A few points for perspective of my review. I'm a Runner, so my review is from that perspective of primary use. Second, I'm an Apple products user with a MacBook Air, iTunes as my primary PC. I've owned multiple Apples Shuffles and Nanos and found the Shuffle was the best product for Running up to this point,.. with the exception that if the Shuffle gets wet it will die out.
Because of your body sweating during long runs, I can go through 3 to 4 Shuffles a year. I know there are ways one can waterproof a Shuffle, but I've not done this. The other issue I have with the Shuffle is it doesn't have an FM Radio (which the Clip Jam does).
I know there is an Apple Nano that has an FM Radio, BUT it doesn't have a built in clip to the product and I wanted something smaller to the Shuffle that I could attach to my running shirt of short without any weighing my clothes down.
I did a lot of research prior to me buying the Clip Jam and there is really nothing on the market that met my requirements of lightweight, small, that I could transfer my iTunes music to and had an FM Radio, except the Clip Jam.
I was concerned how hard it could be to transfer my iTunes music over to the Sandisk Clip Jam, but it was extremely EASY to do. And from a quality of sound I find no difference in quality from the Apple Shuffle to the Clip Jam.
And my main goal of having something with an FM Radio was achieved. The Clip Jam did great getting all my favorite local stations. The plus is that you can set stations for easy changing while on your Run.
It is true the Clip Jam does not have the metal casing as the Apple Shuffle has. It's made out of a plastic type material,.. but it doesn't feel cheap or that it would break easily,.. it just feels light, which is what I wanted for my Runs.
It also has the ability to use a microSDHC card to expand the 8GB it already has. Which will make it easy to download a lot of music for longer Runs where you may want more diversity.
It also has a screen to search and put your music into folders which makes it easy to organize on the go,.. and to top it off it not expensive. Comparing it to the Shuffle, I was able to get the Clip Jam for $5 cheaper. A very small price to pay to keep one focused on Running to Music which is a life saver.
I love it! I'm a Clip Jam fan for sure,.. it will now be my new go to music product for Running.
This thing is tiny (see attached photo comparing it to an American quarter coin)! But it is big on performance. It easily holds my music library with its 8GB size and I have no problems with finding songs, or playing back anything I downloaded which I did have with my last player (not a Sandisk).
Pros:
Small size makes for a discrete object that won't bulk up your bag or pocket.
Good hard drive size.
Internal battery holds a good charge.
Plays both WMP and MP3 file formats which are pretty much the standards.
Has shuffle mode that can be used within an artist (not sure about within an album because I haven't tried yet).
Comes with everything you'll need to use it.
Has actual buttons instead of touch screen so you can feel what you're pushing (I like that in an MP3 player).
Clip is surprisingly useful.
Cons:
Two (count 'em, 2) volume settings: Normal And High. (not correct, see edit below)
Super tiny (see picture, it is about 2.5 quarters long by 1.5 wide) you may lose it in a bag or purse.
Clip will probably break before the rest of the product (it is plastic, I don't expect much).
Overall Evaluation:
My list of pros is much larger than my list of cons as you can easily see. Honestly the only con I view as a problem is the 2 volume setting thing. It is loud enough on the Normal setting for me to use on a bus full of people, but that setting is a little loud for a quiet area for me. I'd like to see some more fine tuning of the volume, but I'm willing to live with it because I like this product. It is simple in its design, and its user interface was simple enough for me to try stuff like shuffle mode in an artist to find it will play just that artist (again, haven't checked the album). This matched my needs of playing music, which it had to do and does quite well. I like that I don't need any additional pieces or cables, and that it is not a touch screen (I hate those things). I thought the Clip was stupid when I first got it, but now I see the use. I clip it to my shirt when I'm walking places or riding the bus because it is easily accessible and holds well. I think this is one of the best MP3 players you can get without getting too fancy, and would definitely recommend it to a friend.
5 stars given because the negative is minor and I like everything else more than enough to compensate.
Edit: 10-12-15
I was wrong; there is a fine adjustment on the side of the MP3 player for the volume. I found it by accident as it is very small and on the left side of the object. With this information, my major drawback is no longer valid. This is a perfect MP3 player for use.
