Impossible to load MP3 audiobooks on Sansa
354762
I hate this thing. Yes, I can load Audible audiobooks on it. That's one small blessing. But I bought several audiobooks on physical MP3 disks. There is NO way on earth to get these onto the Sansa, unless perhaps I pulverize them and pour their dust into one of its openings.

The Sansa manual is entirely music-oriented. Zero help for loading audiobooks that are in MP3 format on a CD. I've Googled this problem in every combination of words I can think of, for weeks now, and the closest I've come is a screen shot that looks nothing like what I see.

Windows Media player recognizes the Sansa, but NOT an audiobook CD disk--that is, I see it listed, but also get the advice to "insert a disk into the CD player." Hello? That disk IS in the CD player! None of the mysterious buttons ("rip," "burn," "synch," etc have any effect, nor does Media Player have instructions  for this--any more than Sansa itself does.

Also, though my husband jury-rigged a way to hook this thing into my car's CD player, I need to be able to start and stop a book while driving, and the tiny, nearly invisible, almost imperceptible touch controls (which of course are not labeled in any way) can't be used reliably without stopping the car and studying them, then trial-and-error--Oops! Suddenly back at chapter 1!). Forget that.

I never listen to music, so this Sansa piece of junk is a purchase I deeply regret.
3224216
sad to learn that many of my mp3's were unreadable or just not visible on my browser, but it handled and reads 85% of all the files
767722
I love this player - music wise it is great! The sound is great, ease of adding music is perfect - but the one thing I really missed is being able to play my audiobooks. I looked for a fix or a converter, but the cheapest I could find was over $30 and no guarantee it would even work. I think I'm gonna stick with sansa in the future!
1034960
Ordered it, but refuses to download or load to the cloud.  Amazon has already billed for it and they are not responding to requests for help - I now have to dispute the order with my credit card company.  Do not buy MP3 music from Amazon!
4553842
I bought this strictly for Audiobooks.  I am copying  comments I wrote in the "What is the best player for audiobooks?" Amazon forum which I hope will assure some of the older Clip+ audiobook fans as to the usability of the Clip Jam for their favorite medium.

This post is to help people who are used to the Sansa Clip+ get used to the new Sansa Clip Jam if they need a new player. I had to give up using my Clip+ because the contact with an inserted earphone plug became dicey and I had sound dropouts. This seems to happen after a few years of pulling in and out such plugs on a daily basis. That is because I use the player in my car, with different earphones and at my computer. I doubt there is a way that such a problem can be easily fixed.

So I sprung for a new Clip Jam and after using it for a week or so, here is what I have figured out.

1. The manual you can download from the Sansa website is misleading at best and useless at worst.
2. To power off/on you press the big button in the center, where the old select button was. You better pause before you power off and press resume after powering on.
3. There is a new back button which takes you to the preceding menu when clicked.  A long hold has the function of lock/unlock the other controls.
4. Your album and title tags will appear truncated on the display so you should make sure that different books differ in the first 10 characters of the Album tag, but I think tags work pretty much as on the Clip+ . Playing order is determined by the Track tags which need to be justified with leading zeros.
5. After playing the final track of a book, the Jam starts playing the first.
6. The following is on page 23 or the manual: "Quick Tips: to ensure files sorter (sic) correctly, file should not exceed 16 characters long or use ID3 tags." This makes no sense since Sansa players use tags, not file names. Also, I did not delete my ID3 tags and the tracks in my books still play in order.
7. If you use a car or wall charger you will need one with a mini sized USB terminal. The female USB on the Clip+ is the larger sized one which seems to be obsolete now.
8. After charging your Clip Jam and letting the media refresh, you are sent to the Books display. Then you must manually navigate to the audiobook and track you were at. Once you are back at the track, it will give you the option of resuming play at the point you were at or starting from the track's beginning.
9. There is a 500 limit on the number of tracks that will be displayed. I was playing a book with 87 tracks but it showed only 33 tracks and went back to track 1 after it finished track 33. I had to delete another book so I could get all 87 tracks. I understand that if you use an external memory chip you have an additional 500 track allotment.

