SanDisk Sansa c250 2 GB MP3 Player (Black)
by SanDisk
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List Price: Our Price: $50.91 You Save: $49.08 (49%) Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days Buy Used: from $18.04 (click here) Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Sansa c250 2 GB MP3 Player (Black)
Customer Review: Fantastic form factor and excellent Mp3 performance
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this unit to supplement my 40gb 4th gen iPod.
My iPod is fantastic, but it is not easy to take everywhere due to its larger size.
I wanted a smaller MP3 player I could take and listen to at work, gym, and when shopping at the stores/running errands.
After weeks of research and some earlier purchases which were returned, I think this unit is going to fit the bill perfectly.
This unit has a lot of nifty features:
-mp3 player
-FM radio
-voice recorder
-photo viewer
The MP3 player and FM radio sounds excellent, very close to my iPod with decent headsets. I didn't use the standard headsets with the unit - instead I purchased Panasonic necklace fashion headsets with better frequency response.
This unit hangs unnoticed from my neck with the Panasonic headsets, and the sound quality is fantastic.
The FM radio reception is pretty good, although it does not pick up some stations as strongly as a dedicated radio with antennas.
The voice recorder has excellent clarity, but the menu could be better. Once you record a quick note, you have to switch back to the main menu, click to music, then voice recorder, then select the recording to hear the recording. And there is no way to delete the recording except on the computer. I wanted the voice recorder to record reminders and to-do's but this voice recorder is not as easy to use as my dedicated digital audio recorder.
The photo viewer seems no better than the photo viewer on most camera cellphones, and I doubt I'll be using it much. The main purpose is to play music and listen to FM radio.
The unit seems very sturdy and the buttons seem to be very sold. Overall it has a high quality construction feel, and the compact dimensions of the unit lend it to being taken everywhere to be used.
I love my iPod, but I think I will be using this unit a lot more than my iPod simply because it easier to carry around, has FM radio, and excellent performance for the sub-$100 price.
My friends strongly recommend I buy the Sansa e250 unit over this one. But after much research, playing with the e250 unit in the store, I decided that I like the form factor of this unit better than the e250 unit with the awkward click wheel. The click wheel felt quite stiff and not very smooth when I tried the demo unit in the store. I'm used to the slick wheel of the iPod, and didn't want a unit that poorly duplicated the wheel. The buttons on the c250 work perfectly fine without a wheel.
The e250 is also wider and longer than this unit, making it a bit less suitable as an alternative to my iPod.
edit: I also discovered that this player does not have a clock.
Due to a recent sale, I switched to the Sansa e260 player, which has 2 very important (to me) features: date / clock, and the ability to delete voice recordings.
For those on the fence about buying a Sansa cXXX player or a eXXX player, I think the eXXX is the better player, despite its slightly larger size. There are more accessories available for the eXXX than the cXXX, and the clock / voice recorder are more useful.
Customer Review: Good for the money, but OS inferior to earlier units.
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
Customer Review: Basic Mp3 Player, limited function
Summary: 2 Stars
Strengths: THE MOST SHINING point of this product is that it could insert extra MicroSD card. Expend its capacity to external large memory.
Weaknesses: BAD SOFTWARE come with the machine, must be upgraded. VERY Limited functions than non-brand product.
Details: I bought two different kinds of players at the same time. One is Sansa C250 another is a non-brand product, no experience on other brand. I would give Sansa C250 4 star originally. However after compare the other non-brand product. I could only give it 2 stars.
Here is the fact of comparison.
Another one is a MP4 PLayer from China (KEO)( possibly distrubited by iceTechUSA?).
(1) Value/Function : Santa C250 is much more expensive than KEO,but function is much less;
(2) Function: KEO has MUCH MUCH more functions than Sansa, it is MP4 player which will play most of the media format wy plays several formats; Sansa C250 FM radio is weak and hard to tune, as an expensive player, it loses it value at this; KEO has triple size of Sansa C250 screen and higher resolution, while Sansa's photo function is only a symbol, could not be used at all in practical meaning;
(3)Sound quality:I compared sound quality with another expensive monitor headphone; they should be at the same level in my view; KEO comes with an inferior earbud,Sansa has a average earbud. However, most of the people will upgrade earbud after purchase to persue extreme sound, this should be not a big issue;
(4) Appearance: KEO is half thickness of Sansa C250, but a little bit wider and longer;itis metal body, beautiful shape, looks solid and VERY well built, could compare to any SONY MP3 machine in my view; Sansa C250 definitely loses at this;
(5)Expandable: Sansa will beat any other brand at this A MOST SHINING POINTING FOR MP3 player; KEO does not have expendable slot;
(6) Accessories: Sansa C250 comes with very little accessories , no charger, no protection cover, USB cable is bulky and clumsy ; However KEO has USB charger, and a becautiful soft silicon protection cover, delicate ans presise cable; Simply do not understand why such a famous brand comes with so meager accessories?Sansa C250 definitely loses at this point;
(7)Software: KEO will immediately work on all me three XP box( I do not know MAC) no need to install driver even. Copy music and photo all fully easy and automatically runs well.FULLY support worldwide language (include Asian area) It also shipped with CD ripper and other applications; While for Sansa, the software comes with original machine is garbage, it ALMOST not works at all (Connect problem, duplicated copy, not support world language), in a word , it can not work if no firmware upgrade. I WAS VERY suprised why a FAMOUS BRAND manufacturer will pass quality ensurance to issue to market with such an inferior software, after struggle whole night , I finally upgraded with version 1.1, afterwards it could accomplish basic work. A pain.
