Sturgeon's Law

So if you are in the market for an mp3 player, let me recommend against a SanDisk (which, in my tired state, I just typed as SanDick). The player I bought from them in October crapped out earlier this month, and the response I first got from support with detailed temporary fix instructions, plus the note that that particular line of players had been discontinued, indicated to me it was a common problem.

The temporary fix was very temporary, and I wasn't really interested in running through 11 steps every time I wanted to turn the player on, so I asked for a warranty replacement. The authorization/return process was easy enough, but then they received the player over a week ago, noted they'd received it, and didn't bother to ship a new one or tell me when they would. In the course of trying to find out when a new one would ship, I discovered that (A) they have no support e-mail address on their entire site (!!!), at least for US clients, and (B) it's extremely difficult to make inquiries about a product once it's considered "closed," as my returned player was. I finally badgered them enough that they managed to ship the damn thing out today and inform me they had.

By contrast, when my iPod Shuffle (bad purchasing decision that now belongs to my brother) died, Apple support was very responsive, gave me easy instructions for return, and had my replacement to me virtually at the same time as I sent mine back.

I've also bought a Creative Labs mp3 player, so the SanDisk replacement will be my backup player. Man, I need a player at all times for my workouts.