Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsFrequent Sandisk Buyer. Disappointed, but decided to keep the device: A dive into the 1 stars.
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2022
As a frequent buyer of Sandisk products (sd cards, thumb drives, a previous excellent Sansa) I felt confident to buy this 32 GB 4 star device without going through the reviews. When I received the device I was not satisfied as the screen was scratched and scuffed out of the box.
You can see across a number of reviews 2021 & 2022 that it is not uncommon for the device to come out of the box with a scratched / scuffed / cloudy screen. The Amazon box was somewhat beat up, but the Sandisk box appeared to be fine, so I was surprised that the screen was scratched and scuffed. There was no sign of a 'protective film' that usually comes on an electronic device with a screen.
That led me to take a closer look at the reviews and I realized that 1,2 & 3 star reviews made up 25% of the total, with many of the 3 stars citing the same problems as the 1 and 2 star reviews.
In the end I decided to keep a replacement, which also had a scratched screen (less so, also no protective film.)
This 1 star is more as FYI from my POV than a 'don't buy.'
This device has been around since 2017. A look at review trends from 2022:
* Scratched screen. Lot of complaints. Both devices that I received were scratched / cloudy. One user purchased 3, all scratched. I even saw pictures of this Sansa model with a < 5 > star review and the device screen was scratched in a manner identical to mine and not even mentioned by that customer. I do not know if this is Amazon or Sandisk at fault or a combination of device materials and packaging mixed with Amazon warehouse and delivery. I would just say that the very shiny material used for the screen appears to be especially prone to scratching and it is more a question of when, rather than if, it will get scratched.
Based on my personal opinion that the scratched screen was not a deal breaker and looking at the other review complaints vs. my experience with the device I decided to keep the 2nd, less scratched one.
* One of the top complaints is Bluetooth connectivity. Either cannot connect to a device or connection unstable or very short range .. during excercise .. quick head movement .. or if the Sansa is just a few feet from the receiving device or in a pocket or even if covered by a hand.
I did not experience any BT problems with either of the 2 devices. Easily connected to 7 different speakers and 2 headsets of various ages and BT versions. I placed it in my pocket, covered it with my hand, put it in a drawer and separated the Sansa from a speaker by 20 feet without a problem, further without an intervening wall. Once I searched and paired with my devices they were saved in the Clip and auto-connected the next time I turned on BT.
* Many complaints about the battery and that it did not last very long before requiring recharge. I think it actually lasts just as long as Sandisk says it will, but they just advertised it in a way that would easily mislead a buyer that was not looking very closely. After following the 'conditioning' recommendations in the user guide, I was surprised to find 7 to 8 hours as max before battery dead ... until I went back and looked at the manufacturer splash on the amazon page. BIG FONT: 'up to 18 hours' ! .. fine print: 'with wired headset'.
The Amazon product page for this item includes the manufacturer claim 'enough battery power to last up to 18 hours on a single charge with fine print 'Based on continuous playback at 128 kbps MP3 with wired earphones; up to 6.5 hours using Bluetooth; actual life and performance may vary depending upon usage and settings; battery not replaceable.' I have not tried wired headset as, like most people, Bluetooth is what attracted me to this item. I can say first cycle that the device, when played continuously via BT went from 100% to 0 in just a bit under 7 hours. Recharge to 100% took about 2.5 hours. Later cycles reached almost 8 hours. The paperwork in the box recommended 'conditioning' the battery via 3 to 5 cycles of 'full charge' / 'full discharge' to 'maximize useful life'.
So I wound up with battery life in line with Sandisk (fine print) specs, but with buyers looking at BT as a main selling point and seeing BIG FONT 18 hours, this is kind of deceptive and a bit stupid on Sandisk's part as it appears to makes buyers angry and generates returns.
* Volume too low. The volume is definitely a bit lower than my experiences with other devices (but good for my needs.) I used this for headphones ... more than enough volume for me .. and speakers ... some a little low, but they were the lower watts models among the group and all were fine ... with the higher watt speakers plenty loud.
* Sound quality very poor. For me the sound was as I expected from the range of different devices I tried .. no different from the BT experience from my Samsung phone.
