SanDisk Sansa Clip (4GB, silver)

Manufacturer: SanDisk Corp. Part number: SDMX11R-004GS-A70

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CNET Editor rating:
3.5 stars Very good
Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 reviews

More product information:: Editors' review; User reviews; Specifications; Manufacturer info

Bottom Line:: The SanDisk Sansa Clip is an incredible value that's set to edge out the competition with a user-friendly interface, gym-worthy design, and great sound quality.

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CNET editors' review

SanDisk Sansa Clip (4GB, silver)

price range: $72.72 - $95.75

The SanDisk Sansa Clip is an incredible value that's set to edge out the competition with a user-friendly interface, gym-worthy design, and great sound quality.

The good: The SanDisk Sansa Clip offers impressive sound quality; an ultracompact, gym-friendly design with a removable belt clip; and useful features such as an FM radio and Rhapsody DNA integration. All of this comes at an incredible value, since the player is very inexpensive and easy to use.

The bad: FM radio reception isn't great and connection of the Clip with Rhapsody was problematic.

The bottom line: The SanDisk Sansa Clip is an incredible value that's set to edge out the competition with a user-friendly interface, gym-worthy design, and great sound quality.

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SanDisk Sansa Clip

Thanks to its position as a memory chip manufacturer, SanDisk is a master at cost competing in the portable audio space, and although companies such as Creative Labs are now tagging at about the same level, SanDisk's initial aggressiveness earned it the No. 2 spot in sales (behind Apple, natch)--and a reputation for producing cheap MP3 players. The company's latest device, an ultracompact model dubbed the Sansa Clip, is no exception: The 1GB model comes in at a mere $40, while the 2GB is on offer for a no less reasonable $70. But don't let the price fool you: The Clip offers a respectable 92dB signal-to-noise ratio. This player is out to prove that "cheap" doesn't have to mean subpar sound quality.

Simple and small
At 2.2 inches by 1.4 inches by 0.5 inch (without the belt clip attached), the Sansa Clip isn't quite "smaller than a matchbox," but it is about the same size as one. It's one of the most compact players we've come across in recent times, though it is slightly larger than its closest competitor, the Creative Zen Stone Plus. However, the Clip's rectangular, 1-inch screen makes for better navigation than the Stone's itty bitty circular display. Also, the Clip lets you navigate music by artist, album, and so on, whereas the Stone offers very little track organization. Like the Stone, the Clip comes in a variety of colors: sleek black, candy apple red, hot pink, and ice blue. The black version is available in both capacities, while the colors come in 2GB only. As the name suggests, the Clip also comes with a removable belt clip in a color to match the player. This feature and its ultracompact size make it ideal for the gym.

The controls on the Sansa Clip are also similar to those of its competitor: Below the screen is a circular, four-way control pad surrounding a center select button. While you're within the menus, up/down cycles through options on the current screen, while right/left steps deeper into the highlighted option (or backs out). Once on the playback screen, pressing up plays or pauses the track, down pulls up a contextual menu, and right/left shuttles through tracks. Beneath the four-line, dual-color OLED screen, is one other key: a home button that cycles between the main menu and the playback screen. There's also a dedicated volume rocker on the right spine of the device, something that we are happy--and surprised--to see on such a small player. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack sits above the rocker, while the left side of the Clip houses a power/hold switch and a standard mini USB port. All these ports and controls may seem like a lot for such a small device, but everything is well laid out and the main control pad is large enough for comfortable navigation, so it's really quite ergonomic and easy to use overall.

Not small on features
Don't let the size of the Sansa Clip betray you: The player offers several desirable features. Of course, with the very tiny and simple screen, photo and video playback are notably absent--but that's really to be expected in a device at this price point. What you do get is support for MP3, WMA (unprotected/protected), and Audible files. The player has even integrated Rhapsody DNA, meaning you can transfer Rhapsody Channels (dynamically updating radio stations/playlists). Sadly, our review unit had an error that prevented it from becoming licensed within the Rhapsody interface, so we haven't yet had a chance to fully test the integration. (Bear with us until we get a replacement player and update this review.)

