Great for a Newbie

I received this mp3 player as a gift, and I don’t have much to compare it to since this is my first one.
The mp3 player came with some songs pre-loaded, and surprisingly a few of them were actually decent. One particular one was by a band Umphree Mcghee, whose old CD I happen to own. This is a tiny mp3 player and easily fits into my pocket when I go for my morning jog. One nice feature is that there is a hold button, and if you flip it and then accidentally hit one of the controls, nothing happens.

The mp3 player comes with a decent set of ear phones that are fairly comfortable and durable, and an AAA battery which the player uses. It also comes with a USB cord to plug into your computer.
When you plug the device to synchronize with your computer, it syncs automatically with Windows XP, and if you are lucky enough to have USB 2.0 it is also USB 2.0 capable, so you can upload songs to it much faster.

I also purchased a car adapter to go along with this (only 6 bucks including the shipping), and use it to play music in my car through my cassette deck, and it sounds great.
Windows Media Player allows you to synchronize with the mp3 player by loading an existing playlist, building a new one, or even just placing your favorite songs that you play most often on it automatically, which is a great feature that I use often.

As far as playing and switching between songs, this is how the player is set up. You can go to music and play all the songs on the player, all the songs by a particular artist, a genre, or set up (or pre-load) a playlist. You can also just search through all the songs, but that is not something that I found useful, per se.

There is also a radio feature that picks up a fair amount of radio stations around the city, including some ones with fairly weak signals. You can preset favorites for the radio stations, as well as record songs that you enjoy and listen to them later. However, new models of this mp3 player allow you to have it work in your car without having to plug anything in by going straight to your car stereo.
You can also play James Bond with the recording feature. The mp3 player allows you to record yourself, or whatever else is going on around you with three clicks (it would be nice to make a shortcut, but maybe that is in the bit more of a higher end model).

Me being a huge klutz, I tend to look at durability when it comes to anything electronic. And so far, this little thing is withstanding even my assault. I have dropped it numerous times in the past two month, and the SanDisk is working just fine, so it is definitely durable.

The screen is a nice little color screen, which is both an advantage and a drawback. It is nice to have the color screen, but it also draws more battery life than a similar model with a black and white screen. One option is to change how fast the screen goes dark, which can be regulated in the menu.

Overall, this is a good mp3 player, especially for a newbie who is just discovering the great and miraculous world of this. It is also great for doing any type of physical activity, whether it be running or working in the yard. The headphones that come with it fit well and do not fall out.

I don’t have much to compare to yet, but it has served all my needs and exceeded my expectations in its usability, compact size, and durability.