Customer Reviews

SanDisk Sansa Clip 4 GB MP3 Player (Silver)

5 star:		(170)
4 star:		(73)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

I was leaving my bulky 80 gig video iPod at home all the time because it was just too large to comfortably stick in my pocket. I wanted something small that I could use for both music and audio books (I use Audible.com).

It has achieved that and a LOT more. I never even use my iPod at home anymore! I'm actually thinking of returning it (Costco gives cash back forever) and buying four or five of these to give away as gifts!

I initially bought a shuffle and returned it the same day because it had no way of bookmarking in my audio books-- a chapter is often more than an hour.

Next I bought the smallest Sony Walkman mp3 player... it was very sexy and sleek, and about twice the size of the Sansa clip... but I couldn't load my Audible.com files onto it, so that was returned the next day.

After what seemed like a full week spent in BestBuy I finally settled on the Sansa 4GB Clip and could not be happier.
It's ridiculously small, AND (unlike the iPod shuffle) it has a display. I don't know about you all, but bookmarks aside, not being able to choose a song now and then, or confirm who is performing one when I am unsure, that would drive me crazy!

It is PERFECT for my Audible content. It actually asks when you first hook it up to the PC if you want to sync with Audible Manager. You can also simply go to the Audible Manager and "add device" and follow the steps to activate the Sansa. That way you can just add the specific books you want and not attempt to sync your entire library if you have a lot. I've been a member of Audible.com for nearly ten years and getting two books a month you can imagine the size of my library by now.

I loaded five large unabridged books (average ten hours each) and then nearly 1000 songs and I still have plenty of space left to add more as the spirit hits. Transferring files to the Sansa is VERY smooth and fast. Best of all, it resumes where you left off in a book when you turn it off.

There are other nifty "extra" features, as well! The FM radio is pretty special, and I get excellent reception both in San Francisco and out in the sticks around Santa Rosa and Sebastopol. Even near the airport! Pretty impressive for such a tiny thing, huh?

It has a voice recorder that I have not really tested out properly, but i know it works, just from speaking into it. I will try to record a lecture or some other more demanding application before giving the recorder feature the same accolades I have bestowed upon the rest of the amazing little player.

A lot of people have posted excellent, detailed reviews, and I agree with almost all they have said, so I'll try not to repeat it all.

I will just say that I LOVE THIS LITTLE DEVICE!

It's tiny. Yes, it is almost twice the size of the ipod shuffle, but seriously, still small enough to put in the "key pocket" of Levi's 501s (you know, the tiny useless pocket inside the right hip pocket).

It has good sound, easily on par with my video ipod. If you replace the earphones with something better it has the potential of VERY good sound.

So, how does it compare to the iPod shuffle? For only $20 more this has:
~ four times the capacity
~ a visual display
~ a voice recorder
~ an FM receiver
~ drag and drop functionality in both PC or Mac format (no iTunes or other software needed)
~ standard USB cable, so easily replaced.
~ can be rapid charged using the same AC (wall) or 12v (car) adapters that came with my Motorola RAZR phone!
~ can be used as a regular portable drive (like a thumb drive) for any data
~ seamless Audible.com audio books loading and listening
~ clip on the back is removable, if you don't want to use it, making it even smaller

One poster complained that it was "Difficult to tell when it is fully charged - I charged it for 5 hours and didn't see any indication that it was fully charged yet"

I found the same thing happening, the first time I charged it right out of the box it took several hours using the USB cable. Later, much by accident I stumbled upon this: when it is plugged in to your computer (I use a PC, not sure if this will work on a MAC), right-click on the Sansa drive icon and choose PROPERTIES, it will tell you the % of the battery charge.

I also discovered the car and wall chargers from my Motorola RAZR phone work for it, and MUCH faster than the USB cable. When charging I also found that when I unplugged it from the cable I had to power the Sansa off and back on to see the battery indicator register the "full" status.

Hope that helps.

The Sandisk Sansa Clip accomplishes all that I wanted in an MP3 player which I intended to use at work, to use while riding on the subway and to use while working out at the gym.

