It was the spring of 2007, March to be exact, when I made a purchase at best buy for a Sansa C200 MP3 player. Not too expensive and to me, not to difficult to adapt to the controls.

3 Weeks later while taking a 750 mile trip the left channel took a hike. As fate would have it, this was at the beginning of the journey.

Arriving in Arkansas I stopped at the first Best Buy, traded this back in and replaced it with a new model.

Fast forward 3 months. The left Channel stopped again. Now mind you this event both times was the Major point which forced me to return the player. Also encountered were skips in the music while playing and some other odd sound effects that typically could be fixed by formatting the player.

Walking out of Best Buy with Sansa C200 Number 3, this played well enough for the next 15 months.

PS, I did purchase the 2 year extended warranty. Glad I did.

Unlike the first two, the left channel; as well as the right continued to function. What started happening was the occasional music skip/silence in certain songs began becoming more occasional than occasionally. Certain songs would not even play!

I could take an unplayable song from the Sansa and put in on a computer and it would play perfectly and a format of the Sansa did not fix this problem. The same songs used to play fine, but now did not.

I take the Sansa to Best Buy and they call up get an RMA since this was a second return on a extended warrently. The first had none, it was in the 30 day window for returns.

Soon I'm walkingout of the Store with a Brand new Sansa Fuze 8Gb. Take it home and right out of the box its got issues. Turn the volume up to about 2/3's and the sound stutters and breaks up and higher it completely shuts down the sound output.

Soon I'm back at the store returning Sansa #4! I think that, what, with a fifth I should get one ethat works, well maybe or not quite.

Take player 5 home, test the volume thing works, I'm happy and I'm backon the road listening to my music.

Next day, the thing starts acting up like the first! Now it was left out in the sub zero cold, which should not effect it, but you just can't tell. After a bit of fussing I discover that it will play fine if I keep it warm.

No problem, I just take it in and out of the house as needed whan I'm traveling. Certain songs seem to exascerbate the break up at high volume levels, and I just work around those.

I find that the Fuze apparently need time to adjust to its new owner. After I have it for a week plus, I noticed that its now working fine when it has been left out in the cold. Its now playing the same songs that would break up the sound, perfectly fine.

I never knew these things could be so fussy. I'd expect this from a cat, not an MP3 Player!

So How long will the 5th one last? Don't care, when it goes, I'm trading it for a Sony.