I am probably one of the last people I know to have upgraded my personal listening system from CD to MP3. Quite honestly this is one technology area where I have refused to jump in immediately simply because audio equipment is notoriously overpriced when it hits the market. I was thinking back about just how much I spent for my first “Walkman” cassette player. The outrageous price for this no archaic piece of technology was $99.00. I knew the time to step up to MP3 had come when I noticed that CD players were being offered as promotional products at a recent trade show I attended. While I loved being hooked up with a free CD player I questioned how a company could afford to give away these products in massive amounts.

Since it had been years since I purchased a CD player I decided to investigate the going rate and found a number of options available at less than $10.00. Considering my present CD player came with a price tag of well over $150.00 it was all to clear technology was yet again passing my by. I am now on a quest to find the perfect MP3 player and am giving serious consideration to the SanDisk SDMX4-2048-A70 Sansa e250 2 GB MP3 Player with microSD Expansion Slot. At under $100.00 this seems like a great way to step into the world of MP3.

These are the technical details for this version of the Sansa:
Model number: SDMX4-2048
Memory capacity: 2 GB
Memory type: Flash memory
External memory: Micro SD card slot
Audio file format: MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM10 (PlaysForSure), WAV
Hours of music content: 32 hours
Still image file format: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, GIF
Video format: AVI, MPEG-1/MPEG-2 in MPEG, MPG, MPE/VOB (unprotected), MPEG-4 in AVI format, DAT, ASF, QuickTime MOV (QuickTime 6.5 or higher required), WMV (Windows Media Player 9 or 10.0 required)
Tuner type: Digital FM tuner
Tuner memory: 20
Display: 1.8-inch TFT color LCD display
Power supply: Rechargeable lithium ion battery, user replaceable (included), USB charging
Battery life: Up to 20 hours
Connectors: Headdphone jack, USB 2.0 port
Microphone: Built-in microphone
FM recording: Supported
Voice recording: Supported
Microsoft PlaysFor Sure: Supported
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP SP1; Windows Media Player 10+; Intel Pentium PC or equivalent; CD-ROM drive; available USB 2.0 port for hi-speed transfer
Dimension: 3.5 x 1.74 x 0.56 inches (WxHxD)
Weight: 2.7 ounces
Warranty: 1-year limited warranty

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