This is a fine MP3 player, clip fanbase judge it too harshly
924361
A much much better MP3 player than the previous, bigger-LCD iteration (clip sport). I've owned/gifted every iteration of the clip since the first one and while this can't be rockboxed it's still a nice addition to the series (still not better than the first two versions). Internals seem to be the same as those in the clip sport, but something -besides the screen- has to be changed, as this feels zippier and more responsive than the sport. Green front face color is full of attitude and semi transparent back looks cool. Plastic body and clip hold well to abuse. FM tuner and day-long battery life make this player like no other in its price range. Users of ye old sandisk clip players tend to expect a lot out of a low cost MP3 player like this one, so don't be fooled by the 3.5 stars rating, this is a very nice player.
321585
I bought this player at BestBuy for $220 (10%, display model that still worked fine).

I decided to buy this one after looking at the Creative Zen Touch, iRiver, and Creative Zen Micro.  I picked this one, because it was a bare-bones MP3 player, with good construction, reasonable price, and large capacity.

The display is very crisp and clean, and pictures look great on it-as long as you can call a 2"x1" viewing screen great.

Sound quality is decent, although the preset EQ settings are quite horrible, and there's really only a few settings of the user EQ that will give you good sound without feedback.

The user interface is a little bit hard to navigate, and the touch-pad takes some time to get used to.  The design in itself is not ergonomic at all, unless you put the screen sideways (allowing yourself to get to the buttons up top with your index fingers).

There's really a surpsing lack of playback features with this player.  However, I think that Toshiba spared extra features like this, for size and durabillity.

It really is a tough little bugger...  I had it in my front-shirt  pocket of my sweater at work, and slammed the hard-metal vise-handle into it, at quite a good bit of speed.  It left a little dent on the side of the player, but it remained completely functional... Just a small little blemish.

In all reality, the player itself is very durable, and has high-storage capactiy. It lacks a lot of playback features, and the navigation isn't the best.

I would like to reccomend an iRiver over this player, but I have not used one myself.  All in all, I would only buy this player if you're concerned with wanting 40 GB of storage, for a cheaper price.  It does serve its purpose as an MP3 player, however.
603467
I bought this since the Clip+, which I also own, has been discontinued and I wanted to have a separate player for working out. The artist/track information that seamlessly work on the Clip+ don't transition the same way, so I'll have to fiddle around with things to see if that's something I can fix easily. Aside from that quirk, it functions the same way the Clip+ does, in terms of how I use it. I only wish that SanDisk would develop one with a larger internal capacity than 4 or 8GB, but the MicroSD slot works fine for resolving that, affordably.
1868136
I had to struggle a lot before I was able to make up my mind on a rating for this player. I've mostly used Phillips brand players in the past because I refuse to put up with the monstrosity of a piece of software that is iTunes and I think Apple products are ludicrously overpriced, which rules out most  of the market. But Phillips isn't really doing the mp3 player market anymore, so I had to look elsewhere. Here's what I wanted out of an mp3 player to replace my aging Phillips 8GB: better battery life, higher song capacity, good audio quality, better playlist functionality. I definitely got the first three and only narrowly missed the last one, which is not a reflection on Phillips having good playlist support so much as AGPtEK somehow managing to make playlist functionality WORSE, which I wasn't aware was possible.

This mp3 player has fantastic battery life, is very small and light, can be upgraded if I choose to buy a memory card even though the 16GB capacity is pretty roomy already, and has no problems with audio playback quality that I can find. I was able to use Windows Media Player for the initial import of music, which was nice and simple, but that's where my good experience with this player ended. I knew that in order to use the playlist capability I would need to build the playlist in a separate media program (they suggest Media Go or MediaMonkey- I chose the latter) and then import it if I didn't want to be stuck with only the three basic slots on the player for playlists-on-the-go and add each song individually through the player menus, which I have been stuck doing on my Phillips players and is a terrible way to pick out the 75 songs you want on your running playlist from the 150 albums on the player.

