SanDisk Sansa m250 - Digital player / voice recorder / radio - flash 2 GB - WMA, MP3 black New Retail Factory Sealed / 1-Year Warranty - SDMX32048A18 - Amazing Deal!

The interface is terrible. The price is good. You choose. If you listen to music playlists exclusively, it would probably be okay, but for podcasts forget it. If you want a clear, easy, well designed navigation interface, skip this player. It's so aggravating that I wanted to throw it in a garbage disposal. The titles don't fit on the small display so they scroll, but they scroll so slowly that you can barely see them move. The buttons are so exposed that normal handling will easily cause you forward to the next track, and it won't remember your place when you try to go back to where you were. Fast forwarding is so slow that you might as well just listen to the whole track from the beginning again. Horrible. So what's the upside? It has some nice features: voice recording, FM radio, sleep timer... I wish my iPod had those.
 
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Got this to take on a trip. Very happy with it. It holds a lot of songs, it has good sound quality, it's fairly easy to use (even when you are technology challenged as I tend to be) and provides hours of play time before batteries needs to be replaced.
 
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I us it more for voice recording than as a music player and the recordings are strong and the unit is very sensitive. Quality of sound is very good. A good feature is that once you set it for something (ex. as a recorder) when you turn it back on, it comes back to the selected setting without going through the main menu. Not so strong points: the buttons are not very well labeled and it is a little bit confusing the first time until you figure out what they can do. You need a computer to delete the recordings. I would have preferred to be able to delete them directly from the unit, as in a digital camera. For a better reception of FM signals it is recommended to use the USB connection cable as an antenna, which is an inconvenient (you can use it without the cable though). Overall it is a good purchase for the money (after buying the first one for my wife, I bought another one for me too) and it can do a lot of things.
 
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I had doubts about this 2GB Sansa player, as not long ago I bought the 1GB model. I liked it, but it was a refurbished unit... and when I tried to load it with music, it froze up & wouldn't do anything at all except drain the battery. That purchase wasn't thru Buy.com tho, it was the W**t place- and they don't provide any support. Sansa people said too bad, they also don't support refurb units, tho they tried to get it working for me. So this time I'm very happy with the NEW unit I got, with a FULL warranty, and it came really fast. Now I'm wondering if I need another one.... 'cause I wouldn't hesitate to buy this one again!
 
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With a FM Tuner, full LCD screen, and a current $25 price tag on Buy.com (other sites have REFURBS of this for more, and this one is new, with a 1 year warranty), you will not find a better deal on a MP3 player anywhere on the web. 2gbs holds a lot of songs and. it works easily with Windows Media Player. There are a couple of little things. Some times you have to hit the power button several times to get it to turn on, and sometimes it will freeze up requiring a restart (especially if you are listening to long files like podcasts or audio books). Also make sure you buy rechargeable AAA batteries, and keep a spare on your person, as its 12 hour life could kill the pocket book if you just buy regular AAAs. I bought this to replace a broken 30g ipod, and I am very satisfied and have no current plans on buying another ipod.
 
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best price all over, product is like what i expected
 
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I love it. I have a C250 as well, and it works great. I bought the M250 thinking it would have all the features of the c250 and more. This is my fault because I didn't take a good look at the specs...I just ASSUMED that an "M" model would be better than a "C" model. First complaint... there's no microSD slot on the M250. 2 gigs is a good bit of memory, but I like having the ability to double my storage. Second complaint... a triple-A battery?!?! How archaic. But other than that it's a great mp3 player. I ended up keeping the arm band (to use with my C250 when I workout) and I gave the mp3 player to a friend as a friendly gesture. She LOVES it.
 
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I was looking for a cheap MP3 player that was tiny, but had acceptable sound quality. This model, though probably at end of life, fills the bill. If I was rating only value for money, it would be a 5. Considering that this is a very inexpensive MP3 player, it's a good buy. Sound fidelity is excellent, though max volume is a bit low especially with classical music. If rock or country is your bag, you'll probably be very pleased. The unit and display are tiny, but the display is very clear. Though it attempts to scroll long album and song titles, the display doesn't stay on long enough to read them completely. Even so, navigating the menus by title, album, artist, etc. is very easy. Operation is far from obvious, the manual leaves out a couple of important pieces of information, especially for uploading and downloading music, but they were cleared up quickly by a call to customer support which was very professional, accurate and there was no long wait.
 
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Pros: Next to ipod in terms of quality and ease of use. Great value! Cons: 1. FM reception is poor when enclosed in protective cover (that came in the box); 2. Limited to internal storage of 2GB. Wish there was a microSD slot for easy swapping of MP3 songs.
 