The Sansa Clip also comes with a built-in mic for making voice recordings (WAV output only) and an FM tuner, from which you can record, as well. The radio offers up to 40 presets; the autoscan function is somewhat buried in the "view all presets" menu, but it's a handy feature and worth using. As with any decent MP3 player, you get shuffle and repeat playback modes and an equalizer--we like that there's an adjustable five-band setting. More plusses: You can add songs to an on-the-go playlist, rate and delete songs on the device, and mark subscription tracks for purchase at next sync. Finally, there's the autoresume function, which picks up where you left off in a track, even if you paused before shutdown. This is particularly handy for those who listen to long, spoken-word tracks, such as podcasts and audiobooks.

Sounds like a performer
Although most SanDisk devices sound passable, we've never been blown away by the sound quality of Sansa players. The Clip is actually a bit of an exception: This player sounds great. It's not quite as stellar as the Sony NWZ-A810, but it can certainly compete with the Zen Stone Plus. In our tests (using the Shure SE530s), music sounded rich and clear, with a present bass brought out more by tinkering with the custom EQ. Fiona Apple's soft pop track "The First Taste" was encompassing, with buttery mids, sparkly highs, and subtle bass. Mellow electronic music (e.g. Hot Chip's "The Warning") was similarly pleasing, but even the Deftones' "Bored"--a heavy and riffy rock track--offered impressive clarity. All in all, we could find very little to complain about in the audio quality department--unless, of course, you decide to use the included headphones, which are not so hot.

In other performance areas, the Clip was passable. Voice recordings were a little muffled sounding, and FM reception was about average. A couple of our regular stations wouldn't come through completely. The battery life of 14.1 hours is nothing to write home about, but it's plenty decent for a player of this size.

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User reviews

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Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 reviews

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9 stars

Shuffle Destroyer

by TheRay76 on April 6, 2008

Pros: Tiny, screen is clear and looks b.a., sounds great, easy to use interface, volume goes very high, headphones stay in, 4 gb of space

Cons: Screen can be difficult to see in sunlight

Summary: I've had this for about two weeks and its been great. Despite it saying that you need Windows, it works just like a USB flash drive so its basically ...

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Summary: I've had this for about two weeks and its been great. Despite it saying that you need Windows, it works just like a USB flash drive so its basically just drag and drop. I use it with my iMac and drag songs right out of iTunes. Sound quality is great with solid bass. It's roughly the same size of the iPod Shuffle, but it includes a screen, a voice recorder, an FM tuner, and 4 gigs of space. Look past the iPod craze and buy the Sansa Clip!

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2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
8 stars

Great small-capacity player

by potestasx on July 31, 2008

Pros: Good value, MTP convenience, Portable

Cons: The shuffle algorithm could be better. Tack-to-track transition is not seamless.

Summary: I bought this player about 3 weeks ago and have been using it heavily since.

It's slightly larger than the current iPod Shuffle, being around 2.25"x1.5"

...

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Summary: I bought this player about 3 weeks ago and have been using it heavily since.

It's slightly larger than the current iPod Shuffle, being around 2.25"x1.5"x.5" in size, but the display, size, and price make this one of the best small-capacity player on the market. I use it in the car, at work, going running, mowing the lawn It definitely doesn't weigh you down.

I have about 450 mp3s ripped at 192kbps on there, and could probably fit around 50 more. The music that I listen to tends to have longer tracks(6-8 minutes on average as opposed to 4 minutes).

It operates as an MTP device on Windows, so you can drag/drop to add music or use Windows Media to sync. The drag/drop option was important to me because I don't enjoy being tied to proprietary software (*cough* iTunes). It comes with software and a free trial for Rhapsody, but it isn't necessary for music management.

Before I get into the other features, let me say that I bought this strictly as an mp3 player, so just about all of the other features/settings have gone unused.

Other features:
It has an FM tuner, on which the reception is decent, with it being slightly worse than a car stereo but better than any alarm clock radio I've ever had. It allows you to record from the tuner and save them as wave files. I have not yet tried this feature, but I'm pleasantly surprised by this option since I know that other companies such as Creative have stopped including this and even disabled it on existing players with firmware upgrades.

There is a voice recording feature with a built in microphone. But yet again, I have not tried this feature.

