My mp3 player issues

In February, I bought a SanDisk Sansa e260 mp3 player at the Grinnell Super Wal-Mart. It was the first mp3 player I have ever bought and I really liked it. It's a flash player, like an iPod nano, except it has more features and a cheaper price tag. There are some minor gripes I have with it, like the lack of support for Asian characters in the English interface (I have a few songs that have some Chinese characters...if I had more, this would be an issue for me). However, overall, I was more than satisfied.

But, last week, I hit a snag. Like the iPod, the Sansa transfers songs from the computer and charges via a USB cable. One day, I was plugging in the player as usual when instead of plugging in smoothly, there was resistance. I unplugged it to find that two of the wires within the port had separated from the plastic ridge in the middle, leaving it looking like this:

I ended up contacting SanDisk via their support site. After a few exchanges they asked for some pictures of the player, which is why I have the picture above. They decided that they would replace the player. They gave me a three day delivery UPS shipping label to print out and use to send them back the player on June 12. I sent it that day. They received it on the 15th and sent the replacement on the 19th and I will be receiving it today and will update this post when it comes.

Update: I got my mp3 player today as expected. They sent a completely new mp3 player, which has some benefits and some downsides. The benefit is that it's new and shiny and is in really good shape. There were a few nicks on my old player, as you can see from the above picture. As well, I have a new pair of cheap headphones. I probably won't use them as I have a better pair of headphones from Sony (nothing noise canceling, but with better sound and better fit to my ear).

The downside is that I have to add all my songs back onto the player. This isn't a total disaster...it means that I can go back and look at what music I want on and what music I don't. Of course, I could go back what I had on my old player, since I do have it backed up on my external hard drive. However, that would take only a little less time, and I want to make sure some things are cleaned out.

Now, as for what I got. The new player had different packaging that went along with their "Lil' Monsta" marketing campaign. Here's a picture of the new packaging:

Contrast it with the old packaging:

Overall, I am happy to have an mp3 player again that is functional. I may say more later, but for now, I have to go to work.