SanDisk Sansa e280 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)

Ok, I just will like to say that I bought this little guy on Feb. 22nd with free shipping and received it Feb 24th. SUPER DUPER fast shipping!!! WOW!!! VERY, VERY IMPRESSED with the shipping. Ok now to the players.I own the e250 v1 with a 2GB MicroSD card which I have had for about 2 years now. I love it!!! Never had any issues with. I use it everyday in my car, work, and gym. The e250 has taken a beating and still keeps on ticking, the battery life is great! The only down side to the e250 is that it takes a while to boot up, I would say between 10-20 seconds It also depends how much music you have loaded in the player. I loaded pictures in it and small video clips of family events that I sometimes like to watch when I'm at work or the gym. The pictures in the player are pretty crisp even though the screen is small images are still viewable. To make playliste you have to download a program called "Sanse Playlister" It's a great program that I love!!! It's really easy to use for deleting and creating playlist. Overall the e250 v1 is a great player with the only issue of a slow boot time. The battery life rocks!!! 20+ hours of power and it's also replaceable.Now to the review and comparison of the e280 v2.Physically the e250 v1 and e280 v2 look 99.99% alike with the exception of the wheel. The e280's wheel is a little different. It feels like it's made out of some kind of hard rubber or soft plastic compared to the e250 v1. The grooves are also different on the wheel, not a big deal, you'll get use to it.The BIG MAJOR difference and improvement on the e280 v2 is the boot time!!! WOW!!! It boots right up! As soon as you press the button to turn the player on it goes ON!!! That is a BIG, BIG PLUS compared to the my e250 v1.It is suggested that you upgrade the firmware on the player right when you get it. It will give you the USB-Mode menu. Out of the box your only choice is MTP once you do the upgrade you will have the option to pick MTC of MSC modes. (More detail can be found on Sandisk's website)The player also has a customizable EQ that you can play around with to get the best sound you're looking for. For some reason I'm not sure if it's me, but I have also read on other forums that people say the e280 v2 sounds a bit better then the e250 v1 which I kind of also think the same. Either way both players sound great, but I do think the e280 v2 might just sound a bit better.When it comes to pictures, I do think the e250 v1's displayed crisper pictures. I put both playerds side by side and looked at the same pictures and from what I can see the e250 displayed a crisper picture, but the e280 still looked good.Loading videos to the e280 v2. If you put a video longer then about 10 minutes you start to get a speech delay. I loaded a 40 minute video into the player and at worse the speech was delayed about 2 seconds. I wasn't really bothered by this because video is a bonus feature and it's NOT the reason why I bought the player for. If you have a shorter video you will have no issues with speech delay. I was able to download videos from YouTube and Google and load them into this player and watch them. You need to download "Sansa Media Converter" from the sandisk website so you can load videos and pictures to the player, without the converter you will NOT be able to view any videos or pictures in your player because of the formats. The converter converts the videos to .avi and the pictures to .bmp.The radio works...well like a radio. You can preset FM stations and record from the radio. I will most likely never you this feature. Another bonus.The voice recorder works pretty good. Voice recordings sound pretty clear. I will probably never use this feature, but you never know.The earbuds you get with the player are ok, but not that greatest. I highly recommend the Sony MDR-E829V Fontopia Earbuds with In-Line Volume Control. They work and sound great with the Sansa. I have owned about 4 pair of these earbuds. You may ask why 4? Well let's just say that sometimes I'm not careful enough at the gym and the cable gets caught on something.To make playlist on the player I use winamp there might be other programs out there, but winamp works for me.The battery life does not seem to last as long as the e250 v1's battery life. I can get about maybe 17 hours of battery life, but also be aware that I'm not sitting here timing battery life I'm just estimating from what I see and I might be wrong.You can also add more memory to the player using a MicroSD memory card. I'm waiting for the price to come down on the 8GB cards so I can add an additional 8GB of space in my player. 16GB total NICE!!!*** Note That you can NOT add more than 2GB of memory to the e250 v1. ***Overall the player is great!!! Faster boot time just makes a world of difference!!!Oh before I forget... I also recommend the Sandisk 5 Piece Travel Kit for the Sansa. It comes with a leather jacketfor the player, lanyard, carrying case, screen protector, and a cleaning cloth for the screen with works GREAT! I own two if these kits each one of my players have one. The e250 and the e280.If you have any comments or questions feel free to drop a line on the comments section.Hope this review was helpful to you. I never do reviews this long, but I felt it was needed.GREAT PLAYER!!!

