[Review] Sandisk sansa E250

[kakari]

I finally have managed to get a hold of Sandisk Sansa e250 in Canada. All thanks to http://www.mobileplanet.com/. They were willing to ship it over to Canada where no other vendor wanted to.

With this, I returned Samsung YP-25.

The retail box was small. But it was thicker than Samsung YP-25's box.

The back of the player appears to be some sort of metal (*They stated it that it's liquidmetal*).

Meanwhile, the front is made of thick plastic that is highly resistent to scratches. I've used it for few days casually in my jean pocket. I haven't had a scratch.

The build quality is excellent. It feels very solid in my hand. However, Samsung YP-25 had better build quality.

The control was awesome. It was much easier for me to use than the control of YP-25. The blue wheel allows you to scroll very fast. (Very very fast if you wanted.) It lits up blue while you are touching and turns off if you don't use it for 1 second or so.

It came with a leather bag for you to put the player into if you want. The leather bag is in decent quality and fits the player perfectly.

I think it is safe to say that Sansa e250 is exactly the same size of YP-25. But Sansa e250 is slightly thicker.

The screen

The 1.8 inch LCD screen was nice. But I must say that Samsung YP-25 had a better screen. The sansa e250's screen, while it was certainly very nice, its color, especially white, may look blurry. Furthermore, the fonts are not clear-type and edges of fonts are rough. But then this is not a big deal.

Video playerback

I say, don't bother.

It can play video in a decent quality. But the converting your video may not be worth it. I mean I expect size to go down, but it did not. It actually increased.

For an exmaple, I converted my Alessandro Safina Only You concert DVD. The size was 800MB whereas I could rip it to PC with the best quality for only 381MB. It simply didn't make sense to me.

This player can only play *.mov, which is Apple quicktime.

Battery life

Under normal use, you can generally use it for up to around 15 hours. The battery can be replaced by user. The back plate has four screws.

Control

The control was nice. It was much better than YP-25. But I guess this part is really depended on user preference.

Personally speaking, I was barely able to control Samsung YP-25 in my pocket without looking at the control due to its touch/force sensitive controls.

I was, however, able to control Sansa e250 in my pocket without looking at it with ease.

Sound

I personally have no idea why this player does not have custom EQ whereas its cheaper brother Sansa e100 series have custom EQ.

Other than that, I have no complains about its sound. It does come with preset EQ sets.

Transfer/Sync

This is the best part. This player can act as either USB drive or like Ipod (MTP) where you have to use a software to transfer files.

One downside is that, you cannot see files that you transfered via MTP while the player is in USB drive mode. But, if you select "view hidden files", you can actually see them. Just make sure you don't accidently delete system files.

Once you load up your songs, disconnect it and then it will scan and index files and make a random list.

The weird thing is that I cannot understand how it sorts files. It's as if this player plays songs in a completely random order.

Other features

You can view pictures/record voice/listen to FM radio.

To load pictures, you have to use convert software that comes with the box. It automatically scales down your pictures and creates thumbnails.

Stability

Samsung YP-25 crashed from time to time, not to mention it crashed after 5 minutes I started using.

However, Sandisk Sansa e250 has yet to crash on me.

Overall

I am simply loving it. Finally, I've got the player I wanted. The ease of file transfer is what I wanted while having an Ipodnano-like player.

Hope you enjoyed this review.

Thanks.

Edited April 22, 2006 by kakari

[black.ops]

The new firmware fixes the song sorting problem. I suggest you try that out. ;)

[Rock-Lee]

Sweet

[dailyplanet]

Nice review! The Sansa E250 wouldn't happen to work on a Mac would it?

[kakari]

The new firmware fixes the song sorting problem. I suggest you try that out. ;)

I tried 012 firmware from Sandisk website. It still sorts files in a weird way.

Nice review! The Sansa E250 wouldn't happen to work on a Mac would it?

In USB drive mode, it will work as long as the machine can support USB.

[Scirwode]

That's a good review. I do however have a few questions. Does it display Album Art when it plays a song and if so is the picture quality good. Can you also provide an image of the player playing a song with Album Art? Thank you :blush: .

PSG22

[kakari]

That's a good review. I do however have a few questions. Does it display Album Art when it plays a song and if so is the picture quality good. Can you also provide an image of the player playing a song with Album Art? Thank you :blush: .

PSG22

Hello, if album art is available, it does display. In nornal mode, it displays a small tiny album art above song's name. You are, however, able to click and switch to full view where the album arts scales to the screen fully.

Here, two shots.

[Lazih3nri]

Good review. Going to buy this player when Newegg gets it.

Do all versions come with a leather bag? Because I'm planning to buy it in the US. What about the custom EQ? Did Sandisk release it in their newest firmware updates? If not, do you know if they do plan on releasing it?

Some sites say you can hear the clicking of the wheel when listening to the player, has it happen to you?

[chconline Veteran]

AFAIK theres a 4 band custom eq.