Anyway, just take my word that this mp3 player has a horrible user interface. If you access your albums through the "music" function it scrambles the order of songs in the album, regardless of title or listed order. It will display them properly if you access them through "folders" but doing that breaks the repeat function and it will immediately go to the next album in the list when you reach the end of the album. My initial import was sorted alphabetically but albums I've added since then immediately go to the bottom of the list in chronological order. I manually created a folder within the folders for playlists and manually made a folder for each playlist, which works pretty well except that, to my great perplexity, the SECOND playlist I synced to that folder (songs in playlists need to be duplicate songs on the player, which I knew going in and was fine with because the player is roomy enough to handle it) also dragged along duplicate album folders for every song in the playlist and dropped them in roughly chronological order at the bottom of my album listing, so now I have 50 or so junk album folders with one or two songs in them cluttering up the bottom of my actual album list. But hey, at least I got the playlists to work, even though any changes to it need to be made by deleting it, editing it in MediaMonkey, and then re-syncing the whole playlist.

In the end, I had the presence of mind to realize that this player is really doing everything that I wanted. The folder-album interface problem is not intuitive, but I understand it and can work around it and it isn't THAT inconvenient. It would be inconvenient if I was trying to walk someone else through the process of finding an album or making a playlist, but since I understand it and I'm the only one who uses the player, that's not a problem for me. As it was, I spent probably a solid forty minutes trying to get the playlists to work and not screw up the rest of the interface and only marginally succeeded at the latter part. But still, it was a low-cost player and like I said, it does everything I want it to do with very little actual inconvenience, which is why I decided it was worth four stars.
250675
I will not be covering what others have already written.  Rather, I will give my perspective from a guy who owns a few brands of players (Creative Vision W, Creative Zen, Ipod Classic, ipod nano) and has a week of use with this player.

The good:
i) The best sounding player I ever had.  The EQ is very good but even with a flat EQ, they trump both the Ipods and Creatives.
ii) Amazing battery life
iii) Powerful amp - It drives my Sennheiser HD555 superbly.
iv) Just-right form factor.  I like this size.  I find the ipod nano way too small to be comfortable.

The bad:
i) User interface is iffy at best.  It is almost impossible to use the player on the run without the hold button on because the touch interface is super sensitive, even at the low setting.  That said, if you customize the hold setting to enable you to use the volume buttons as forward and back buttons when hold is set to on, the player works well (but you can't change volume on the run then...).

Conclusion:
If you care about sound like I do, get this player.  If you care more about user interface, get a creative.  I can't recommend ipods for anymore as I find them too expensive, I hate itunes, and I hate DRM music.
3593371
I've been using my Sansa for about a year now, and considering the current price, I'd say it's well worth picking one up if you're new to the mp3-player game.  While it's far from perfect, nor is it iPod-pretty, it's cheap and functional... if you don't mind tweaking it a bit.

Out of the box, the Sansa (not to mention every other Sandisk mp3 player I've used) has an ugly user interface, a lot of hard-to-find features, and one huge, truly infuriating flaw: it plays songs out of order.  Even if you put mp3s in specific album folders, the Sansa will jumble up your personal playlists.

I'll start with the interface.  Compared to the Nano, which has a nice backlit, multi-line colour screen, the Sansa offers you four lines with scrolling titles and artists.  And the scroll is SLOOOOOWWWW. Consequently, if you're trying to figure out the name of the song, you end up staring at the screen for 20 seconds just waiting - there's no way of manually scrolling.  The Sansa assumes that everyone listens to mp3s the same way - with uniform id3 tags.  It would be so simple to give the user the option to scroll the filename, but no.  You have to deal with an excess of information and chances are you'll walk into a tree or something.

If you want to do anything besides listen to mp3s - use the Sansa as a recorder, or listen to the radio - first you have to find those features.  The interface is highly unintuitive and requires a lot of fiddling before you figure things out.  That said, the tuner and recorder functions are nice to have on hand, though I use them rarely.  One of the best things about the Sansa m200 series is the introduction of an effective equaliser, with a set of powerful presets - definitely appreciated.

The Sansa is also a voracious battery drainer compared to other mp3 players on the market.  It takes a single AAA, but if you listen to it for any longer than fifteen minutes a day, you're going to be replacing your battery once a week.