I'm a long time customer of SanDisk memory products, so when I heard they were making MP3 players, I was intrigued to see how they'd do. If the e200 series is any indication of how they're doing, I'd say they're doing VERY well.I got the d280 with 8gig of memory and a cross section of features that was perfect for me, including the standard MP3 player, FM radio, FM record, voice recorder and the ability to display both video and photo files. This is really a perfect set up for me, as I plan to use my unit as much for sharing small sample photos and videos as for listening to music. I'm a photographer and writer by trade, and this little number is a lot like having a business card that doubles as a mini-portfolio. With the capacity to hold a couple hundred thousand photos ... it's more than I'll ever need for that purpose ... leaving lots of memory for video samples and music. What an incredible bundle of fun stuff in such a small, well made package.The unit I got came as advertised with SanDisk software (user manual and photo/video conversion utility), USB cable, a small sleeve to protect the unit, a wrist/neck lanyard and screen protection shield. The software installed easily on my WinXP machine and allows me to easily drag and drop photos into a utility that converts them to a format that displays on the e280. I've passed both bmp and jpg format files into this unit and so far have had no trouble at all. The resulting images that reside on the e280 range from around 40k to 80k. The display feature on this unit is quite nice for something so small, but certainly was not intended to be a high resolution photo or video viewer. But as a business card sized "portfolio in your pocket" this unit works REALLY well. Now, no matter where I am, I can slip this unit out of my pocket and show someone individual samples or a slideshow of my work. Video playback was surprisingly good for such a small screen and I think will enable me to use this unit for displaying video samples as well.The MP3 player, FM radio, FM record and other music functions seem work very well and I have no complaints at all. If you're a music junkie and are looking for lots of advanced music handling features, please read other reviews of this product, as this is not my primary interest in this unit. The FM radio works well even in places where my dedicated radios don't, the sound is clear and true and the volume and tuning controls are easy. The menu and playback options for MP3's are quite suitable by my standards, but again, read other reviews for more details on that.The menu system on the unit is pretty intuitive and easy to navigate with the thumb wheel and buttons found on the unit, though there are a couple of corners of the menu that still have me scratching my head, I'm sure I'll sort them out soon.The user manual is not the best I've ever seen, by a long shot. It covers the basics and it's not hard to understand, but there are a lot of obvious questions for which it doesn't provide answers. As someone who writes such manuals as part of his job, I'd have to say that the only disappointment I've had so far with the e280 was the manual. But, since the unit is such a delight to use, that's not such a big deal.In terms of construction, the unit's titanium alloy back seems quite rigid and sturdy and gives the unit a light yet very substantial feel. The buttons all seem to work well, the screen is clear and bright, the cables all plug in easily (usb and headphone) and using the unit is very easy and intuitive, even for someone with slightly larger than average hands like me.Notables ...This unit comes with the ability to add up to 2 gig of extra memory on an insertable chip, but this memory add on can't be used to house photos or videos ... interesting.The Lithium Ion battery can be replaced by the end user when it finally dies and recharges via the USB cable, though it requires the PC be on while charging. After market cigarette lighter (car) and AC recharge adapters are available.The carrying case that comes with the unit isn't much to brag about, so I'd recommend one of the after market units there too. The one recommended by Amazon when looking at this unit is quite good.I'm VERY happy with this unit and look forward to using it quite a lot every day.AFTER A BIT OF USENow that I've had a bit more time to use the Sansa, I can say I really do love it. It works like a charm and it's fun to use. I do have a few comments for would be users to allow you to make your choice of an MP3 player with as much information as possible.a) Controls - The for arch shaped buttons arranged around the thumb dial are a bit hard to access for larger fingers, especially if you keep the unit in a leather carrying case. I don't find that this bothers me, but some folks certainly might.b) USB Cable Connection - When plugging the USB cable into the Sansa, I find I have to carefully push the cable firmly into the socket to make sure that both little catches on either side of the connector are in place. It's not hard or tricky, but I'm not paying attention and just plug it in with the same force as I do my cell phone, quite often one or the other catches on the connector won't seat properly and the cable could slip out. After just a few instances of this, I got in the habit of plugging it in more carefully and I've had no troubles since. Again, I don't find this difficult or tricky or even troublesome ... but it's something that might annoy some folks, so I thought I'd pass along the information.c) Transferring Photos - As I mentioned in my review, one of my chief uses for this unit is sharing photos. I find the software what comes with the unit does a fine job of creating small versions of my photos and meets my need as a sort of digital business card sized portfolio. But it should be noted that when the software reduces the images to this size, there are some minor imperfections in the smaller pictures. I don't find them objectionable, but some might. Again, just something to be aware of.d) FM Radio - Like many of us, I work inside a steel frame building and I've found that getting a good FM radio signal at work can be VERY tricky. I wouldn't have been too upset to find that the Sansa didn't deliver any better an FM signal than my dedicated radios did ... but I'm OVERJOYED to report that this little unit delivers a GREAT FM signal even in the depths of the building. I get great reception where no radio I've owned has gotten even adequate reception. QUITE happy.e) Voice Recorder - good enough pick up for dictation, but not really usable for group settings like meetings. I have a Panasonic voice recorder for my more serious voice recording needs, but it is handy to have a VR built into this unit for jotting down ideas when I don't happen to have my Panasonic with me.f) FM Record ... works really well and is quite handy. I love this feature.g) LOCK UP - I rather foolishly tried to change modes on the Sansa while plugging in the USB cord ... my mistake. This locked up the unit in what appeared to be the OFF mode, and none of the buttons would respond. I read the digital owners guide, saw that I needed to hold down the START/MENU button for 15 seconds to reset ... did this ... and nothing seemed to happen. I then pressed the START/MENU button again, and it started up with no problems and no loss of data. Everything was fine. My only note would be that the user guide doesn't mention that the 15 second depression of the START/MENU button must be followed by then turning the unit on by pressing the START/MENU button again. Some units restart when you reset, some don't. This oen doesn't. So ... if it gets locked (which only has happened once, and it was clearly my fault), FIRST press and hold the START/MENU button for 15 seconds ... nothing will appear to have happened. THEN ... press the START/MENU button again ... it should fire up just fine, as mine did.h) USER GUIDE - I find that this user guide covers all the necessary bases, but rather in a minimalist way, leaving out some rather important details. I've bene able to figure most of the missing details out on my own, but as a writer of such manuals, I can't say the manual for the Sansa is one of its strong suits. I LOVE my Sansa ... I don't love the manual.Yes, all in all, I'm THRILLED with my purchase, especially since it included the E200 series Travel Case Kit. The combination of these two is making me a very happy camper.