My sweetheart and I are in our fifties so we don't play music on our phones as some do. However, we have grown especially fond of the sandisk 8 GB MP3 players. It seems as though things don't stay around long anymore though. So, we've purchased three of these MP3 players as we tend to ue them often. He works in construction, so he can play some jam on the job, I've actually put my earplugs in on occasion and used mine at work.They can be useful, while outdoors working in the yard, or taking them on a trip. Overall, we just use these mp3 players and hate to see them go extinct in todays ever changing products. Also, wanted to add that if the mp3 freezes up, suddenly won't power up. I googled info. for how to solve this issue when it happened. Hold down the center power button, while holding down the button with the arrow (home) button at the same time. Hold for maybe ten seconds or so, then the sandisk should come across the screen and power up. If not repeat this process. It has happened to us with our older mp3 and this has fixed it.
Finally free of iTunes.
OK, I never really bought tunes from iTunes, but it seemed like the "way" to organize music and move it to a player simply. After a while, especially trying to manage multiple music libraries (mine and my wife's), it was getting way too complicated and way to "buggy". Constant software updates, constant requests for passwords, sync difficulties, the challenges of changing computers and moving music libraries. It got to the point where we stopped buying new music because it was not worth the trouble to get it to a player.
So my goal was to simplify, and this Sandisk worked perfectly. The hardest part is converting music from your iTunes library from M4A format to MP3, but changing some settings in your iTunes program let's you do it, just do a web search to find out how.
-I selected all my songs
-I selected "convert to MP3"
-I walked away from the computer and let it happen
Then I just copied my entire library to a new music folder and searched *.M4A from the new music folder (not the iTunes library) and deleted all the *.M4A versions. You can go back to your iTunes folder and do the same thing to delete the unnecessary *.MP3 files (now you have MP3 to move to the Sandisc and M4A still in your iTunes if you need to go back)
The only other thing you need to do is make sure your albums are tagged properly so they show up on the player (and have album art if you want that)
-Manage your new MP3 library in Windows Media Player
-Look at artists and your music should be arranged by albums
-Highlight all the songs from an album and "search for album details" to get the songs properly tagged
That part is a little messy and takes time but it is worth the effort
I spent a few hours to organize 1200 songs, but now it is completely set and the easiest thing in the world to manage, just drag songs and albums or files of albums to the player and ..... done
The player itself
Throw away the headphones, they are junk but you probably already figured that out
Drag and drop your new MP3 files to the player
I like this model with just the text cause it is easier to read when running, the album art is cute but for me too hard to read, this is enough for me
The controls are intuitive, easy to navigate
The player is a nice size, unlike my "ipod shuffle" I can clip this to my waistband, the clip is big enough and I can do it without the touch screen trying to change my songs
And the price is reasonable compared to anything "i"
I now have complete control of my music library
I have used it half dozen times and I love it, the sound is good, the controls easy to use
One bit of info that I was trying to find but could not was how to organizes the file structure. In the end it does not matter, the player digs into folders and sub folders to show albums and artists, just like Windows Media player does. So organize however you want and the player will still let you find what you need.
I just bought a second one (with the display so she can see the album art) for my wife.
I love it.
So this liitle player was a huge surprise at how much better it was. Especially for the price. The 8GB goes a long way. I dont think she will ever fill it up. The battery life is impressive as well. Even having it on playing several hours a day, the battery still does not need to be charged but every couple days.
The mp3 player is very small, as you can see from the video. Even in a 7 year olds hands, it still is very small.
All in a ll a great purchase at a great price. Hours of fun for kids, or portable music solution for adults.
Feature Product
- Super lightweight wearable personal music player
- Deep rich sound quality with a built-in micro SD card expansion slot
- Play audio files in lots of formats (MP3 WMA (no DRM) AAC (DRM free iTunes) and Audible (DRM only)
- Big bright readable screen and large navigation buttons up to 18 hour battery life
- 2 year limited warranty
Description
Put the fun back into music-on-the-go with the compact and colorful Clip Jam digital music player you can clip on and take anywhere. The bright one inch screen and big navigation buttons make it easy to drag, drop and play files in popular audio formats including AAC. Add even more music via the micro SD card slot for up to 18 hours of big sound.
