inches ; 8.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000IM9542
• Item model number: SDMX7-2048-A18
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (326 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,220 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The latest in SanDisk's audio line, the Sansa c250 2GB MP3 Player provides everything you need to play music, enjoy photos, and listen to FM radio. This affordable device also includes a bright color screen, on-the-fly voice and radio recording, a microSD slot for memory expansion, and an intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

The Sansa c240 can hold 16 hours of CD-quality MP3 tracks on its 1 GB memory.

Easily transfer music to your device in Windows.

Import several image formats to your device.

Full-Featured MP3 Player
The SanDisk Sansa c250 will play MP3, WMA, WAV, and protected WMA DRM (digital rights management) music files. Enjoy the album art on the compact color screen, along with track information via ID3 tag support. The Sansa c250 MP3 player has two gigabytes of built-in flash memory, which allows you to store up to 500 songs (32 hours of playback) in 128 kpbs MP3 format, or up to 1,000 songs (64 hours of playback) in 64 kbps WMA format. Additional capacity can be added via the microSD slot. It also supports subscription music stores, for easy purchase and downloading of new music to your player. Finally, you can adjust the sound to your preference using the digital equalizer's five presets: normal, rock, jazz, classic, pop, and one customizable user setting.

Take Your Photos With You
Use the c250's color screen to share slideshows of photo thumbnails with your friends. The device supports JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, and GIF files, which are easily converted using the included Sansa Media Converter software.

Portable FM Radio
Enjoy programming in a more traditional way with the built-in digital FM radio. Keep your favorite stations stored in the twenty programmable presets, and cycle between them with ease. Record FM radio on the fly, saving your favorite programs for later.

Voice Recording
Have a thought you need to get down before it evades you? Use the built-in microphone to record voice memos. Capture interviews, classes, presentations, short notes to yourself, or anything else you might feel inspired to record for later listening.

Easy Transfer
The c250 uses a high-speed USB 2.0 connection for fast file transfers from your computer. Once connected to your computer, the device is detected by your operating system and appears as additional drive. Simply drag and drop your music files to the device and you're ready to go. Alternately, you may use Windows Media Player or other music software to manage your files. Requires Windows XP and Windows Media Player 10 or later.

Time to Play
The included rechargeable lithium-ion battery allows for hours of music before needing a recharge, and is removable--buy a spare for a long road trip or other situation away from power outlets.

What's in the Box
Sansa c250 digital audio player, Earphones, USB Cable, Quick Start Guide, Lanyard, and 1 lithium ion battery.

Product Description

The Sansa c200 Series MP3 players are the latest in SanDisk's audio line. Created by the leaders in flash memory, this flash-based player provides everything you need to play music, enjoy photos, and FM radio - in vibrant color!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

158 of 160 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good MP3 player, December 16, 2006

By 

Gift Recipient "History lover" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SanDisk Sansa c250 2 GB MP3 Player (Black) (Electronics)

I did quite a bit of research to get this one. and here are the reasons, I arrived at this decision:

Pro:
Size: It is pretty small yet not hard to use the controls
FM Radio: That's pretty nice in such a small MP3 player. Top that iPod
Expansion slot: The micro SD card makes this player future proof. Have more music to upload? get a card and you are done. iPod doesn't have it.
Voice recorder: was not on my wish list, but nice to have.
changable battery: battery goes bad, you can change it. iPod can't do this.
If you hit a button by accident while listening to the music, the button just wakes up the device then you can tell it what to do. Small feature but saves a LOT of annoying moments.
Sound is pretty good, unlike some reviews I have read. It is pretty much in par with other MP3 players especially iPod which is the benchmark these days.
Price: half of iPod Nano.

Con:
The package only comes with a USB charger. I have seen some plugs that have a USB output, or you can get their optional AC adapter.
Memory slot although nice, but there is no dummy card in it to avoid things getting stuck in it, so I just put a cheapy micro SD to fill the hole.
The screen could use some more contrast or better color scheme to display the menu better. You get used to it right away, but I am being super crtitcal here.

78 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for the money, but OS inferior to earlier units., April 28, 2007

By 

Thomas C. Duensing (Bartlett, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SanDisk Sansa c250 2 GB MP3 Player (Black) (Electronics)

My 3 year old 512k Sandisk developed a lose earplug mount so it was to upgrade. The store I went to was offering the C250 model for the same price as the C240 model so I bought it.

The new unit is nice. The sound is better than my older model and the 64k color display is decent. You can view photos on it if you wish. It has a rechargeable lithium polymer battery which is a minus as they wear out over time, Sandisk makes up for this a bit by making the battery replaceable (although the kid at the Be-st buy store was wrong when he said it wasn't--maybe he was just trying to sell an extended warranty plan--bah). Still, I miss the flexibility my older player had with its AAA battery and the older one had a very similar battery life as my new one.

It has a passable FM tuner with decent reception. It won't work as well as a home receiver but it works okay. Sadly, Sandisk still does not sell a player with AM capability, another minus.

The unit has shuffle play but not random play. (By definition, shuffle play will potentially repeat a song already played, while random play will not). This is an OS weakness that would be easy to implement in the OS code, but most manufacturers don't bother.

Sandisk no longer uses a true FAT32 file system so their newer players have lost an enormous amount of flexibility compared to the older units. Now, I can only play music by "Artist", "Genre", "Song", and "Album". You no longer can pick a folder of music to play so you are limited by the predefined categories.

My old unit allowed the ability to play dance with pop by putting them in the same folder and simply playing from it. With the new unit that would be impossible without messing with the ID tags because now I can only select dance or pop but not both at the same time. It is "all" music or "one" genre, but not "some" genres. Clearly a big weakness.

From what I can tell, the unit uses the contents of the ID1 tags, so you need to have them properly populated. It does use playlists but I tend to not use them. I read that this unit only supports 1 playlist but I have yet to confirm that. If it allows multiple playlists then I could mix dance and pop but it would be pain to create a playlist for that.

In addition, the OS has been greatly dumbed down. You no longer can select the playback, display, or search speeds. You can no longer change the display orientation from right-handed to left-handed. You can no longer set left or right balance. You can no longer delete files from the device unless you are connected to a PC. The display no longer shows how much time is left on a song as it now only displays elapsed time, and you can no longer display what file name.

It is unfortunate that the newer units have been dumbed down as they have lost a number of very useful capabilities. Still, I like the new unit overall and I will adjust to the differences. It's a good unit for the money and the Sandisk quality is still there--my last one lasted 3 years under heavy use (3-6 hours a day) so I can't complain. If this will be your first MP3 player you probably won't be disappointed.

73 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars one big fault -- otherwise quite great for the price, January 24, 2007

By 

techmannn "techmannn" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SanDisk Sansa c250 2 GB MP3 Player (Black) (Electronics)

The contrast level on the display is so low no matter how one adjusts the brightness and backlight that you will have a hard time seeing what feature/song you are selecting. Its genuinely bizarre that they used a very light-blue field against a white backround. Text is black so at least you can see that clearly. Other than that, the sound is good for such a cheap player and it has a built-in equalizer to adjust the sound to your own liking. It will operate in MSC mode, which simply means that you can load music files into the player directly from the My Computer icon. No software of any sort needed at all to load songs into the player. You lose the ability to make playlists in MSC mode but personally I prefer the speed and simplicity of MSC mode. You cannot use MSC mode to play digitally-protected music. Again not an issue for me. If you are looking for a cheap mp3 player, this is worth considering.