SanDisk Sansa Clip Music Player

(Review) - After having great success with its high-end music/media players, SanDisk is venturing into entry-level music players that can really only be defined as "gym-ready." These are music players that you don't mind getting hot and sweaty with, and they can endure long sessions without giving up, thanks to their tough attitude and an equally low price tag. The Clip is a perfect definition of "gym-ready" music players.

SanDisk's Clip sports a 1-inch display with OLED back lighting for a crisp, vibrant glow that justifies the tiny display. Sure, it's not large enough for video playback, but it's perfectly suitable for a quick look at track information and volume settings. The navigation wheel naturally supports skip forward, backward, play and pause functionalities, in addition to the Home key just above the wheel. The Home key switches between the navigation and playback panel (browse via artists and albums with playlists-on-the-go), which is useful. The left spine has the power/hold switch and a mini-USB port, while the right spine has the volume rocker and a 3.5mm headphones jack just above it. It's pretty amazing to find so many buttons on the Clip considering it's tiny size, but we like it. They are easily accessible, and work flawlessly.

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Once you enter the Menu, it, too, is straightforward, and the navigation wheel does a good job of smoothly gliding us from one sub-menu to another. SanDisk's Clip supports MP3, WMA, Secure WMA and Audible audio formats; FM tuner wtih 40 presets; 15 hours of play time (confirmed, but it's not super impressive) with a rechargeable battery; and voice recording with a built-in microphone. The Clip is even integrated with Rhapsody DNA and let's you sync your music player with the device after you connect it to the PC. It worked amazingly well, and we were amazed at its simplicity. It's almost as if SanDisk is going after the beginner crowd. If they are, their efforts will pay off soon. The unit is dead simple to use. Of course, in addition to the aforementioned features, you also have access to shuffle and repeat playback modes as well as an equalizer, which helped tremendously while we were testing the device.

Audio performance was excellent for a player this size, but we had some trouble working with the FM tuner, as it skipped past the most accessible and popular radio stations in the area. The quality as a whole was warm, upbeat and the bass held strong with some assistance from custom equalizer settings. It was clear and crystal-like crisp as long as you remember to replace the stock earphones.

SanDisk's Sansa Clip is available in candy apple red, hot pink, ice blue and sleek black. Black is the only one that's available in 1GB and 2GB flavors, while all others are 2GB exclusive. If you looking for a rough-n'-tough, "gym-ready" music player, Clip is your best bet with a perfect fusion of audio quality and price at $59.99 for the 2GB version.

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