SanDisk Sansa c250 2 GB MP3 Player (Black)

I purchased this for my husband's birthday but after two days of trying to get it to install on my computer (even with help from tech support via telephone) still no luck. very frustrating.

Purchasing that player was total waste of money. I didn't have a chance to listen to it even once before it died. My laptop running Windows Vista had trouble recognizing the device (my other Windows XP computer did find it and I was able to upload 2GB of songs). I was obsessed with making my Vista laptop to recognize the device so I tried different suggestions from official sandisk website plus other ones I found on forums. The last solution I tried was uploading firmware from sandisk website. The firmware was loaded, the player reported that it was rebooting itself and ... died. Now I'm able to turn in on and off but display is dead (gray color). I spent hours searching for suggestions on how to bring it back to life but holding all these buttons, connecting/reconnecting to a computer, etc. didn't work. The player has all these great features but it misses one of the most important ones - ability to work.

We got Sansa c250 for my son because I was trying to avoid spending the bigger bucks on an iPod. I guess you get what you pay for.

It worked great for the first month. Very easy file transfer, though I did have to convert the songs I had downloaded on iTunes for use on my iPod. But that is an Apple/iTunes issue, not specific to this Sansa.

After about a month, the battery life became very short. Maybe an hour of play and it would have to be recharged. Within a couple of weeks of the battery problems, the unit started locking up. It would stop playing mid-song and the menu buttons did not work. I could not start the song, or even turn off the mp3 player. In order to un-lock it, I would have to remove the battery, wait about 30 seconds, replace it, and start over. Another 2 or 3 songs would play, and it would stop again. It did not turn itself off (as I have read in some other reviews), just the song would stop playing and the display was stuck. The screen looked as if the song was paused, but none of the buttons worked.

My other son had received the SanDisk Fuze as a gift and we had no problems with it. So - I replaced the Sansa c250 with the Fuze and have had no problems since.

The c250 is extremely light, feels very cheap, IS cheap - and apparently you do get what you pay for.

This is my first mp3 player and I am completely satisfied with it. The only big drawback is that there is no separate charger unless you buy one. You charge the unit by connecting to the computer with the USB connection.And it was so very easy to install a 2gb micro disk for additional storage.

I have another Sandisk mp3 player and never had any problems.
This one is next to impossible to erase the preloaded music and I was never able to download from my computer without error messages. I thought it might be me or my system but had my electronic engineer son try on his with the same results. This player will find it's way to the trash.