Sound Quality

Regardless of the issues with the construction and screen of the c150, it's the sound quality by which it will live and die, and the results here are mixed. The sound quality is clear, even with the supplied ear buds, but the volume range isn't spectacular, nor is the bass. Play anything with drums beating and you will notice the lack of oomph more than anything in the song itself.

I also noticed an ever-present background hissing noise, both with and without the supplied ear buds. If I had to put it down to anything then I'd say the AAA battery might have something to do with that. The hissing is not noticeable all the time, but if you play classical music, in particular, then it will become an ever-present annoyance.

The sound quality is lacklustre on recordings from both the microphone and the FM radio, stored at only 32 kbps WAV. If you happen to touch the player while recording on the microphone you will get a lot of noise from buttons jangling about and so on. This negates the usefulness of the recording feature in all but the most dire of circumstances.

In Conclusion

Depending on the type of AAA batteries you use, you should be able to get up to 20 hours of life out of the c150. With the supplied alkaline batteries we managed 14 hours, but that was without interaction on the colour screen. In reality you might get 12 or 13 hours.

In all, the Sansa c150 players are acceptable, if you're in a bind. Given the wide availability of players within the price category, however, I'd rather look around a little harder than buy one of these.