I bought this primarily because I have an older Sandisk player I used for listening to Audible.com content (audio books), and Audible informed me that I could no longer use format 3 for some reason on that device.
Unfortunately I have had the same "lag" issue that others have reported on this device (Clip Jam). Let me say as an aside that I have ONLY used this device for Audible.com content so far, and have in fact not yet put any music on the device. And that I've not bothered to put a microSD card in to expand the capacity, as for now at least, I'm loading just one book at a time, just to make the UI easier.
The lag I experienced was when I would press "pause" or "play", I could sometimes wait up to 30 seconds before the device would actually start playing. This is particularly frustrating if someone starts talking to you or for some other reason you need to stop right away.
So I went a couple of rounds with customer support, and found their response to be pretty good and fast. The upshot is that Amazon offers a total of five formats now: formats 1 - 4, plus "enhanced". When I had to stop using format 3 (and I've already forgotten why ...), rather than go to format 4, I decided to try the "enhanced": not that I care about whatever increased audio fidelity goodness that might entail (even format 3 sounds fine to me for audiobooks), but because unlike the other formats, the "enhanced" format version of audiobooks download as monolithic files. So the book I'm currently listening to downloads in two parts, two separate files in format 4, and some books take even three or even more files depending on total length. But in enhanced format the book downloads as a single file. Very easy user interface given very long file names --- typically with the "part 1" coming last when present.
But what I was told on the second go-round with Sandisk's support team is that Audible.com doesn't support the "enhanced" format for this device. This was not at all obvious to me when I purchased it, and that's part of why I would give it 3-1/2 stars if I could (I nudged it to 4 stars based on their customer support responses).
The other thing I'm not keen on is that, even when I went to format 4, which IS supported, I can still get a lag of a couple of seconds. I can live with that, but with devices operating in theory at electronic speeds, a couple of seconds in machine parlance is kind of forever --- unpleasant for the customer and IMO a failure in quality of the firmware.
The other thing I'm not keen on is that once in a while when I've "locked" the display, it's a little tweaky getting it unlocked; maybe I'll get the hang of the timing there and that aspect will go away, but just push and hold until the unlock icon shows up --- just that alone doesn't seem to reliably work for me.
Compared earlier times, this device offers loads of capacity and at a decent price, plus it IS working now so I'll keep it. But for my use, at least, a four star review seems a bit generous.
This MP3 player is nice, good features, screen shows enough menu options to make browsing a breeze. I did run into an issue where the MP3 player would freeze and sometimes restart when I selected any option on the main screen. After trying to figure out what it would be, I downloaded a firmware update (1.15) and it seems to have fixed it. I would say if you are buying this, do this ASAP! It added a "books" option to the home page and there are a lot more customization options in the settings menu.
I bought this mp3 player to listen to audiobooks so I don't have to carry my bulky phone around. So far it works ok. It is very small and lightweight, holds a decent selection of books and has good sound quality. It does remember where I stopped or paused for each book. The only problem I had was I could not figure how to rewind the book for just a few seconds. Every time I press the back button it goes back to the beginning of the track but I can go back to where I paused if I press the forward button.
I was able to load audiobooks from overdrive but had a problem with a book not playing in the right order and one that was titled under 'unknown album'. I found out this was not a problem with the player itself but with the way books were tagged in overdrive. After some reading on the sandisk forum I found it was very easy to fix using the mp3tag app.
A note for those who are new to mp3tag app:
After you download the mp3tag app to your computer, you can import the overdrive books into the app by going to 'File -> Add directory' in top menu. For my windows 10 computer the directory was found in Music/My Media/Overdrive.
After you load the audiobooks in mp3tag for books playing in the wrong order do the following:
Select the book tracks that was out of order and then run from top menu Tools -> Auto Number Wizard and check 'Leading zeroes for tract numbers', then press ok.
