Digital Home Thoughts: SanDisk's Sansa Clip: A Great Little Player...If You Don't Get a Lemon

I've had two different SanDisk Sansa Clips, and both have given me radically different experiences, so this is going to be a strange review. I bought the first Sansa Clip when I was in Las Vegas for CES 2008, because I knew I was going to start working out when I returned home and wanted something as small as possible (the Zune 8 is too big for my needs). I picked up the 2 GB version (they didn't have the 4 GB at the time) in red, and was quite impressed with the brightness and clarity of the little two-colour, four-line OLED screen they managed to put on it. I liked having the voice recorder because it allowed me to make a voice recording of my lock combination code, and yes, I did have to use it when I forgot what the combination was. The sound quality is pretty good as well (loaded up with 128 kbps WMA files), although it doesn't go loud enough when you're working out at a noisy gym. I've used it with both the Super.fi 5 EB and the Metro.fi 2 Ultimate Ears headphones, and I have no complaints about the sound.

One of the main reasons I bought it was for the integrated clip. I had a Zen Stone but refused to spend nearly as much for the clip as for the player itself, so I figured I'd get a new player instead. My wife uses a second-generation iPod Shuffle and she loves how she can simply clip it to part of her workout outfit and go - I clipped the Sansa Clip to the waistline of my gym shorts and it worked pretty well, though on two occasions the Sansa Clip disconnected from the clip and fell to the gym floor. Not all that impressive. Anythingbutipod.com has a detailed review that talks about all the features if you want to dive deeper. Back to my tale of techno-woe.

The Sansa Clip's specifications (which I'd link to if they weren't part of an all-Flash site - I hate that) state that the battery life is 15 hours. Assuming the normal exaggeration that companies make about battery life, I'd expect to reasonably get 12 hours of battery life. How much battery life did I get the first two weeks using it? Three hours and it was dead. I kid you not. I was constantly having to recharge it, and it seemed like every morning when I was heading to the gym it was dead - thank goodness for the Lil' Sync USB Mobile Power Pack. I called tech support and they suggested I update the firmware. After the firmware update, things were improved: I did a full battery rundown and I was getting over 14 hours of playback. The bad news? The standby time was atrocious; if I charged it fully on Friday morning, by Monday morning it would be completely dead without having played a single song. I compensated for this flaw by recharging it constantly, but I was pretty ticked off - why couldn't it work as well as the iPod Shuffle?

I eventually called tech support again and managed to convince them something was wrong with it. I had to fight with SanDisk to get a replacement unit cross-shipped because what they wanted me to do was ship my unit back, then they'd ship me a replacement. Total turnaround time? About four weeks. I was using this player every weekday at the gym, and music is the only thing that makes working out bearable, so I eventually managed to talk a manager into doing a special override and shipping me a unit, secured with my credit card. I feel SanDisk's policy of refusing to cross-ship devices as inexpensive as the Clip is ridiculous - almost every consumer electronics company I've dealt with has had cross-shipping policies. If I'm giving them my credit card number, why not cross ship?

When my replacement Sansa Clip arrived, the first thing I did was charge it up, and try to put some music on it. For some bizarre reason, Windows Media Player on one of my computers had a hard time getting music onto the player. I'd queue up a few albums' worth of songs, click the start sync button, and after maybe six songs it would stall out - the transfer would get suck at 24% and not go any further. I tried it on another PC, and it worked without a problem. One I got some music loaded up on it, 128 kbps WMA files, I started my playback test. I set the volume at around 80% of maximum, which is the volume I have it set at for the gym. The results were impressive - after 11 hours of playback, the battery was at about 50%. There's no exact percentage reading for the battery, so I'm just guessing - but it seems clear that the Sansa Clip should be able to hit the quoted 15 hours of playback without much trouble, and perhaps beyond that.

I've been using the replacement Sansa Clip for a few months now, and the battery standby time is fantastic - I haven't recharged it in four weeks and have used it for about 8 hours of music. The battery meter is still showing about 70% power. The volume on this second Clip is also louder than the first one, so I have no complaints about hearing it at the gym, and the belt clip hasn't come off once. I hated the first Sansa Clip, and I really like the second one. So as long as you don't get a defective unit, the SanDisk Sansa Clip is a solid little player.

UPDATE: Because I was pretty hard on the lil' Clip in this article, I wanted to come back and update my article now that I've been using the replacement Clip for a couple of months. The battery life on it is incredible - I think my wife has to recharge her iPod Shuffle more than I have to recharge the Clip. I have no issues with standby draining the battery, and the replacement unit has yet to fall off when I'm working out at the gym.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He wishes laptop battery life was measured in days, not hours.