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The m250 has a propensity to die, and if it's beyond the 1 year warranty and your m250 stops working (and that's for the retail model, not the "refurbs", which are NOT done through Sansa), you are out of luck. There are many reasons why your m250 might not last, among them: 1. They have a tendency to stop working without warning or good reason. 2. If the firmware becomes corrupted, they are toast. 3. If the battery becomes weak to the point where it gives out in the middle of a write, the firmware may well get corrupted, end of player. 4. If you try to load the 2 GB flash memory very close to the maximum, likewise the player may go belly up. I've heard these things from a guy with a drawer full of m250 parts but no working m250. He bought himself a Sansa Clip instead. If you get one, don't use it for flash memory. Use a dedicated flash memory stick. The FF on mine (and I have two) is very very slow, so if you use large MP3s like me, this is an inconvenience. Version 2.x (and maybe other) firmware features accelerated FF, but not my 4.x firmware m250's. There's no way to know which you will get, but I suspect any you get now will be 4.x. The EQ is very nice to have. It only works with recorded files, however, not the FM. The FM, however, is the best I've ever experienced in a portable, and that includes maybe 8, maybe more devices and the m250 is easily the cheapest of them all. The FM section is very sensitive! I don't use the armband and probably never will. I think the supplied earbuds are usable, however I have better. I very much like the AAA usage and therefore shunned the Clip, which was offered to me when my first m250 was RMA'd. I use rechargable NiMH, but use very good ones, nothing cheap or marginal and I intend to be careful not to let the battery run too low in the player (as mentioned above), knock on wood.
 
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I bought this to replace another Sansa my dog chewed up. It's such a great product that I bought it twice. The only things I'd recommend are to use the custom settings to add some more bass, ditch the headphones that come with it and buy ones you like (it made a big difference in audio quality for me), and get a silicone case to add a bit more durability and a clip for working out. Overall, I highly recommend this product.
 
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I am 100% pleased with my Sansa. It works perfectly and was a great bargain. Why spend hundreds on a "name" when I got just what I was looking for with Sansa? I already have it loaded with over 200 songs. :-)
 
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This in our second Sansa ( the other is just like this except a 1g and 3 years older). Works as expected and sounds great.
 
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If you've been searching for a simple, feature-rich digital music player, try this one. Great for all ages. I have used it with the car's aux input and also around the house with headphones. I have tried a 2nd gen iPod Nano and a Sansa e260 video/music player, but I find the Sansa m250 to be amazing and easier to use; very smart design for the cost. It is small, easy to navigate, easy to upload songs with no proprietary interface required, very smart use of power with its single AAA battery lasting a LONG time. If you power off in the middle of a song, it remembers that song and the point in the song when the power was turned off. There is also a carry case with a clip -- available separately; I recommend that as well.
 
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As an inexpensive mp3 player, it works fine. Worked right out of the box. Music copied easily from computer to player. Since it is my first and only pocket mp3 player I have nothing to compare it with. I replaced the ear buds with a headset for convenience and better sound. My only wish would be to have removeable memory chips so that I could switch to a new song group, without erasing and reloading.
 
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I had an iPod Shuffle, but I really didn't like it. So, I was looking for a different small MP3 Player. My wife has a larger Sansa and really likes it. Luckily, I came across this one and for a great price. It's simple to use and I can put in my own songs/albums or use Rhapsody. I like that I can put my albums as playlists & that I can listen to the FM radio. Great product & great price!
 
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I like it...it was easy to use...easy to load...only thing I don't know for sure is how long my battery time will be...but if it follows the rest of the claims...this is one sweet unit.
 
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Have bought 2 Sansa e250s which our family loves. Decided to give this one a try because I still needed an MP3 and the price was right. It operates a little bit differently but I was able to figure it out without any problems. It has great sound. Terrific deal!
 
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Excelent product. I use it when I work out. So much for so cheap
 
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My first mp3 player. Sound that comes out of this tiny device is nothing short of surround-sound AWESOME. Some errors in the manual about button function, but can be easily figured out with a little playing around. I'm going to buy another if the price is still the same.
 
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After loading the songs (easy) and trying it out, I let my wife try it as well (big mistake). Sounds good and comfortable. Now I have to get another one.
 
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Our family has 3 of the 1 G version of this player (M240), so I jumped on 2 G M250. Single AAA battery power is big selling point - I use rechargeable NI-MI, get very good play time on charge. Radio works real well in my urban area.
 
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