Conclusion: I leant a lesson, brand product is not necessories best product, possible just an above average product.
Customer Review: Ipod Nano, eat your heart out...
Summary: 5 Stars
OK. I've seen some of the other reviews for this product, and a few people have mentioned problems with the backlighting and contrast, but I don't have that problem. I have now owned my player three weeks, and I LOVE IT!
This player has incredibly simple menus to follow, the display is adequate for most people who will only use this to listen to music. I've had no problems with the display which does a fairly good job with the photos I've loaded onto it. The song text is in black against a light blue field which makes it easy to see at all times.
Straight out of the box, my Windows XP systems instantly recognized the device and installed the appropriate drivers. I did have a problem (at first) with getting my laptop (running Vista Home Basic) to recognize the device, but I realized that this was due to the fact that I had the player set in the wrong USB mode (it needs to be in MSC mode for Vista to recognize the device) Once I changed the mode to MSC (through the player's settings menu), all of my systems recognize it every time - without a single problem.
I like the fact that you can change the battery in the player quickly and easily, unlike an Ipod, and that it has an expandable Micro SD slot, which the manufacturer says you can only upgrade by 1 GB. If you buy this, go ahead and spring for the Micro SD card so that you prevent dust and dirt from getting into the slot; you'll also expand the room you have available on the player. I just received my $20.00, 2GB (that's right - 2 GB) expansion card from NewEgg.com today, and again, I popped it into my player, which connects to desktop/laptops through a provided USB cable, and it was instantly recognized by my work system as a separate drive.
Other reasons to like this player is the fact that it features a voice recorder, an FM tuner, an adjustable equalizer with presets (I set mine with a custom setting which sounds better than the presets)and it lets you record FM radio. Try THAT with an Ipod... Did I mention that it will let you plays songs downloaded from the most popular services (another thing Ipod can't do), in addition to .wmv and mp3 files?
A couple of people in other reviews have mentioned investing in a new pair of earbuds, which I would agree with if you're a serious audiophile, but again, for most people, the earbuds it ships with should more than fit the bill.
The only thing this player really lacks is the storage capacity that some other players on the market have. That's ok though, because at bit rate of 128 kbps per song, you can fit up to 1,000 songs. I doubled my 2 GB capacity with the Micro SD card, giving the player a total capacity of 4 GB. Since I use only high bit rate (160 kbps and better) audio, and I have about 450 songs - with plenty of room left over for my work files and photos.
If you're looking for an economical, sturdy mp3 player this is the one. The price makes this a great gift for any occasion year-round, and for the money, you're not going to find a better value anywhere else on the market.
Customer Review: Not worth buying, even if it's cheap
Summary: 1 Stars
I really wanted to like this mp3 player. I was trying to replace my 1G Shuffle, which has been kind physically contorted with superglue since the cheap Apple armband snapped off the USB connector. My main purpose: to use it at the gym and to be able to listen to some podcasts when I'm walking around Downtown (I was in Seattle at the time).
I kept trying to defend its problems, but the last straw was when it broke in under 6 months. The right channel of sound just stopped working altogether. If I was an electrical engineer I might take it apart and try tightening whatever was loose to cause this problem, but I honestly didn't even feel that it was worth doing that.
Let me list all the things I hated about it:
-I'll start with the issue of crashing. It crashed a few times a week. It would just be playing a song, and then it would freeze. Or it would be choppy in playing a track. That was especially irritating.
-The navigation was completely unintuitive on it. It was not easy or enjoyable to move around in it or select tracks.
-No one mentions this, but it's a huge problem: you CANNOT make playlists on the computer! I tried all sorts of things to try to make one and put it on there, but none of my attempts worked, and the manual only explains making playlists on the device. You have no idea how frustrating it is to have to make playlists for the gym on the device, which would take me at least 5-10 minutes for a 5 or 6 hour playlist. I much preferred using iTunes.
-The radio receiver was really bad. I'd have to be in the right place at the right time to get clear reception of anything.
-The screen quality so not as good as it may appear in the pictures. Looking at photos on this thing is not worth trying.
-If you stop listening to your playlist to just play normal music, it doesn't remember where you're at.
-It's a little bigger than it looks, especially in a neoprene case for working out.
-It didn't come with any special software, you just use Windows Media Player.
-The battery life was not that great. It may have lasted 7-10 hours. My 1G Shuffle was a lot better than that.
I really can't think of any reasons to get this device. The armband I bought from DLO for it worked a lot better than the Apple armband for my shuffle, but that's about it. Even for just working out, this device isn't worth it. You could pay a few more bucks and get a 2G Shuffle if you're looking for a low-end device; the new one is actually easier for workouts.