SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip Review
- Details
- Category: Portables
- Published: Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:00
The SanDisk Clip Zip is a nice update to the popular Clip line of MP3 players. It sounds great and weighs almost nothing. It’s been our preferred player for taking on runs for several years now. It’s hard to beat this player for under $50.
The Clip Zip adds support for AAC files so your non-DRM iTunes collection will drag and drop to the player just fine. It also includes a color screen. It can be hard to see in direct sunlight but works fine indoors. It's good for quickly identifying tracks with album art but not much else. The buttons are very intuitive and separated a little more for ease of use. The back button is elevated which helps it stand out more than previous designs and makes navigation very easy. You won't get lost while navigating menus on this player. Funkyfresh did a series of videos with SanDisk for the launch of this product and everyone really liked the portabilty and ease of use. The fact that you can can operate the player without looking at it was a big plus for people on the go, especially those on bikes that really need to keep their eyes on the road and cannot be fumbling wth a touch screen.
The player wasn't perfect out of the box. We noticed some strange white noise occasionally between tracks and SanDisk's own slotRadio cards caused some strange behavior. However, after downloading the latest firmware the Clip Zip experience improved dramatically and everyone worked as expected. So if you do pick one of these up be sure to download the latest frimware from SanDisk on the product page here. You can check out our videos too.
Mechanically, SanDisk opted for the micro USB connector, so you can use your smart phone charger to juice up the Clip Zip, which is very convenient.
The previous Clip already offered ridiculous value in a small player and that continues with the Clip Zip. The Clip Zip adds a sport timer, color screen, AAC file support (non DRM) and should continue to be the workout player of choice for anyone that finds their smart phone or other player too heavy or cumbersome to deal with while on the go. We like it in orange!
Visit SanDisk for more information.
The Amazon Cloud Player is a nice idea but in our early testing is very slow and locks up on the Droid. After installing the Cloud Music Player, an Adobe AIR App, on our PC it was easy to upload a catalog of songs. We grabbed about 600 tracks, hit upload and walked away from the PC. These are all songs that we own on CDs that were ripped to MP3s at 256kbps. 
