Hi Tapeworm, JK98 and anyone else.
To the poster, these units are a small piece of technology. With no disrespect to you - treat it for what it is. I do agree with you. Yes there are legitimate gripes about customer service.
JK98 - I recently joined ABI and read some of your posts. I have some of your same interests. (replaceable battery)
Since this is the “anything goes be kind forum”, I would like to voice my observation with SanDisk / Sansa.
For the $$$, they put out a pretty decent product. What I fail to understand is the direction they took with the players.
I just received a new c240 I purchased for cheap thru Amazon. The firmware upgrade went off without a hitch. Fortunately, it is a v1 which means I can Rockbox it. That will of course enable larger micro sd cards and I believe the ability to play vorbis files.
I really am very new to this mp3 player scene, and after purchasing some 8GB Fuze’s, a new “old” e130, e280 and now this c240, for me the c200 series is perfect.
Back to SanDisk / Sansa direction. I am at the end of the “baby boomer” generation. My parents were depression era folks, and growing up, it was quite hard to understand what they were talking about at the dinner table. I am for now fortunate enough to have a secure job with a decent salary. With everything going on around us, I now understand my childhood dinner conversations. I bought the SanDisk products for one reason. They were the innovator of flash media. With the C & E 200 series, I believe SanDisk was at the front of the competition. A decent product was put out, with the ability to change the battery, and in theory, if taken care of should last a long time.
With the Clip and Fuze, came planned obsolescence.
With the state of the economy GLOBALLY, people, if not already doing so, are not going to be so fast to spend their money on “throw away” items.
Chrysler, before Lee Iacocca, almost went down the tubes. GM is in serious trouble. It would be nice to see SanDisk go back to their leadership role, and stop worrying / copying other manufacturers. Improve the build and functions, add more longevity to products like the C & E series, and sell their flash products at a competitive price and let the competition try to copy them.
Time to get off the soap box. Good luck to everyone navigating through these uncertain times.
Mike