By the way, after getting used to the differences, I am happy. The sound is good and I got 8G storage for the same price I paid for the Clip+ when it was new and the latter only had 4G.
4545839
I bought 2 of these, one for my wife and one for myself.  I had had a Sansa Clip (4gig) before ad been very happy with it so I had no hesitation in getting this product.  After opening and charging, I plugged in the earphones I normally use and got no sound. Tried plugging and unplugging and found I could get sound if the plug was just right (part way in the hole). Thought that maybe it was some type of special plug and would only work with the earphones that came with the kit.  Plugged those in and found the same problem. When you move around and the plug comes out a little you have to adjust it to get the sound back.  The problem is the same on both Clip Zips I purchased.  Very Disappointed with the product and cannot recommend it.
1998277
I bought this as an Audio book, including MP3s. Instead I get a paperback without any audio. Turns out I will have to buy the audio seperately for about 60 $. I wrote Amazon to complain about this because the invoice clearly says Audio Book including MP3. No reaction. NOT OK.
1638632
I didn't care too much for my Sansa C250 when I got it because of menu layout, sound quality, etc...THEN I found RockBox for it (which is totally free by the way). Opensource firmware replacement...I have it on two devices now...EXCELLENT!!!!! Now I love my Sansa!
1615698
5 stars for the book, 1 star for the MP3 CD.

I purchased the unabridged CD not realizing it won't work in my car CD player.  I buy the book to read and the CD so my husband can listen to it with me when we travel.

I think the listing should clearly state that the MP3 Unabridged CD won't work unless you have MP3 capabilities on your CD player.  Also, an unabridged CD should be offered that is not MP3.
907187
Got this because it was compatible with audible's audiobook format.  It does hold a lot of books, and is affordable.  My partner was pleased to find it had a built in FM radio, nice touch.  The one thing I really don't like about it is it takes the audiobooks as one whole file, not split into chapters as you get on a kindle or listening online on the site.  You can't navigate within a book so if a book restarts for some reason, or loses its place, you're listening to the whole darn thing again. I have one book I fear I'll never hear the end of....
576949
I found the note  "Audiobook Included" misleading. Rather than an audiobook it is necessary to download an MP3, which I was not able to do on my Kindle Fire.
3573163
Regarding the people below that don't get any sound when docking the player.  Updating the firmware on your Sansa will fix this.  I have had the same issue with other "made for Sansa" products.
3140078
This device should be used only with simple music entries and for video playback. It does not support playlists, which cripples it for audio books and intelligent audio playback. Fortunately, I have some Sansa mp3 players, and will use this primarily for movies.

The description of this player should list it as limited in function. I bought it for audio playback, but it accepts neither playlists nor folders, but takes everything from the .mp3 tag, which is often not suitable without a tag editor and hours of work.

Get this for movies, but avoid it for audio.
49687
It seems it has a firmware bug that causes a lockup when a file is corrupted, which can happen when you disconnect the player and a file is not completely written (No indication is given when the file writing is complete). This sort of problem would have come out in the most rudimentary testing, which says to me that they don't test their products at all and rely on the consumer to do their product testing. I for one will not be purchasing any more Sansa products, and I recommend that you don't either. If you do buy it, firmware upgrades won't help once the lockup occurs, so update it immediately when the stinking thing arrives.
1385067
Works fine for most media, but have trouble playing Mp3 CDs.
1148402
Amazon Music is good for shopping and purchasing music.  However to download music to my Sansa I have to move the music to Windows Media Center and reorganize everything and that is a pain. So anything I upload from my CDs or DVDs only goes to the Media Center.  One would think that a little software would make this step unnecessary.  I know I would use Amazon Music for so much more.
3099537
I experienced two problems on my Windows XP 32bit PC.  At purchase, I asked that the mp3 be put on my amazon cloud. Then I downloaded from the cloud and experienced some issues:

PROBLEM:  The name that was used was crazy long, so long that windows media player couldn't play the mp3. After I realized the length of the filename seemed to be the problem, I couldn't even rename the file in windows file explorer, just failed and reported an error.  I'm DOS savvy, so I tried the "dir /X" to get a short name and subsequently rename it.  That caused a catastrophic DOS error and did not rename the file.

SOLUTION: Finally I went to the cloud and renamed it there to "water" - then downloaded again.  That resulted with a file with a reasonable name, I called it water.mp3.  But I soon realized that the folder names the Amazon download utility created had similar crazy long names as well and that was giving me issues as well with windows media player.  Luckily I was was able to use DOS to fix the directory names. I used "dir /X" and was able to execute a "rename" cmd that worked on the directory names.

UPSHOT: Hope Amazon fixes the names of the file/directories so others don't get a headache trying to just use the mp3 file.

My plan was to download this mp3 and play it using a mp3 player in a speaker dock, rather than invest in an expensive single purpose white noise machine.  Once I got the file names worked out, took about 60 minutes to figure out all the issues and download TWICE.  I need to purchase that dock next, and will update this review when I get a chance to try it out.