I’ll admit that I like my iPod and travel with it a lot, but I’m kind of ambivalent about it. I hate the fact that you can’t play a regular song purchased from iTunes on other players, while an MP3 can be played on pretty much anything. You can go the other way, however, importing anything into iTunes, which means that songs in the MP3 format are essentially more valuable than ones in Apples’ AAC format.
Just as Windows laptops give you far more for your money than Apple ones, MP3 players tend to be much cheaper and more flexible than Apple’s players. Take this Sansa Clip+, which holds 4GB of songs (the equivalent of two 4th-generation Shuffles) and also accepts the cool little SlotRadio cards preloaded with music. And it has an FM radio with 40 presets. Plus a mic for voice recording. All that for $50 list and only $40 at Amazon. Is that a deal or what?
I’ve been using one that SanDisk sent me to try out for a couple weeks now and this Clip+ is a screaming bargain. I loaded it up with all the MP3s I had on my computer and played the radio sometimes too, both through earbuds and through the iHome mini speakers I reviewed last week. As usual, the earbuds that came with it were crappy, but when I plugged in my own good ones the sound was indistinguishable from that of my iPod.
The navigation is pretty simple and easy to figure out, with songs arranged by album, artist, and playlist. A quick click of the home button on the front takes you to the main menu. Simple controls allow you to do all the usual—pause, go back or forward in the tracks, and raise/lower the volume. There’s a power button on the top, though with no “hold” button to keep it from starting up in your bag. Battery life is15 hours, so that’s probably not much of a worry. It has a standard mini USB plug (yea) and the included cord recharges it through any USB hub. A bright display on top tells you what song is on—the main drawback of the Shuffle in my opinion.
Besides MP3s, it supports WMA, secure WMA, Audible, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and audio books/podcasts. Plus there’s a microSD card slot, which also doubles as a SlotRadio card player. If you get sick of your own 1,000-song collection this will hold, pop in one of those prerecorded cards and you’ve got 1,000 new songs instantly.
This is one tiny player too. See the photo below where I put it on top of my iPod. It barely even covers the video display area. And it has a clip on the back to keep it secured to your clothing when you are running or biking. No accessory needed. It comes in black, red, or blue, also in 2GB and 8GB versions.
Apple has become so dominant in music players that it is hard for anyone else to make a dent, but this is certainly a worthy competitor to the Shuffle or Nano, especially if you don’t care about watching video on a teeny screen or shooting video, like the new Nano does. If you’re getting a gift for a child or will be getting your music somewhere else besides iTunes—like eMusic, your own CD collection or Amazon’s better-priced MP3 store—then this player is a terrific value.
Get the Sansa Clip+ 4GB at Amazon
25 FREE Downloads. eMusic for your iPod or any MP3 player
#1 by mrosario - December 20th, 2009 at 20:43
I got the clip+ and love it with the 80s slotRadio card. At first I was bummed it didn’t have a hold button like the old clip but after playing with it a bit I found it. You simply just press and hold the “home” button and this will turn the hold feature on and off. This is the only mp3 player I run with now. I’ve used them all from Creative to Rio to Sony to Apple…you name it. The Clip+ is the ultimate workout friendly MP3 player. The funny thing is it’s so light I don’t even use the clip. I just drop it in my shorts pockets and can barely tell it’s there.
#2 by joe - January 29th, 2010 at 09:52
Hi
I am thinking about buying one of these, and you seem to know what you are taking about could you tell me if you can program the playback of tracks in a specific order(eg track 1,track 22, track 12, etc) and if so how many can you put in the sequence if their is a limit.
Thanking you for your reply in advance
George
#3 by Tim - January 29th, 2010 at 09:57
Yes, the tracks play in the order you have them set up in the folder, by playlist or album. It’s a little clunkier than the iTunes process, but not much. Just think of how you arrange files and folders in Windows Explorer and that’s how you do it with this MP3 player. I don’t think there’s a limit to how many you have in a playlist and there’s a shuffle feature that mixes them all up if you want.
#4 by Ethan Jones - June 17th, 2010 at 22:02
i love to hear music everyday on my ipod mp3 player as well as on my cellphone mp3 player.’,.