* Many complaints about how difficult it is to create a playlist. Not something I have used in the past, I looked into it and found lots of frustration with this issue on the Sandisk forum along with what I think is a very easy solution <IF> you have a windows pc and windows media player. In a nutshell you copy all your music files to the Clip, drag the titles from the Clip into WMP and save as a M3u playlist which is then copied back to the Clip and placed in the 'playlist folder.' NO WMP sync is involved .. just creating a list of song locations within the WMP and then copying the finished/saved list back to the Sansa. Actually sounds like more work than it is. Takes a few minutes to create a list and it work perfectly. Below I have pasted the complete directions I followed that were posted by the user cited on the Sandisk forum.
* A word about the radio. Only works with the wired headset. Even with it many NY FM stations were not picked up and many could only be listened to after a lot of gyrations with the wired headset (think Ed Norton with the rabbit ears out in the hall.) For me pretty much useless except for 1 or 2 stations.
As I write this while listening to a 'sounds real good to me, plenty loud, 1 min to create' playlist on an Anker 15W BT speaker in the next room I am satisfied that this scratched screen 32 GB BT device holding a bit over 5,000 songs is worth the f o r ty f o ur I paid (last sansa clip .. 8 years ago with 4 GB was 27.)
If any of the "only time will tell' complaints ('no longer charges' , 'died' ) come true for me I will update this review.
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Here are the playlist instructions for windows. >>> this was posted in 2019 after a <2 year> discussion <<<
--------------------------------------------------- sandisk forum: https://forums.sandisk.com/t/m3u-playlist-empty/73519/26
pathas Jun '19
JSW1735 offers the correct and most elegant solution to creating a playlist on the sansa clip via WMP… I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out-even chatting with tech support. He is exactly correct about the instructions in the user manual and on line - they are WRONG. They all refer to creating a file on THE COMPUTER (not the sansa) which includes the M3U file AND the actual MP3 files.
THE INSTRUCTIONS FROM SANSA ARE WRONG!!!
Because the instructions were wrong - I was attempting all of the methods (other than renaming files or using different media players) to make the playlists work. All the time I couldn’t understand why I would have to save the mp3 files on the computer and then transfer them to the sansa. My sansa has the songs already!!
I followed JSW1735’s instructions and VOILA!!! Playlist created and visible and not empty on my sansa. So - just to reiterate.
here’s what I did - all thanks to JSW1735.
1. plugged in my Sansa (don’t know whether its MTP or MSC or whatever) My sansa has over a thousand songs in the music folder and no playlists.
2. went to “my computer” (I have Windows 7) and opened up my sansa to view the files
3. opened up my “Music” folder on the Sansa to see my songs.
4. opened up Windows Media Player (I have version 12)
5. made the WMP window smaller so it wouldn’t fill up the whole computer screen
6. now I am looking at the window showing my “music” folder songs on the left that I opened with explorer and on the right I am looking at WMP in a window.
7. I then dragged the songs from the “music” folder over to the right hand side of the WMP window under the tab “play” - NOT the “SYNC” tab (there are 3 tabs over there on the right: “Play”, “Burn”, and “Sync”)… It’s important to note that you don’t have to use the sync at all to do this - just the “play” tab. Under the play tab it says “Drag Items here to create a Playlist” So you Know you are dragging the songs from your music folder on the sansa to the correct place.
8. Once I was done dragging all the songs i wanted in my playlist (FROM MY SANSA MUSIC FOLDER) over to the playlist area on the Play tab in WMP - I clicked on the drop down arrow of the little box on the upper right hand corner of the “Play” tab that has the green checkmark on it. That drop down menu has a “save as” command in it. I saved the playlist as an M3U FILE. It is very important to save it as an M3U file I guess - so that the sansa can read it. Also you can sort the playlist as one of the commands on the dropdown list if you want. So - I saved it on my desktop as JSW1735 suggested.
9. I closed my WMP window leaving open my sansa window.
10. I dragged the playlist from my desktop ( it was titled “Tester List.m3u” ) over to the “Playlists” folder on my sansa. I disconnected my sansa from the computer - - the sansa refreshed and lo and behold - in the playlist menu under “Music” right after the 3 go lists my TESTER LISt was there. I clicked on it - and under it was the songs I had selected. It did NOT add MP3 files to my sansa. As JSW1735 said - it now knew where to look for the song in the sansa MUSIC folder.
in summary:
1. JSW1735 is in fact a genious.
2… The Sansa instructions are incorrect
3. You do not have to add mp3 files to your sansa just to create a playlist
4. You do not have to sync anything to WMP
5. You do not have to use the folders function on the sansa.
again - thankyou JSW1735. I was seriously considering trashing my sansa–