As for the matter of mp3s playing out of order... There's a solution at hand.  See, all Sandisk players (for some UNGODLY reason) store and sort files according to FILE DATE.  Once you realise this, it's just a matter of downloading a freeware program like SetFileDate and modifying the timestamp on all the files you want to copy to your Sansa.  Problem solved.  It's a truly idiotic flaw - Sandisk should incorporate an automatic file-timestamp when files are copied onto its players, or simply adapt the device to play according to file structure - but in the meantime, manually changing the timestamp works just fine.

Once you've whipped the Sansa into shape, the positive aspects become more obvious.  The exterior casing is well-designed, and I prefer the rounded shape to the iPod's flat-card appearance; there are no enforced DRM or file-type limitations that I've found so far; the sound quality is reasonably clean; and once you figure out the various settings, you actually end up having a lot more control over the player than your standard iPod.

One last criticism I will make... The headphone jack on Sandisk players wears out like clockwork after about a year.  This is quite a common issue with a lot of smaller mp3 players on the market right now, but it seems to hit the Sansa with frustrating regularity.  Try to avoid pulling your headphones out of the jack as much as possible and your player should live a lot longer.
1448975
This is a great player for the price, it works and sounds great, and that is all that matters, right?

I totally agree, but there are a few problems that kill this little MP3/WMA player's glory.

All have been mentioned so far, and I am pretty sure that everyone is aware but now, but why not put my two cents in it?

-I like the fact that you have an arm band and a belt clip. There is a rubberised enclosure for the player that facilitates the mounting to the arm band. My problem is the player's unusual shape causes it to stick out like a sore thumb on the side of your arm. I suggest increased awareness in situations in the gym where there is a possibility of rubbing, as the buttons on the player are akward and stick out.

-Since we are on the topic of buttons, I have read several reviews of individual's players losing button functuality over time. I do not doubt this from feeling the shoddy construction of the buttons. The lock function is also buried too deep down in the menus.

-Speaking of menus, common functions are buried deep and make it a pain, especially when the rubber casing is on, it makes the top buttons hard to access, including volume.

-Music still sounds nice at max volume, included earbuds are good, but may not quite reach some waists.

-Complaints about radio reception; I have not tried it myself, but Rio claims to have solved these problems with the latest firmware update.

-It makes a difference, you will notice the differences in the menu format.

-The software sucks, use anything but the Music Manager. It does work in terms of basic functionality though. The USB cable is proprietary, and Rio states on their website that they have tested SD media up to 1 GB.

-Battery life is adequate, as advertised.

-The screen shows a lot for something in its price range, maybe a little too much, although the LCD does look a little archaic. I will expand on this in the next bullet.

-The LCD screen is the Achilles Heel of this player in terms of durability. Two weeks after I got this thing from Overstock, I clipped it on my Interceptor body armour in an ammo pouch, and took it on an 8 mile ruck march. At the end, I forgot and threw my armour in the back of a truck. When I got back the screen was done. It will take a fall anywhere, but once the screen gets hit, it is done.

In summary, this rocks if you can get it for 30 bucks, it is expandable to 1 GB, but you have to be cognisant of your surroundings, or you will break this toy.
1734153
I'm not an expert by any means on technology or MP3 players, so I'm speaking from a non-technical point of view. I've had it for about two weeks and everything is cool (the scroll thingy, the sound, etc., like what everyone else raved about) but there are a few things you should all know before and/or after purchasing this.

First, I put a LOT of importance on the locking button. The buttons on this player are sensitive and easily clicked, and whenever you put the player in the leather case, some buttons WILL get clicked if you don't turn on the locking function.

Second, the entire player froze about a few days ago. It got stuck on one song, I could turn the player on, but once it's on, no button will work, not even the power button. I tried everything and I totally freaked out. Customer service email told me to press the reset button. Now, like any normal person, I could not find the reset button because it's almost hidden, and I just poked the clip in whatever hole I could find. (the reset button is on the side of the player, that's all I know). You should press the reset button only when the player is off. That worked, thank god. So yes, this player freezes and it probably will freeze on you but it can also be corrected. Still, it's an annoyance.

All in all, this is a great player and I also love the Creative Organizer software that comes with it. BUT, just be aware that there may be problems.
4621239
Be sure to push the headphone jack in all the way ... part way, and this unit does play, but it sounds like crap!  It is so small and delicate looking that I was reluctant to force the jack in, hence I probably gave it opportunity to fry itself (it sure sounded that way).  Good thing my wife is a brute.