Pros:
- Small, compact, light-weight, and better looking than pictured (as is the case with the 1MB, 2MB and 4MB versions). The 4MB has a very cool, beautiful mirrored finish. But I would recommend you buy a silicone case or something to protect this finish and the player itself.
- Crisp, bright display but as mention in other reviews, because of the mirrored finish it can be a bit hard to see in the sunlight
- The clip in the back, hence the name, which makes it easy to attach the player onto your pockets, an armband, or anywhere you want to clip this unit.
- Awesome sound coming out of this little player. The better the headphones you attach the better the sound. But even with the included headphones, very nice sound.
- Better value than the 4MB iPod nano that I was considering purchasing. Way more features and most importantly, it has a radio. Not sure why after all these years Apple never seemed fit to put FM tuners on their players.
- I like that there's a mute button for the radio as opposed to having to turn the volume all the way down.
- There's radio broadcast recording.
- A voice recorder
- The unit has an on-the-go playlist. You can compile all your favorite songs at an instant.
- You can drop and drag songs and create playlists right onto the player itself. You don't have to use another program such as iTunes or Winamp. You will find out once you get the Sandisk Sansa Clip that Sandisk recommends that you use the Rhapsody player program, which you can download and use for free and works best for editing the songs and playlists on the unit.

Just another note about creating playlists on the Sansa Clip. I found through trial and error that it's best to first create playlists on the unit itself, meaning when the player shows up in My Computer on your desktop, double click on it and add songs to your Music folder, then select and right click on the particular songs you want to make a playlist. Click the option to "Create Playlist". By default, you will see, "New Playlist" in your Music folder. When you double click on it, you will see all your songs you made into a playlist. You can rename "New Playlist" to whatever you want ex. Playlist 1. You then cut and paste your newly created playlist to the Playlist folder. This method is preferable rather than doing it through programs such as Rhapsody, Windows Media Player, or Winamp. In my experience, when doing it with these programs the playlists either didn't display correctly or didn't show up at all. Once your playlists have been created successfully on the unit then you can go into Rhapsody(recommended) or any other MP3 player program and edit or add songs to your playlists.

Cons:
- For some reason certain songs are unable to show up on the list of songs on the playlists I create even though they are on the unit. In other words, say you put, "Elvis - Heartbreak Hotel" onto the player and that's in "Playlist 1", the song will be there and you will be able to play it, however when you look through the list of songs in "Playlist 1", all you see is a blank space where the artist and title should be. Even when I edit the tags and type in the artists and titles of the songs, it still doesn't display. This can be a problem when you are looking for a particular song via the list. Strangely though, when you are playing the songs within the playlist and you manually scan through the songs, the artist and title that was not being displayed before shows up. I haven't figured out why this happens. Very weird.
- As far as design and function, I think it would be easier if the Power/Reset button slid down as opposed to up.
- As said by other reviewers, I don't like that the volume toggle switch is under the headphone port. The headphone plug gets in the way. If the headphone port was at the top of the unit, this wouldn't be a problem. Because of the location of the headphone port, having headphones plugged in and sticking out increases the width of the player.

Overall, even with the minor gripes I have, the Sandisk Sansa Clip is a solid MP3 player and a great value for the price.

I'm a big fan of the Sansa Clip. I have a few of them, some I have my workout music on and one I use to take notes. At CES in January 2008, Sandisk has introduced this new 4GB version in a limited addition silver color. The Sansa Clip was a great value in 2GB; at 4GB it ROCKS! It has four times the capacity as the iPod Shuffle for about the same price. It also has a screen, FM Tuner, voice recording and more. You can get the 1GB version for $35 Sansa Clip 1 GB MP3 Player or the 2GB for about $60 SanDisk SDMX11R-2048K-A70 Sansa Clip 2 GB MP3 Player (Black). But by coming out with the first 4GB clip MP3, Sandisk has raised the bar. Now with MacWeek next week, can a bigger iPod shuffle be far behind? We'll see.

Pros -
+ good sound
+ nice capacity for a decent price
+ light-weight
+ FM tuner with 40 presets!!!
+ voice recording
+ nice design and color options
+ Nice format compatibility (MP3, DRM WMA, WMA, Audible)
+ USB 1.1 and 2.0 connectivity
+ Can be used as a USB drive / mass storage
+ Can sync music with drag & drop or via software
+ 15 hours battery life is better than Creative Zen Stone Plus or iPod Shuffle

Cons
- larger body than the 2nd and 3rd generation iPod shuffles

The new Sandisk Sansa Clip has the advantages of the iPod shuffle with some of the compatibility, feature, and price benefits of other MP3 players. Unlike the Sansa Express, which you can plug in directly into your USB port, the clip uses a standard USB B cable.

