A few months ago, Dave reviewed the SanDisk Sansa Clip MP3 Player and gave it a thumbs up. As we all know, time does not stand still in the world of gadgets, even for a few months. SanDisk has recently updated their Sansa Clip player, this one is called the Clip+. Let’s check it out and see what the “+” is all about.
Hardware Specs
Capacity – 2GB, 4GB, 8GB
Colors – Black, Red, Blue
Display – OLED
Supported Audio Formats – MP3, WMA, secure WMA, Audible, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, plus audio books and podcasts
Expandable microSDTM and microSDHCTM memory card slot
Headphone – 3.5mm
Digital FM tuner with 40 presets
Rechargeable battery with up to 15 hours of continuous playback
Built-in microphone to record voice memos
Size – 2.16 x 1.36 x .60 in
Weight – .85 oz
Package Contents
Sansa Clip+ MP3 Player
USB Cable
Earbuds
Quick Start Guide
At first glance, it doesn’t look like much has changed between the previous version and this new model. It has the same basic size and button layout. The main control button has changed slightly though. Instead of being round and backlit, it’s now squarish and is not backlit. I prefer the previous look.
Of course, the clip is still there. The new one is not removable or replaceable though. Again, I prefer the previous design.
The Left side has the mini USB connector for charging and syncing and below it, is a small Volume adjustment button.
The opposite side has the earphone jack and a microSD card slot. You can put your own music on a card, or buy slotMusic or slotRadio cards and play them through the Clip+
The power button is located on the top of the player.
At first, I didn’t think that the Clip+ had a hold switch, but holding down the Home button while music is playing, puts the player into hold mode.
The menus and display do not appear to have changed between the Clip and Clip+. The the two-color OLED display (Yellow and Blue) is small but very easy to read in any type of light. Navigating the menus using the 5-way button on the front of the player is easy as well.
The Clip+ has 4 main features: Music player (including Podcasts and Audio books), slotRadio card player, FM radio and Voice recorder.
It’s compatible with Windows and Mac computers and doesn’t require any special software to load music on it. Just plug it in to your computer with the included USB cable and it will show up like a regular flash drive. From there, you can drag and drop audio files to the appropriate folders. You can also copy music to a microSD card and plug it into the Clip+. Any music copied to the player’s memory or a microSD card will show up in the list of artist and songs. Depending on how big your microSD card is and how much music you have stored on it, it can take awhile to index the music database when you plug the card into the player. This isn’t a big deal if you don’t change music every day.
One thing I did notice is that it’s hard to find an individual song if you have a lot of music stored on the device. Scrolling through long lists of songs on a device with a small display will take awhile…
What’s missing? AAC support. This isn’t a big deal for me as I save all my tunes in .MP3 format, but I know it’s important to many people.
The SanDisk Sansa Clip+ is a great little MP3 player and the built in microSD slot is a nice upgrade from the previous version. It’s what the Apple iPod Shuffle should be. It’s small, easy to use and expandable via the microSD card. Great for the gym, at work, or where ever.
Product Information
| Price: | $39.99 - $69.99 |
| Manufacturer: | SanDisk |
| Pros: |
|
| Cons: |
|
Gadgeteer Comment Policy - Please read before commenting
And the tap drips, drip, drip drip.
@Red5 I don’t understand your comment…
Those are lyrics from The Cure – 10:15 Saturday Night, the song displayed in the picture.
@brandon Ha! I’m really out of it this morning 😉
Ihave the previous model and I can’t believe how dull the new model is compared to mine . Mine is very light and sounds incredible. Lot better than a shuffle plus it has a screen and fm. I also love the speaker/wheel type center button!
I have to say this appears to be a case of one step forward,and two steps back. Being able to remove the clip on the first model was handy,and the backlit control buttons were also incredibly handy,especially at night of course.
Very dull colours for this model too. I’ll be sticking to the original.
Great review though 🙂
You only briefly mentioned the microSD card slot, one of the best features! It means that for now the player can be expanded by 16GB making a 24GB player, and later it will have the ability to be expanded by 32GB making a micro 40GB player!
Noah–fortunately, you’re right, as I’d found when this model was first announced. (While the marketing copy all says “microSD,” fortunately the slot supports microSDHC.) If it hadn’t, I’d have ruled this model out and kept looking.
I’ve been happy with it. The sound is definitely better than the Sansa c240 that I’d been using–more oomph, more bass. While making the clip removable might be nice, it could get lost or broken, and the player is small enough that that’s not a big deal for me. I tend to hook mine through a belt loop rather than on the belt itself; fortunately the player is light enough for that to work.
I like this player for music, though for the long term I’ll probably move podcasts to another device (with a touchscreen).
There is one other thing to note in comparison to the original Clip: The volume buttons on the original Clip are under the headphone jack which is really annoying. It looks like they fixed that, anyway. I LOVE my Clip; apart from listening to music I use it to record college lectures and listen to the local football game on the radio. I even bought one for my mom to listen to her audiobooks on.
I was already very happy with the first version, except for the design.
I’m looking forward to handling the new version.
Too bad they didn’t take time to improve the design too…
I have three of the original Clips. That gives me 14G of music storage. One advantage of this approach is that I get three battery’s worth of play. I’ll consider a Clip + when one of my three players die. These things are all great. I also have a Rhapsody subscription at $40/quarter. This allows unlimited music listening for the price of 1 CD/month. How good is that?
I have a 2 gig clip with a FM radio but the radio has packed up I can still play my down loaded music. any ideas ?
does this solve the problem we have in our house of library sharing w/ ipods? we have 3 ipod owners all different sizes (mine is the biggest storage capacity) the others suffer greatly w/ smaller storage versions. also, on sandisk at their site i read batteries not replaceable , this sounds like a problem , what am i missing ?
Heh, thanks. Now I know how to do “hold”, there’s NOTHING on the Clip+ to complain about. Well maybe “time remaining”, and erm… no that’s it… why buy a Shuffle when you can have a Clip, and for less?
Man, thanks for the “hold” tip )
I have a clip plus and use it mostly for listening to audiobooks, I find it perfectly adequate. Only negative has been the clip breaking of the second time I used it. What would I want to see as a feature? Maybe bluetooth but I can live without it. The size and simplicity make it very useful.