The Clip gives amazing sound quality out of a sub-matchbook size!  And you can actually read the display and drive the interface with clumsy hands and poor eyesight (for us seniors).  So nice not to burdened with other functions (video, etc.) that I don't want.  Do buy a skin for it: it'll lessen the probability of dropping the unit, and may protect it if you do.  4GB feels right for memory size ... I expect to upload different segments of my library over time.
4289980
I compared the ratings and reviews of all the other mini MP3 players of this company before deciding to purchase this one. A lot of people have bad things to say about the new versions but I had to take a shot on Clip Sport because of the 25 hour battery life. It shipped sooner than I expected and I have no complaints whatsoever. The earbuds are pretty decent for the price plus they put in an extra pair. The MP3 player itself looks durable enough for long-term usage and I expect it to last at least a year under the care of a meticulous person such as myself. Audio quality is great. I might be using it in tandem with my A30 headset which is still on the way just to see how awesome it would sound like. One little inconvenience though is the lack of a lock mode to avoid pressing the buttons unintentionally. I'm still playing around with the functions and there's no indication that it's capable of that. Overall awesome brand new product. Will update if found otherwise.
1964301
Got this in a hurry to replace the player I had (different brand) which had just died. I trust the Sony Walkman name and figured this to be a no-brainer, so I didn't do the usual research I do when purchasing something. It was a bad decision. This plays perfectly fine and the look and the menu system are fine, but there are a few things I REALLY do not like about it: 1)My Mac only recognizes it about 1/4 of the time I plug it into the USB. When it DOES recognize it, it's easy to drag and drop albums into the music folder, BUT... 2) Some Podcasts I'd dragged into the "Podcast" folder were nowhere to be found once I was using the thing. They just disappeared, though when I had it plugged into the Mac (successfully) they were right there. 3) (And I can NOT stress this enough) - THE FAST FORWARD SUCKS. It is, I'm guessing, maybe 2x the normal speed, so if you have commercials you want to bypass it's a hair-pulling exercise. And because you need to keep the FF button pressed for so long, you run the risk of accidentally skipping to your next TRACK and not being able to get back to where you were without an even LONGER session of Fast Forwarding. 4) It's hard (impossible?) to see what the current battery level is. There's no 'progress bar'-type display that I can find. 5) There's no printed user's manual , only a quick-start guide. You can access the User's Manual via html only, but can only print whatever page you are on at the time. I'd like to learn how to use this thing completely but I don't want to be tied to the computer to read about it.
This is small enough to keep in my bag and plug into the PC at work to charge the battery and try now and again to get to show up on my Mac, an 'emergency music player' if you will, but I got a gift card to an electronics store a few months back that I'm going to use to purchase a different player that I'll be using regularly. Just goes to show, do your research before you buy!
4306516
I had the version of the clip before it became a +. The main things that I liked about it were its small size, drag and drop usability, and the fact that it clips on to anything. It makes this little device easily the most useful MP3 at the gym.

This version of the clip does not have a lock feature, which is quite a big oversight by the manufacturer. The lock button was so darned useful. It is common to hit pause or the power button by accident, for example when squatting or sitting down if you have it clipped at the most obvious spot (on your waist).,

Having to use the Rhapsody software for my playlists is kind of a pain, but such is life. Otherwise I just drag and drop the music onto the device.

I still find it to be the most usable mp3 for the gym, especially for the price.
1655094
Well I have a hangup with iPods because I don't like iTunes.  But so many other MP3 players are just plain bad and lacking features.  Or they are big and bulky and cost just as much as an iPod.

When I came across this MP3 player, I found a nice balance.  First, it has many features including an FM tuner, FM recorder, and voice recorder.  It even plays limited formats of video and limited formats of pictures.  I don't use these features much, but they do not seem to robust.  If you are looking for a multimedia powerhouse do not buy this!  Second, it is small.  It has a nice sturdy feel and I've never felt like it would break.  Third, there are many add-ons available for this product.  Sure it doesn't match the 3rd party power of the iPod, but you can actually get accessories, which is unheard of for most cheap MP3 players.  It also works seamlessly with windows media player 10 and 11 (thats all I tried it with). 6GB plus expansion capabilities is great and I can fit most of my collection on this device.

