SanDisk Sansa e280 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)

This is a great MP3 player. The sound is great, size is good, and has plenty of memory. I've had mine for about 2 months now and works great. I havn't had no problems. My only complant is that mine came brand new and the screen had some scratches on the left part of it. So it seems that the screen will scratch rather easily. I bought an iclear cover made by griffin for it and it protects it well. I highly recommend it. Overall this is a great Mp3 player. I believe it is better than the ipods. I would buy it again. Another bonus with this player is that the internal battery is replaceable. And with me being a trained electronic professional, that is a must. When did it become standard practice to make new items in which when the battery is dead, the whole item becomes garbage? A replaceable battery is common sense and a must for me. Also, as a footnote: be aware that one must have the windows media player 10 or later to sync songs to this player, and so windows Xp or later is almost a must.

The SanDisk Sansa e280 MP3 Player Black. I bought it for work.

The Good - It holds a lot of music, looks good, feels solid, has a great little display. It's small and convenient, lasts all day, teamed it up with Sennheiser ear buds. You can buy and charge up a replacement battery for more distance...I like that a lot. There are so many ways you can use it. Pictures, film clips, and recording. Always a good idea to have a recording device handy for thoughts and ideas. 8 Gb is a lot of mp3s. And the way it splits music files is great...it has a radio too and an equalizer. Charges via USB but can get external charging adapter. I also use SanDisk for my phone, my DSLR camera, a flash thumb drive for my computer, and I have a 2 Gb older model music player. So, my experience of the credibility and durability as well as the performance of the products of the manufacturer merits recognition.

The bad - The form factor of my older SanDisk Music Player allowed to just plug in another fresh AAA battery. This is different.

Conclusion - My range of experience is only with this one manufacturer. But my experience has been good. And I'm pleased. This does what I want, I got it at a really good price, but I gave it only 4 stars. Why? Because I know that somebody with other expectations will think my interpretation too exuberant. That's O.K. It works for me and I love it. But I realize that an honest evaluation must, of necessity, leave room for doubt. So, if you're looking for a great little player that holds a lot of music, and has great features, this is on the "A" list of considerations.

I have purchased two of these. The first one I purchased I have been very happy with. It is a great player at a great price. Based on my experience with my first player, I purchased an additional e280 for my son. Unfortunately, the second unit had a number of issues booting, syncing, updating databases, etc. The seller sent a replacement unit. While the replacement unit works fine, the touch of the thumb wheel is coarser and not as smooth. I like the touch of the first unit better - I don't plan on returning the second one but it is clearly not as good. In any case, it appears Sansa cannot produce a consistent product. Hence 4 stars instead of 5.

This is an excellent MP3 player. I have now transferred pretty much every CD that I own over to it. I used Windows Media Player to change them into *.mpa files instead of the larger *.mp3 files without any noticeable loss of quality. I also have a slew of family pictures and a few video clips stored on it (with the help of an extra 2 GB microSD chip), and I still have about 2.5 GB of space left.

There are several help forums and some downloads (such as media transfer software, the manual, and update software) that you will REALLY want to get from the [...]
This unit is easy to load and use, although I had to do some tricksy things with audiobooks in order to get them to play in the correct order. That is a problem with audiobooks on MP3 players anyway, so no hit on the Sansa. Read the Sansa forums for help on that...

I am definitely getting a better protective jacket with armband for this, though. The included pocket just slips off and doesn't protect anything unless the Sansa is in your pants pocket or something. I don't really care for the lanyard either. Having the Sansa dangling from my neck lets it smack into things or get caught on things bringing me up short with a jerk sometimes.

I bought this player because it was half the cost of an 8gb ipod nano.
The menus are not quite as refined as the ipod, which might mean more scrolling to find a specific song or artist if you have lots of different music on your player.

The player is relatively easy to use, and loading music in windows media player is straightforward (though I will confess that I still prefer itunes when listening to music on my computer, and I think that itunes is easier to use).
The built in radio is a plus. I haven't had a chance to test out the microSD slot, but I could see that extending the useful life of the player in the future.
I'm not sure how I feel about the user-replaceable battery. It might be an option later in the player's life, but since you have to remove four screws to change the battery it's completely unfeasible to keep a spare battery with you for extra play time. In my opinion, the thick metal cover on the back of the player makes the device thicker than it needs to be, and I think SanDisk dropped the ball by not making the battery easier to change.

I'm also not crazy about how long the Sansa takes to boot up versus the ipod. I have to wait ten seconds to listen to music after turning the device on. Also, unlike the ipod, the sansa has no idea whether or not you have headphones plugged in and will keep playing with them unplugged. So if you forget to turn it off it will keep playing until it either plays all remaining songs in the queue, or runs out of battery power.

All of that said, it's a bargain for the price. I'm docking the player one star for the ten-second bootup time, which annoys me every time I use the player.