Thursday, April 19, 2007

Sansa e250 media player


Yesterday I was listening to Bob Seger as I was out surveying and stooped to look into a storm sewer pipe. I was beside a busy highway and couldn't hear anything but 'Beautiful Loser" when my sound went dead. It was only out for a moment and blared again in my brain before ultimately dying again. I removed the buds from my ears and looked in my pocket to see if my battery had gone dead but there was no player. It was then that I realized the other end of the earphone wires was in about a foot of water and had been there for probably 20-30 seconds, fully immersing my player. When I pulled it out the colored screen was black but the backlight on the selector dial was lit and it wouldn't turn off. I took it to our truck and put it in a shaded but warm place on the dashboard and continued to work. It somehow shut itself off or ran out of battery or something while I was working. About six hours after it was immersed I powered it up and the colored screen appeared, it allowed me to select a song and appeared to be playing it but no signal came through the buds. I left it overnight, altogether about 24 hours from when I first immersed it, with its back removed and battery removed. Upon putting it together and attaching it via USB it powered up normally and operated normally. I charged it fully then gave it the final test, I selected a song, raised the volume to max and felt the music vibrate through the buds in my hand. I seldom give reviews on things and I bought this a year ago when it was giving the ultimate bang for the buck but I didn't expect it to be so durable. I've dropped it from 5 feet onto rocks in Alaska, left it on the dashboard in 90 degree heat, sat on it while it was in my back pocket, and used it in 10 degree cold. It has proven the most durable piece of electronics I've ever owned. For the same price I bought mine a year ago you can have 3 times the storage but I'm not disappointed.

2 comments:

Steve Coan said...

Always great to hear some good news about technology. I've had nothing but bad all week.

But I'm heartened by this. I have this exact same device (mine is 8 GB, I think it's the same). I've enjoyed it, too. But I think the worst I've done is drop it, and I have the rubber case.

3 cheers for Sansa!!!

I actually refer to mine as my jpod. Maybe you do, too.

sam said...

they are the same. I like the jpod but no I have just called it my "player thing" most of the time. Mine has a small chip in the corner of the glass front and its plenty scratched. I never had it in a rubber case, couldn't find one when I bought it and I've dropped it so many times I don't think I need one now. Another thing I did to it when I was in Alaska was plug it into a solar charger that had a USB port with the wrong voltage. It really hurt it and I thought I heard it scream as it went dead but I did a cold boot on it after it cooled off and it came back.

I think its built for the Kingdom ;)