I really wanted to give this 4.5 stars, because it does have some problems - but they are minor TO ME.  First, it freezes occasionally.  If I'm on a 3-hour trip in a vehicle, it MAY freeze once.  It really doesn't bother me because it is relatively rare and easy to fix (hold down power button).  Second, the navigation wheel is not the same quality as the rest of the unit.  I said earlier that it felt solid, but that excludes the wheel.  But it works fine, and for the price - I'll give it 5 stars!!
2203981
After three weeks of heavy use, I can confidently say that the Sansa M240 is an excellent buy.  Although small and light, it is reasonably durable in terms of short drops and the occasional bump.  It has been in and out of my pockets for over forty days now, and I have yet to scratch the screen--don't get me wrong, the plastic facing isn't invulnerable, but it is definitely strong.  The earbuds would satisfy any user but an audiophile; for the audiophiles, they'll hold you over long enough for your outrageously expensive substitutes to arrive in the mail.

Cons: Aside from the "Favorites" list, the Sansa lacks any built in playlist feature whatsoever--however, there is a workaround (see below).  Also, it has an odd power-saving feature that I wish the user could switch off at will: When the battery level reaches 50% or so, the backlight only comes on when the forward, reverse or menu buttons are pressed.  At 25-30% remaining power, the backlight seems to shut off completely.  This allows the Sansa to continue playing for much longer, but due to this undocumented feature, the backlight only works for around half of the power cycle.

Tips:

--If you're into FM radio, let it seek out and number stations for you; you can later go through and delete all but your favorites.  This is much quicker than going through the FM band and selecting your choices by hand.

--Playlist Workaround: Although playlists cannot be created by the Sansa, it will play m3u playlists (such as those generated by Winamp) with only minor modification of the list.  After creating a playlist with your favored program, open it in a text editor and delete all absolute path entries (but NOT the actual filename!).  For example, say you have an item in your playlist that looks like this:

C:\My Documents\Music\MP3s\thissongrocks.mp3

You would have to delete everything but the actual name of the file.  The result would be:

thissongrocks.mp3

Once Saved on the Sansa, playlists can be accessed through the "Playlist" entry under "Play Music" menu.  I've added twelve playlists so far, and haven't yet reached a cap, so I assume it can hold a fair number.

--A pair of cheap AAA batteries and a recharger work wonders.  While one battery is charging, the other is inside the Sansa; when the one in the Sansa gets low, switch!  I prefer to switch them out once the backlight goes into powersaving mode.
3492717
Well, I bought myself a Karma. I've started walking a lot, and really like having all of my tunes with me. I upgraded the stereo in my office just to get one with auxillary line inputs so that I could hook the Karma to it and play all my tunes while working, too.
The device is very small, and I like the physical engineering. It's quite ergonomic, and fits well in my hand. The sound quality and volume is wonderful, and the capacity is just great. The device isn't even half full, and I have more than 1300 MP3 songs stored at a pretty high sampling rate: 192 kilobytes per second.
The scrolling wheel is a bit touchy, and I'm never positive that I know how to get from one screen to the next, or in and out of menus. I expect these problems to diminish as I become more accustomed to using the device.
I find that the device doesn't buffer enough; while walking, I might jostle it a bit in my jacket pocket. That's enough to make it skip, which is a bit annoying. What's worse is that it's often enough to cause the device to completely hang!  I've tied a paperclip into my headphone cord so that I can press the reset button and reboot the device. (And yes, I have the current firmware as of this writing.)
If I assume that Rio will upgrade the firmware to make the device crash less, I would give the device five stars.
The pricing is just fantasic; compared to other hard drive MP3 players with similar features, the Karma is not that expensive.
But there are some things you should know before deciding to buy one for yourself.
First, there are no accessories available. Rio doesn't sell a belt clip, play-through protective case, spare chargers, or additional cradles for the device. (A flimsy fabric bag is included in the box. It's useless.) You might be able to find a case that works well, but I haven't; I've ordered a power adapter from an electronics parts supplier that I work with and I'm hoping it will work. The the front panel is of a soft pastic that scratches very easily, but it is hard to find a protector for it. I'd love to have a second cradle at home -- maybe you will want one for your car -- and I simply won't until Rio starts selling them.
Then there's the issue of the warranty. It's only 90 days long, which is reasonable for a cutting edge device. But after the warranty runs, Rio doesn't offer out-of-warranty repair service. A small device like this is easily damaged, and no warranty would cover that. But most manufacturers will perform service on damaged devices for a fraction of what a replacement would cost.
Not Rio: if you drop your player, you call and pay for a replacement to be sent to you. That's that: you might as well buy a new one, as they will not repair the device.
I don't expect such an expensive device to be disposable. And I'm very disappointed that no accessories are available from Rio. For these reasons, I'm deducting two stars. Fixing those issues (and making the firmware more robust when skipping) would make me think that this is the best product I've owned since I bought a TiVo.
3142471
Let me just start off by saying that I'm an (almost) unconditional fan of the Sansa Clip. I had the previous version, and loved its simplicity, lightness, ease of use, radio, clip, expandable memory and low price. The time came to replace my Sansa Clip when the earphone jack broke (I only had sound in one earphone anymore), a weakness that is apparently not unique to my Sansa.