For books placed in 'unknown album' do the following:
Select the book tracks that were in 'unknown album', then on the left of the screen in mp3tag, enter the book title or what you want to name it in 'Album', then cick 'Save tag' in top menu. then press ok.
Then copy books from mp3tag to player.
I like it so far. After a couple Apple MP3 players, I have owned the Fuse, the Clip+ and now this Clip Jam. While I do like this, they are getting worse functionality wise... I wish Sansa would just leave well enough alone but then their RnD would have nothing to do...The Fuze was by far the best of the Sansa Mp3 players, but I do/did like my Clip+ better than this new Clip Jam.
Cons: My main beef with this Clip Jam is that it does not have genres. I didn't realize that before I bought it. I have a very diverse collection of music and genres are a helpful way for me to organize my extensive collection on these players.
Pros - The Clip Jam has a back button which you will find helpful...The Clip Jam's on/off button is much easier.
Btw, I tried but returned the AGPtEK [2016 NEW UI] A02. While it did have genres, it did not put album songs in order. Plus it seemed very cheap. It did remind me of my old Sansa Fuze (RIP...) in appearance, album cover art and the ability to watch videos.
FYI, Clip+ silicone covers will work on Clip Jams although the ones made specifically for the Clip Jam are better/more custom. I use a MP3 holder so I never use the clip. Instead, I use a medium(credit card size) CASE LOGIC UNIVERSAL BLACK MP3 CASE WITH REMOVABLE ARMBAND from ebay - small would work also. I use my player while bike riding - exercising in rain and/or sweating. By using the silicone cover AND the Case Logic case, I feel like my player is well protected from the elements.
I bought this for my husband for our anniversary & he loves it! He uses it at work the 6-8 hrs, 5 days a week that he is outside playing the cardboard guitar for a pizza joint, as well as in the car & anytime he wants to hear music that I do not (which is often)! He is very hard on MP players & goes through them about every 6 months or so. Here is his feedback to me, resulting in the final opinion that this is the best anniversary gift I have given him in the 11 years we have been together!
1) Easiest he's ever had to move music from his laptop to the player. He has a Mac laptop & uses both iTunes & a number of non-iTunes formats for his songs, including some that are finished products from his recording studio (his "real job" if you ask him).
2) The 'random' option is truly random! He often has full albums as well as individual songs & other players will only random songs in an album then go to the next album & random songs from it, but this player will truly random-a song from one album, then a song from the 59th album stored, a single, a song from a 3rd album, a song from the 20th album, ... you get the picture.
3) Great size. Small, but big enough for him to both see (he wears glasses) & navigate (he fat fingers his phone all the time- he doesn't fat finger this).
4) Great battery life. He makes sure it's fully charged before going to work & it lasts the whole time and beyond.
5) It holds SO MUCH music!!! 40GB memory (8GB built in + the max opt of 32GB SD card that I included for him) holds a lot of songs +!
6) He can listen to local stations, too, with the FM tuner so he can check on the weather or listen to PRI & George Bell
7) He can listen to his podcasts also. (rolling my eyes)
8) He can listen to audiobooks. Plus he can stop listening or turn the player off & the player stores his place so when he goes back it automatically picks up right where he left off.
9) He can lock the screen so his pocket can't change the settings on him, also has an actually useful clip which helps with the same issue.
10) He can organize everything easily & in a way that makes sense- audiobooks under audiobooks, podcasts under podcasts, etc.
11) It has great volume span- from what I consider nicely quiet background noise to...well, I have clearly heard what he's listening to despite him having the earbuds in - what he calls 'it's not that loud, you must be too old!'
12) It has great sound. As someone who records & mixes music for a living (when not playing the cardboard guitar for the pizza joint), he is very sensitive to sound quality. He says this has some of the best sound quality of all the players he's ever had.
I paid around $30.00 for the player, included the 32GB SD card(so he had a card dedicated only for the player), & invested under $20.00 in the Accessories Bundle Kit for it (which upps the color options, adds some protection for the player & added all 3 charging options {USB, car, & wall} with a dedicated charging set) which is also available through Amazon. As that old commercial says, 'