Review by S. Rysdyk for SanDisk Sansa Clip+ 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)
Rating:
I owned the first generation clip, and the new 8gb clip+ retains everything that was great about the first while adding all around refinements.

Pros:

- Overall build quality has improved, but especially with the clip mechanism.

- Files on MicroSD integrate seemlessly with the on board memory.

- The volume and power buttons have more ergonomic placement on the device.

- Sound quality remains great.

- Audiobook files can be sped up slightly to save some “reading” time.

- The interface is a little smoother and nicer to move through.

- The square trackpad makes it easier to navigate without looking at the player. (good for runners)

Cons:

- No cap on the MicroSD slot, so that could potentially get dirty.

If you don’t need gimmicks such as touch screens and web browsers, then this player is quite possibly the best on the market for value, size, and quality. The Clip+ is definitely worth the few extra bucks over what the first gen clip is selling for now.

UPDATE: Having used the product for a while the one thing I’m disappointed with is battery life. The meter drains down to 50% at the expected pace, and then goes from 50% to 0 quite fast. I haven’t timed it but i’m sure the battery life (using all default settings) is quite less than the advertised 14-15 hours.

Review by Jimi for SanDisk Sansa Clip+ 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)
Rating:
I am very impressed with this device. I needed something small and light so that I could use it while running or biking, and I couldn’t ask for a better product.

Before coming across this, I had purchased the new iPod shuffle, which looks cool and is incredible small, but that is where the pros end for that device. I immediately returned the shuffle when I realized I couldn’t use my Shure 530′s with them (wtf?).

Then I found out about this awesome player. It obviously fits my need for a small, light player, and the fact that it clips easily and securely to a shirt is great. Now, in order for it to earn a five star rating, it needed to do a lot more than just clip to my shirt, and it far exceeded my expectations:

- Sound Quality: I am amazed at how much better this sounds than my iPod classic. The bass reproduction is the most noticeable difference. Hip Hop and electronic music was always lacking in the bass presence with my old iPod, even when paired with some great headphones. There is no issue with this device. The bass does not sound over bloated or artificial in any way, just clear, bold bass as it sounds out of a home theatre or car. Sound Quality is absolutely top notch. Be sure to rip your music using high quality settings, because the difference is definitely noticeable between highly compressed files and larger ones. Lossless files sound amazing.

- Durablility: Can’t speak on this yet. I’ve only had it for a week. But it seems pretty well built. The only issue is the lack of covering for the micro SD slot. This seems to be the weakpoint and I expect problems with reading micro SD cards before the player itself has any problems

- Battery Life: No complaints here. I took it with me out of town last weekend and still haven’t had to charge it. It’s got about 50% charge after many hours of listening. This will definitely suffice for me.

- Ease of use: Nothing major enough here to cause me to rate it less than 5. It’s not as easy to navigate as an ipod, but the value and other considerations make this easy to overlook.

Overall: I really love this product. At only $70, it is a low risk buy that will definitely prove its value in spades. With 32 gb cards on the horizon (c’mon san disk! Hurry up with em!), you can potentially have a 40 gig player the size of a box of matches. This thing is cool.

Review by ed word for SanDisk Sansa Clip+ 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)
Rating:
I was extremely happy with my 2GB black Clip I had purchased over the summer. It was the perfect little mp3 player but I yearned for an mp3 player with a higher storage capacity onto which I could put the majority of my music library. Enter the Clip + 8GB and a 16GB microsdhc card. I considered the Sony S639 and the Cowon I audio 9, but those were just short on capacity and too high on price.

After one day of owning the Clip + here is how I would review it after having listened to the Clip for a few months.

Pros

-Much faster scrolling through songs. This is a relief for me because I am a serial song skipper and it takes me a while to sometimes find a song that fits my need for that moment.

-Sound quality may be better. It might just be me, but it sounds a little better. I am no music expert by any means though.

-Much better construction. The clip being fixed certainly helps it feel more solid, and I like the look a lot more, it is much sleeker.

-No light up D-pad and ring.

-Higher capacity (still waiting for my 16GB microsdhc card).

Cons

-The radio is way too loud at the minimum volume. This is almost a dealbreaker for me since I listen to the radio at night prior to sleeping.

-The Slotradio icon. I pressed it a few times and got sucked into a few second black hole as the player waited to get back to the menu.

-Bugs? Not sure about this since I may have put some non-music files on the player that were in my music folder, but the player gets stuck every so often, the screen goes black but the next song starts a few seconds later.

Things to Fix (suggestions)

-The minimum radio volume issue so it is on par with the minimum music volume.

-Removing the Slotradio icon.

-It would have been nice when pressing the center button while a song is playing to display the information for the song that is playing rather than the visualization screen or the “next song” information (available on doubleclick). It is far more useful for me to have the info for the current song than for the next song, especially since the album name is not displayed when a song is currently playing.

All in all a great player, but not yet a replacement for my original Clip at least for my purposes until some issues are resolved.