Anyway, I liked the player, so I bought the new version, the Sansa Clip Zip. On the plus side: the Sansa Clip Zip delivers all the qualities that I liked so much in the Sansa Clip. The interface of the Sansa Clip Zip is largely identical to the Sansa Clip, only they have upgraded to a color screen and the menu is slightly different (eg. they made a separate menu item for books and for the sd card). Personally, I find the upgrade to a color screen unnecessary, but on the other hand, it doesn't bother me either. I suppose most people will like the new feature that the album art is shown while you are playing a song. What I really like about the Sansa Clip Zip is that you can insert a micro sd of up to 32 GB (double the amount the Sansa Clip could hold). When I tell people how much memory my tiny mp3-player has, they are always pleasantly surprised. The Sansa Clip Zip also has a feature to lock the buttons, which I don't think the Sansa Clip had (though I never missed this).

On the minus side, my Sansa Clip Zip has a tendency to freeze up when I try to turn it on. This happens about three times a week. It is not a blocking issue, since all you have to do is "reset" it by holding the power button for about 10-20 seconds, after which it always starts normally, but it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the player's firmware. Also, I have the impression that the battery life is not as good as that of my old Sansa Clip, though I didn't actually measure this.

All in all, I wouldn't dare say that the Zip is an improvement on the old Sansa Clip, but since it has kept all its good features, I'm still a fan. Because of the low price, I'm willing to accept a few glitches as long as there is an easy workaround!

Happy about:
- Small size
- Expandable memory
- Radio feature
- Separate audiobook menu (very useful when you like using the shuffle for your music, but don't want your audiobooks popping up)
- The clip (handy for in the gym, or anywhere else for that matter)
- Low price
- User-friendly interface

Not so happy about:
- freezing up of the player
- reduced battery life (perhaps due to the unnecessary color screen?)

*** EDITED TO ADD ***
I have now had this player for about a year and need to update my review with the following two comments:
* The freezing up of the player stopped happening around the time when I switched the micro SD card I had in the player to a different one. Guessing the problem was due to that.
* The player crashes when you try to add a song to your playlist while the player is charging and playing simultaneously. I suppose this wouldn't happen very often, but it has happened to me several times, and I didn't like it any...
299184
The Clix has very nice deep sound and makes a wonderful music player.  It integrates with Windows Media Player 11 like a charm and the music services from URGE, Yahoo Music, Napster, etc. make filling the device full of music a simple task.  If you only want to listen to music and just really hate iPods for some reason, get this player, no question.  I have also has a Sansa and this player is worth the extra cost.  If you want to listen to podcasts on this device, you will be down right angry.  Windows Media has no podcast feature, so you will need to get another program to get the podcasts and then you will need to add them to player, this is very annoying.  Also, there is not software included for video converting, if you want watch video you will be sent to an open source project and there you will download some crummy software.  So overall, sound quality is great, but the software is down right awful.  If you want podcasts and video, so with a iPod.