SanDisk Sansa Clip 4 GB MP3 Player (Silver)
by SanDisk
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Our Price: $69.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $36.98 (click here) Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Sansa Clip 4 GB MP3 Player (Silver)
Customer Review: From an Audible.com user
Summary: 4 Stars
So far, the best choice for me when it comes to playing books from Audible.com has proven to be a 4-gig IPod Nano 3G. Simple, elegant and easy to use. That went into the shop, however, so I did some research on a cheaper unit to use as a backup.
I listen mostly to books from Audible.com, so that determined my key needs, which include:
1-Has to play Audible.com files, preferably format 3. Sansa Clip does.
2-Has to have adequate storage and batter power for about 10+ hours of playing time. The 4gB version is just fine for this.
3-MUST have a sleep shut down. It does, and this is actually more flexible than the Nano's feature.
4-Selecting a book via the menus must be quick and easy. A bit more of a hassle than on the Nano, but still pretty quick and easy.
Drawbacks are about what you'd expect... the clip falls off often and easily when the Sansa Clip is in your pocket; the earphones that come with it are a joke, but easily replaced. I hated the Apple headphones, too, BTW. They kept falling out. No wall charger or protective case, but they're available from third party vendors. I got mine here on Amazon and they seem to do the job.
For the price, Sansa Clip is a good choice. For the best overall, I've gotta stick with the iPod as my main unit, but Sansa Clip is still a great backup or primarry unit if you're anti-Apple for some reason.
Customer Review: Bookmarks, please
Summary: 3 Stars
Pros -
* It's well-built and durable. I've had a bunch of Creatives, which were easier to use, but they all crapped out mechanically or electronically in three to six months.
* The clip is a great idea. Contrary to other reviews, it's solid and durable.
* Battery life seems fine to me, but I play mostly at low volume, and I've never actually measured it.
Cons -
* No bookmarks. I listen to podcasts in bed while drifting off to sleep. With my Creatives, I got in the habit of setting a bookmark every few minutes. If I nodded off, I could easily go back and pick up pretty close to where I was when last awake. With the Clip, all you can do is wade through a fairly awkward menu and set a sleep timer for, say, 10 minutes (After 1 year,I still can't do this in the dark, my benchmark for good design). If you manage to stay awake for longer than that, the thing shuts off and you have to laboriously repeat the process. And, when you wake up, now you have to manually rewind ten minutes to be sure you haven't missed anything. Plus, sometimes you just want to bookmark a specific spot in the file for future reference.
* There's no "play one song / podcast and then stop" mode.
I realize that I may not use my player the way others do, but how hard can it be to write firmware that allows these simple features?
Customer Review: A few hiccups, but overall a great player
Summary: 4 Stars
I spent hours upon hours comparing mp3 players before finally buying the 4gb version of the Sansa Clip player a few weeks ago, and decided to try it out for a while before reviewing it. Overall it's a great player for the price range, offering a lot of storage space, an efficient, intuitive interface, and good sound quality. I listen to it mostly through the speakers in my car, which aren't the best, but I've noticed that some of the higher frequencies tend to be kind of sharp and actually a bit painful when the volume is turned up, a problem I never noticed with other players. Also, as some other reviewers have said, the volume does have to be turned up pretty high to get much out of it, which could potentially decrease your running time between recharges. The screen can be hard to see in direct sunlight, as others have pointed out, but I've always been able to just shield it with my hand and see it well enough to make my selections. Finally, I was listening to it while mowing my lawn one day, and the clip actually fell off the player and got lost. However, I e-mailed Sansa's technical support about it, and they promptly sent me a free replacement clip, which is pretty great customer service. Basically, it's got a few hiccups, but if you're looking for a solid player in the less than $100 price range, the Sansa Clip offers the most bang for your buck.Customer Review: Great player despite a couple of issues
Summary: 4 Stars
Pros:
-It's tiny yet still has a display, albeit a basic one
-Holds a lot of music, especially for its size
-Clip is convenient for the gym
-Pretty eye-catching with that 2-way mirror reflective coating
-Drag and drop file transfer (no software--i.e. iTunes--needed)
-USB cord is of the same type as my Canon digital camera, in case I ever lose it
-Amazing sound quality (really--the sansa clip line has garnered accolades from audiophiles)
Cons:
-That sexy reflective coating? There's a trade off: it makes viewing the screen pretty much impossible outdoors on any but the dreariest day. There's supposedly a firmware update coming out soon to make the display brighter so as to counter this effect, but I doubt it can be remedied completely
-Poor FM reception, even in the big city
-could go a little louder (though you can tweak the EQ settings for this)
I love this little thing and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a small mp3 player with a high capacity. It does have a few shortcomings but, then again, at least it has a screen & FM Player, unlike another, very popular, more expensive small player. Also note that even though the navigation pad is round, it doesn't function as a scroll wheel; rather, its a 4-way directional with a center button (still works fine).
Customer Review: Unsuitable for audio books
Summary: 2 Stars
The Sansa Clip is an attractive unit with good sound quality, a fair user interface, reliable bookmarking, but is utterly unsuitable for audio books. This is because it cannot accommodate listening to a book disk-by-disk. If you just download an mp3 book, it will play in this order:
Disk 1 Track 1
Disk 2 Track 1
...
Disk 9 Track 1
Disk 1 Track 2
Disk 2 Track 2
etc.
This is not helpful. I asked Sansa support what I should do and they had 2 suggestions: (1) make a play list by hand, or (2) edit the track properties before downloading. Not being familiar with play lists, I chose the second path.
The editing consisted of changing every disk's album title to something distinct (Jaws D1, Jaws D2, etc). Then the player would play the entirety of D1, then stop. This is almost adequate.
Unfortunately, there are still two problems. (1) I have to manually restart at the beginning of every disk. This is especially difficult when driving. (2) The poor UI is maddening. There is no folder view. You can't really see which disk you're selecting because so little of the title is displayed.
San Disk has made some very poor design choices in this unit. To my knowledge, only San Disk has this problem. I'm returning my unit.