The sound may not be the best around, and some prefer chrome to black
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Here we have another one that you can't say with the mouth full, and maybe not even in one breath. Try it ... SanDisk Sansa C150 2 GB Black mp3 player.
It's a small, black mp3 player that also acts as a voice recorder. This seems to be true of a lot of the new-generation players flooding the market. The key now for the manufacturers, in this case Sandisk, is to develop a great-looking one with a good battery and great sound quality.
The first thing that comes to mind when you hold this, is the size of it, or lack of. It is ultra slim and quite shiny in appearance. There is a small colour TFT LCD screen (1.2in) and a circular wheel-like control for playing, rewinding etc. There is also a menu button. The design is very user friendly, in that it is easy to take around with you in your pocket without becoming intrusive and is large enough to see what the screen shows, and the buttons do.
The memory ----------------- There is a 2GB flash memory for this item, which is impressive considering the price (between £55 and £70 generally). It would be hard to put this down to an exact number of songs due to varying file formats and song lengths, but let's just say that a few hundred is a good estimate. The memory can be used to store thumbnails and also voice recordings. Bear this in mind before buying, as if you're a heavy user of all of these then you may fill up the space quickly.
File formats supported -------------------------------- The player will support MP3 and WMA/WMA-DRM 10 music files. MP3 is the standard format of most mp3 players hence the name, and is the one most commonly used online by pay to download services. The Windows Media Audio files are useful too in that you may have files on your pc that you'd rather not have to convert to a different format. You will find that the type of format used, and different types of songs will eat away at the memory by differing degrees. You'll get to know what affects what upon use and you can easily delete, rename or resend files if you wish.
The screen ---------------- The 1.2inch screen is sufficient to see what you need, although I do feel it could have been a littlle brighter. The C150 has no problems showing album covers when listening to songs, and this makes it all the more satisying. If someone asks what song you're listening to you can show them the album art rather than read. They may remember the album cover but not the name!
The battery --------------- You can get up to 15 hours playback time from the product which is actually pretty good. This is due to the small screen and the amount of storage. This should therefore get you through most car, bus or train journeys. And plane journeys if you're allowed to take it onboard. And boat journeys...the list goes on and on of the times when this may be very useful. The battery used is just one single AAA battery. Again, this is user friendly and involves less fiddling around.
The sound --------------- The sound quality is good but not great. For most this will be as good as needed, but for some people who want louder music than this offers, and maybe a crisper audio from the voice recorder then this may not suffice. I look at it as having good quality sound, and an above average quality voice recorder as a handy extra. Lovers of loud music may want to ask if you can sample before buying and see what you think.
Transferring from a PC to the device ---------------------------------------------------- You will need a Windows XP or above in order to do all of the transferring via the CD and USB cable supplied with the player. At least that is according to the manual. You plug the USB cable into a spare USB port on your laptop or PC and then send the files via that to the mp3 player. The USB cable works particularly quickly and so you should find it quick and easy to transfer dozens of songs from your computer.
The manual comes in handy here if you struggle, and I'd advise reading it before use anyways just in case there's something you may be missing out on. You want to be sure of getting the most of every feature.
I like the device, and it is easily becoming hard to decipher what the best of anything is anymore, especially with gadgets and other electricals. What this device has in its favour is the long battery life, the voice recorder and the ease of use. What it doesn't have in its favour is possibly the colour. More people seem to want a chrome silver finish these days, although it is true to say that the black will show up less dirt.
The prices will vary from place to place, but usually range from £55 upwards. It's worth trying to sample the player before parting with your money though, just to be absolutely sure that the quality is right for you and that you are able to use it quickly and efficiently.
I wouldn't sniff at having this as a stocking filler, and neither would most people for that matter. Certainly worth a look.
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Good
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