There is a 5-band eq on the player, with several genre presets like "pop" and "rock" as well as a custom feature. I don't normally use the eq feature on anything. My recommendation would be to invest in good headphones over investing in a high-priced player, as headphones will affect what you hear much more so than the mp3 player.

It's Rhapsody and Audible compatible, yet another feature that I haven't tried. I'm one of the last remaining CD-buyers around. I know, I know. It has more to do with the prog-rock concept albums that I like [King Crimson box set on the way ].

The bad:
Concerning the shuffle feature. I spent a few hours going through my library and picking songs that I wanted on the player so that I could put it on shuffle and get a good variety of songs without being compelled to skip any that were selected by the player. The problem is that it seems to have 3 or 4 predetermined sets of shuffled music, and what's worse is it starts all over again if you turn the player off and turn it back on.

For instance, say you have 100 tracks on there, going from 0 to 99. You put the player on shuffle and you select "Play All". You might hear these tracks:
87, 55, 14, 24, and 33...
Halfway through 33, you pause the player and turn it off. You turn the player back on, resume 33 and it finishes, then, all of the sudden, you hear:
87, 55, 14, and 24 AGAIN...but then it skips 33 because you've already listened to it since the last time that you powered up the player.

The ways around this that I have found is swapping out a song or two from the player every now and then, or selecting a song in the "All Tracks" list to start with, rather than letting the player choose.

The bottom line:
This is an incredibly solid mp3 player. The price is what did it for me. Costco had a great deal on this player, which edged it out over the Creative Zen V Plus (which I would also recommend). While I still enjoy my 40GB Creative Zen Touch and it has its place on long road trips or for full-album listening, the Sansa Clip is much more portable and practical for everyday use.

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9 stars

Great little MP3 player

by oaks2000 on June 25, 2008

Pros: Great sound, sleek design

Cons: Clip is plastic, hope it lasts; almost too small?

Summary: Great little player to take to the gym and elsewhere. Short cords so has to clip to your shirt or get ear-phones with longer wire to player. Clip is plastic, ...

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Summary: Great little player to take to the gym and elsewhere. Short cords so has to clip to your shirt or get ear-phones with longer wire to player. Clip is plastic, hope it lasts. Power slider-button feels kinda cheap. Hope all the buttons and connections last - will see if all is still good in a year.

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8 stars

Just shy of being great

by songvilay1 on June 17, 2008

Pros: 4GBs of music in a small player, clear OLED screen, FM tuner with 40 presets

Cons: awkward audio output; shuffle mode not too random

Summary: This is a nice little MP3 player! I've owned several MP3 playback capable devices including the Sony PSP, iPod Shuffle 1GB 2nd Gen and have a Motorola Razr V3xx ...

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Summary: This is a nice little MP3 player! I've owned several MP3 playback capable devices including the Sony PSP, iPod Shuffle 1GB 2nd Gen and have a Motorola Razr V3xx with a 2GB card, and none of them have the audio quality of the Sansa Clip. The only complaints/issues that I have is that the 3.5mm output is on the side of the unit and when plugged into my car, it makes it awkward to control. Just have to get used to it I guess. I have also noticed that the shuffle mode seems to play back in the same order every time. Sort of defeats the purpose of shuffle playback... Stock headphones are OK, not great. Just used the ones that came with my Shuffle and it works great. Other than that, this is a nice unit, great battery life, standard mini USB charger (not proprietary eg. Apple) and well worth the money.

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9 stars

Marvelous work

by in10ja on March 31, 2008

Pros: Graet sound, easy to use, very cute

Cons: Doesn't feel like a sturdy build to it.

Summary: Great sound, great to use for the price. You won't regret buying this one.

Summary: Great sound, great to use for the price. You won't regret buying this one.

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Specifications

Manufacturer: SanDisk Corp.
Part number: SDMX11R-004GS-A70

General
Product type Digital player / radio
PC interface(s) supported Hi-Speed USB
Color Silver
Flash memory installed 4 GB Integrated
Packaged quantity 1
Software type Drivers & Utilities
Radio
Tuner type Digital Radio tuner
Station preset qty 40
Tuner bands FM
Tuning display OLED display
Digital Player / Recorder
Digital player supported digital audio standards

SanDisk Sansa Clip (4GB, silver)

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Radio

Digital Player / Recorder