The Clip is definitely a little bigger than the iPod shuffle, but not by much. It has a great feel and a nicer clip. It is also priced right. It fills the market for a starter MP3, workout unit, or gift.

The rechargable battery seems better than the Creative Zen Stone Plus and gives you a respectable 15 hours. The sound is nice. The earbuds are passable for beginners but most people will replace them. As for durability, only time will tell; so far my units are holding up nicely.

I definitely recommend the larger sizes, whether 2GB or 4GB. For those needing more space, you will have to explore the CreativeZen, Sandisk Sansa, Sansa View or new iPod Nano. All of those units have higher price tags.
SanDisk Sansa View 8 GB MP3 Player
SanDisk Sansa View 16 GB MP3 Player
Creative Zen 8 GB (Black)
Creative Zen 16 GB (Black)
SanDisk SDMX4-8192 Sansa e280 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)
Apple 8 GB iPod nano AAC/MP3 Player Black (3rd Generation)

Overall, an awesome starter unit that deserves a try. Enjoy!!!

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).

First off, it's really great, the sound is very good, the price very fair. I tried as best I could to compare it against my PC with a top notch audio card playing through an HK amp, and couldn't detect a difference, but that could be related to the medium. And, do you think they can make these things any smaller? Kidding, but actually I could do without the "clip". I had no problem with the FM, programmed it in less than a minute, it even picks up the college station about ten miles away. Of course, FM in Seattle isn't worth a cup of warm p**s anyway.

Okay, minor gripe number one. The earphone output is in the wrong place for offset plugs, they rotate around and cover the volume rocker. Probably not an issue for other brands, but my UE's (love 'em) cost 4 times the player, so it should be the one to conform! Very minor gripe.

Minor gripe number two is that it's a pain passing over my Winamp playlists, which I've spent years and years assembling. You can do it, but it's hardly drag and drop. Curses, but of course that could be Winamp's issue, eh? Oh well, I need to spend a few weeks with a tag editor anyway to recast the mp3's for my Samsung phone, so no biggie, it will be fun. Yeah.

Anyway, great player, very easy to use, took all of five minutes to get some songs on it and play. For 4GB, gotta be the state of the art right now, unless you want to be in the clutches of Evil Empire Jr. (Apple).

PS: Look for the dual charger/silicone case package here, great deal and the clear case works perfectly, it's on there for good.

PPS: Okay, two more minor gripes with two redacted. First, yeah, you can't read the bloody screen outside. That's more annoying than I thought it would be.

Second, 4GB turns out to be too small. Yes, I would like to have my total music collection on my fingernail, but 4GB is what I paid for and 4GB is what I got, so this gripe isn't even fair. Anyway, I'll redact this gripe because of the superior ease of moving subdirectories in and out of the "music" folder through the PC. I haven't even bothered with my Winamp playlists, so I'll redact that gripe as well. I just copy files into new directories on the PC, hit them with a tag editor, and kazaam, instant Clip playlists that can be moved in wholesale. That's just fine, applause to the Sansa software people, who got that right.

PPPS: A word of explanation regarding Clip music organization. There are three ways to access music aside from playlists, and in fact I find myself using "artist" the most often, fits my mood. If you use "artist" it will break up the songs into "albums" automatically. Therefore, in tagging a directory for the Clip, plan accordingly. For example, my goth playlist is best tagged with "goth" in both the "artist" and "album" tags, which is trivial with something like MP3tag. You could also use the useless "genre" tag as a quasi playlist via tag editor. That's not how you want your archived music tagged of course, it loses information, which is why I keep a separate set of Clip subdirectories. Additional hard disk space (so?), but you want to trim your archive anyway to save space on the player. Very rarely will you listen to all the songs archived for an artist, usually you just go with your favorites. Anyway, you can go simple or complex to please yourself - freedom of choice, I like that.

This is a great player for the athelete. The clip seems quite solid and should stand up over time clipped to your shirt/belt for exercise (within reason, it's still plastic folks). While it is bigger than the iPod shuffle, it has 4 GBytes and does not require iTunes (and associated mandated QuickTime security exploit vectors) and has a lot more functions. (Playlist, settings, repeat one/all, specific folders, etc).

I use Linux, flawless operation. Plug it in, screen comes up asking if you want Amarok to control the player and you are done. I haven't had the chance to run the battery down because I am still adding music, but several hours the battery indicator still showed 100%.

