Hardware-wise the e250 is just OK. It is larger than than the Nano, but not by much (though it is about twice as thick as the Nano). SanDisk claims the battery life is about 20 hours when playing music. While I don't have hard figures to back their claim up, the e250's battery lasts for a few days of on and off listening at work, so the 20 hour claim seems reasonable (if you are listening at medium volume and not constantly changing songs). As an added bonus, SanDisk made the battery on the e200 series easily (and officially) user replaceable. The 1.8 inch TFT screen is nice, bright, and easy to read. Unfortunately the the battery and the screen are the only plus's that the hardware brings to the table. The scroll wheel is not as intuitive as the Nano's click wheel (though, you do get used to it) and the buttons surrounding it are uncomfortably narrow. I have relatively small hands for a guy, and even I feel like I am trying to press the buttons with big bear paws. On the subject of the buttons, there are a few small annoyances that I found while using the e250. When the player turns off the screen you have to hit the what ever button you want to press twice, once to "wake up" the player and once to perform the desired action, kind of annoying but not a deal killer. The other annoyance can be more serious though. The record button is very easy to press, sometimes locking up the player (this has happened twice in the month that I have had the e250). When the player locks up, the only way to reset it is unscrewing the back panel and removing the battery, a major inconvenience, especially if you are out running or away from you tools.


The software on the e250 is good enough to get the job done. The user interface is fairly intuitive and all the features are easy enough to access. The extra features on the player (i.e. things not related to the actual playing of mp3s) are just OK. The FM radio is what you would expect from a small portable radio of the e250's size. The reception is not great (as expected) which leaves me wondering why anyone would use the FM recording features on the player. The same is true with the video playback feature. Who wants to stare at a 1.8 inch screen and watch a TV episode, much less a two hour movie. I was able to watch video on the player for only about 10 minutes on the player before I started getting a headache. Picture viewing is a comparable experience to viewing pictures on your cell phone. Voice recording is acceptable for notes (the quality is not great, but for notes who cares), but the lack of a bookmark features precludes the e250's use as a serious voice recorder (though it wouldn't make a bad backup). The e250 can also act as a USB drive (if you carry its USB cable with you) just like most modern mp3 players.

As far as playing back music, the e250 does its job well. It performs just as you would expect. Loading music onto the player is easy enough. You can either just copy music in the e250's music folder or sync the player to Windows Media player or other music management software. The sound quality on the e250 is good (but I am not an audiophile so those with finer tuned ears may hear problems that I do not). The e250 comes with a 30 day trial of Real's Rhapsody, so that was the first service I tried with the player. The e250 didn't work so well with Rhapsody (which was surprising since it is the service SanDisk recomends). Rhapsody works fine, except when deleting songs (an activity that is fairly common with both small players and subscription services). When songs are deleted from the player, Rhapsody leaves a phantom song that shows up in all of the lists (Album, Artist, Song, etc.) but has zero length. After a few deletions, this becomes rather annoying. I still have not figured out how to delete these listings. (On a side note, to cancel the trial - or the paid service - you have to call a customer retention center. It took two calls for me to cancel my Rhapsody account. Both agents I talked with had a poor command of the English language and heavy accents, in addition to apparently being trained to do whatever they can to keep from canceling the account - without actually giving the customer anything for staying with Rhapsody.) I also tried MTV's new Urge service with the e250 and experienced none of the problems that I had with Rhapsody. In fact, I am still subscribed to Urge and am very happy with both its client software and its music selection. (Coincidentally, you can make changes to your account - including canceling - from within the Urge client, no calls required.)

Overall the SanDisk e250 is at best a so-so player that tries to add bonus features to surpass the Nano, but only manages to highlight its own mediocrity. I wouldn't recommend the Sansa to anyone. The 2 GB iPod Nano is in the same pricing bracket as the e250, and it offers a much better over all user experience. If you are looking for a player to use with a "Plays for Sure" service, I would look elsewhere. There are quite a few "Plays for Sure" compatible players in this space that may offer a better experience. My final rating 2 out of 5 "G's".

Geek In Gear Rating:

SanDisk Sansa e200 series product page
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