[kakari]

Do all versions come with a leather bag? Because I'm planning to buy it in the US. What about the custom EQ? Did Sandisk release it in their newest firmware updates? If not, do you know if they do plan on releasing it?

Some sites say you can hear the clicking of the wheel when listening to the player, has it happen to you?

The latest firmware is x.xxxxx.012. And , no, they have not added custom EQ yet and I don't know if they plan to or not.

Hear what? lol

Those guys must be super-sensitive. I can't hear a darn thing.

[Scirwode]

Thanks, it looks really nice. The Sansa E250 looks really good but I'm still leaning towards the Samsung YP-Z5. Maybe it's because my brother has a Samsung MP3 player and the sound quality of that player is really nice :laugh: . I was in urgent need of an MP3 player when my stupid low quality WEWA MP3 player broke but I've just got a Sony Ericsson K700i and I'm loving it :woot: . I might do a review of that phone though it is pretty old by now, 2 years in fact. Thanks for the quick response :yes: .

PSG22

[Martyn]

I was really excited about this when I first saw the plans for it last December. But after reading various reviews it still seems very good but I think I will stick to my W800i...

[aajvs99]

if it cant match the iPod's video capabilities then it cant kill the iPod

[chconline Veteran]

^^ Yeah, its like the Nano can play videos too...

[kakari]

Something to note.

While I did not notice this with Samsung YP-25, I am noticing this with Sansa E250.

Dust has been gathering up under the transparent 1.8inch plastic above the LCD.

I believe it's getting through the control which's a little loose by nature.

[chconline Veteran]

Dude its ZP-Z5...yes with a Z not a 2...

[Lazih3nri]

Something to note.

While I did not notice this with Samsung YP-25, I am noticing this with Sansa E250.

Dust has been gathering up under the transparent 1.8inch plastic above the LCD.

I believe it's getting through the control which's a little loose by nature.

I'm pretty sure they'll have something to prevent that... it's been happening to my phone alot these days.

If anything I'm sure you clean it yourself by taking it apart.... and wiping it. :whistle:

[zivan56]

I just ordered one of these from Futureshop, so I hope to get it soon. What is the frequency step for the FM mode? I travel to Europe frequently, but it looks like the FM Tuner is only for North America (the EU model does not have a tuner at all)

[zivan56]

Well it looks like the FM tuner supports North America, World, and Japan modes. The playing order of songs is really annoying, as it can only sort by ID tags or the order it generates by looking at the filenames. So even if you name songs 1 -xyz.mp3 2 - ssad.mp3 3 -sfgdfs.mp3. it will not go in that order.

[.Ali]

It would be better if you could post some more pics.

good review by the way :D

[zivan56]

^^ There are quite a few pics at this review site.

[somedude36584]

^^ Yeah, its like the Nano can play videos too...

yea but can the e250 play games like the nano?

[kaelsmith]

Im having problems with the e260 player. First of all after the "great lockup" it screwed mine up. The music folder is screwed. many of my songs got corrupted and some of them will freeze the player now. I cant format this player so i cant fix it because the music folder that is broken. The problem is that the music folder now has itself inside so i will loop over and over. so music > music > music > .... and so on. Now i have 4 unknown spotaneously created folders that wont open or delete paired with 4 unknown file types that wont delete. this is probably caused by the players lack of processing power, all i did was select a song and it locked up. Some of the music i deleted keeps reviving inside the player after reconnecting t pc, but the player itself doesnt know its there but on file browser its there. I heard some people are experiencing lock ups in some other forums too.

Other negatives i found.

1) it will always charge the battery when connected to pc, i heard that this will wear out the battery and thus rockbox are trying to make that an option.

2) some movie files will be converted with cracks and popping sounds. Probably high pitch

3) media converter is annoying, it hogs your pc power. freezes when u try to run something else

4) the MSC and MTP modes are annoying. for some like me who used other flash players its new and confusing. also because of this some drag-and-drop wont work. Such as player to Pc.

its a great player even though lang support is limited, until the "great lockup". My 3rd day with the player and its good as dead to me now.

As for games, none that i know of. But rockbox may add a game feature. I dont wana play games on this machine thou. THe side buttons are hard to press and thin compared to the one in the middle. Need to be pressed pretty hard too.

[HipHopaholic]

Sorry to resurrect, but how do i get album art to show on the sandisk 4gb e250? I know i have to use the media converter for the jpeg. But once i do that and play a song there is no album cover. The stock songs that came with the player had album art, but i accidently deleted the stock songs folder without looking at the structure of the folders.

[Smigit]

yea but can the e250 play games like the nano?

does it matter if it playes videos or games? neither are made to do this and would fall well behind a propper gaming system, its like mobile phones...who actually plays games on them? And with the amount of memory in these things videos really a big waste of space, better suited for the larger players with HD's. Neither features that important for an MP3 player at any rate, they spend more time in a pocket than not.

edit:hmm sorry this is months old, but dont blame me i didnt res it :p