Pro's
Easy to use, playlists are not that hard to create, small size, built in clip, essentially weightless (this won't add to your mile time, lol). At least with Linux (don't use Windows, others comment?), it works exactly as a flash storage device, so you can carry your Music (organised by Amarok) as well as your pictures, files, etc.

Con's
Well, always true, the included headphones are "adequate", but using my upgraded in ear headphones.
Volume with upgraded headphones is good, however, if using with an FM transmitter, get a good rated one, because a low power transmitter with this might mean low radio volume.

Neutral
It comes with a 5" (or so) USB cable, so it dangles from the front of my desktop, without reaching the desk, but again, it is so light, this won't be a problem. If, however, you need to attach to the back of your machine, the included cable will be a pain.

TripleII

I got the Sansa Clip 4GB because I was flying coast-to-coast and didn't want to suffer through airline "entertainment".

I was looking for:
- MP3 player
- DRM-free!
- small size
- 2+GB capacity
- standard USB interface
- $100 budget

I was NOT looking for:
- video (I'm not watching video on a 3" screen)
- proprietary interface / docking station

Based on the choices and ratings, I went with the Sandisk Sansa Clip 4GB:
- all requirements met
- best GB/$ ratio

Having owned this for a couple months, I'm extremely pleased with this unit. In my opinion, Sandisk delivered more than what I paid for:
- *great* sound!
- responsive firmware updates
- FM and recording features
- podcast / audiobook support
- 600+ high-bitrate extended play MP3s

I am very pleased with my purchase and happily recommend the Sansa Clip 4GB.

This little player was a big surprise to me. Have you ever seen a super tiny electronic device that seems to do more than is possible for it's tiny size? Well, this certainly fits into that category. To illustrate how tiny this thing is, the size of the circular dial on the front of it (the blue glowing circle) is slightly smaller than a quarter. The player itself is super thin too. So here are a few more reasons why this player is amazing:

Pros:
-Super Tiny and Thin
-Sound quality is great
-Built in Radio
-Built in Microphone
-Built in Clip (hence the name) and perfect for jogging
-Super bright 2 color Led Screen (it's probably organic LED)
-Plug & Play (at least it was for me)... just like a USB drive
-Long lasting internal battery (my guess is at least 8 hours play time)
-Charges through standard Mini-usb to USB cable.
-Amazing price for all the features it includes.

Cons:
I honestly don't have anything bad to say about this player, and I swear that I don't work for Sandisk. I kind of collect MP3 players and also own the Creative Zen Vision and Zen Muvo^2.

Conclusion: If you are thinking about buying an Ipxd shuffle or replacing your shuffle, this player is perfect for your needs and is so much better than a shuffle. It is easier to use, has more features, and sounds better! Not to mention it also has a LED screen. Plus, you don't have to deal with Itunes. Just plug this baby in, drag some songs from your computer and you're done. And yes, it does have a "Shuffle" play mode which includes "Repeat tracks" or "Play once" options. This little player really is a marvel of modern tech... I hope someday they will sell one with 60GB of memory. Now that... would Rock! For now, they only come in 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB... I think.

Perhaps this is a reason why it's better to not buy a *new* product until the manufacturer has had time to work out the kinks. I have only owned my Sansa 4G Clip for a few short weeks now and it has already stopped working. It will not turn-on, charge, or do anything for that matter. I am now forced to deal with Sandisk and exercise whatever "limited warranty" rights that I have (which requires me to pay for shipping to send it back to Sandisk, among other things) in the hopes of getting the product replaced with a working one. I still have an older m-series model that works off of an AAA battery, so it's hard to understand what Sandisk has done wrong between the m-series and the newer Clip models, but clearly there are problems with this product that are yet to be sorted out.
UPDATE: I contacted Sandisk and they had a procedure for reseting the Sansa that made it start working again, wtih all of my music still on it. So, for now, I'm not having to deal with their limited warranty.

I got this mainly to listen to audiobooks (mostly Audible) and free podcasts from itunes. It is very easy to use. I just have to copy and paste to get the podcasts onto the player. The pause, rewind and fast forward buttons are easy to use (unlike with my previous Creative player). It is also easy to scroll through the folders (my husband's Samsung player is difficult to scroll through). It comes with bookmarks for items placed in the Podcast and Audiobook folders. You just have to pause your book or podcast and the bookmark sets automatically. When you come back to it, you will be given the option to either resume or restart. It is that easy. I think this player would be easy to use for people who aren't tech savvy. I've had it for 4 months now and have had no problems with it.