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Sandisk Sansa Clip+ 4GB review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £40
inc VAT

Sandisk's Sansa Clip is a well-equipped MP3 player. If you're on a budget, it's the player to buy.

Sandisk’s Sansa Clip+ MP3 player isn’t much bigger than a matchbox, but it has 4GB of storage and a built-in FM radio.

It even has a microSD slot so you can plug in memory cards. Thanks to the built-in clip, it fastens securely to your clothing so you’re unlikely to lose it.

The Clip+ lasted an impressive 17 hours and 36 minutes in our battery life tests. The integrated FM radio uses the earphone cable as an antenna, and we got clear, static-free reception in our central London offices. Finding stations using the small buttons is fiddly and time consuming, though.

The Clip+ has a logically organised menu. The controls are small but easy to press, although the small 1in screen can only display four lines of text at a time, so scrolling through long lists of songs is a little tedious. The Home button, which takes you back to the top level of the menu structure, also locks the Clip+ when held down for a few seconds, preventing accidental button presses. The Down button doubles as an Options button when a song is playing, giving easy access to settings such as the equaliser and play modes such as repeat and shuffle.

For the best audio quality, you’ll need a better set of earphones than those provided. They sound far too muddy, especially when playing pop and jazz tracks. The bass is very weak, so bass-heavy rock and dance tracks sound limp and unsatisfying. Audio quality greatly improved using a third-party pair of earphones, although it still wasn’t as rich and detailed as the best players.

Sandisk’s Sansa Clip+ is a great little MP3 player. There are small players with better battery life, the controls and screen are a bit small, and its audio quality isn’t as rich as we’d like. However, its built-in clip, microSD slot, FM radio and low price all help it to win a Budget Buy award.

Details

Price £40
Rating *****
Headphone Rating **
Award Budget Buy

Hardware

Capacity 4.00GB
Formatted capacity 3.64GB
Interface USB
Storage medium flash memory
Battery and charge options Li-ion, USB
Size 33x14x55mmm
Weight 29g

Features

Device has screen? Yes
Viewable size 1 in
Memory card support MicroSD
FM Radio yes
Audio record options microphone, radio
Video record options none
Supplied with headphones, USB cable

Test Results

Tested battery life (MP3 playback) 17h 36m
500MB transfer time 2m 9s
Audio MP3 playback Yes
Audio WMA playback Yes
Audio WMA-DRM playback Yes
Audio AAC playback No
Audio Protected AAC playback No
Audio OGG playback Yes
Audio WAV playback No
Audio Audible playback Yes
Image BMP support No
Image JPEG support No
Image TIFF support No
Video MPEG-4 AVI playback No
Video MPEG-4 MP4 playback No
Video WMV playback No
Video MPEG-1 playback No
Video MPEG-2 playback No
Video MPEG-2 VOB playback No
Video MPEG-4 DivX/XviD support No
Video H.264 support No
Video MPEG-4 MP3 audio support No
Video MPEG-4 AAC audio support No
Download compatibility WMA-DRM subscription and download

Buying Information

Price per MB 1.0p
Warranty one year RTB
Supplier http://www.play.com
Details www.sandisk.co.uk

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