OK, I'll bite. I actually got a Sansa c250 for $15 on clearance somewhere. Sure, the features sound great on paper, but it's pretty much the biggest piece of shit I've ever used. After using it, I can definitely understand how Apple has 75% of the MP3 player market. Let's see:
- the user interface is awful. A retarded 5-year-old could design a better interface. It's slow, buggy, confusing, featureless, and incredibly ugly. Buttons will randomly get pushed in your pocket, causing bad things to happen.
- the hardware sucks. It's large, chintzy, and really cheap-feeling.
- you pretty much have to look at the display to use it. Great if you are sitting at a desk. Not so great if you are say, running, or snowboarding, or whatever.
- the firmware sucks. The battery indicator doesn't work properly. The MP3 decoding sucks. ID3 tags do not get properly displayed. It takes 5 minutes to rebuild the database every time you plug it in the USB port to charge.
- the much-hyped FM tuner barely has any reception. If you walk around the room, you'll probably lose reception a few times.
Even with all of the iPod shuffle's shortcomings, there just isn't a price point at which the Sansa wins. I pretty much just threw the thing in the trash after playing with it for a couple of hours. If you paid the original price for it, you got seriously ripped off.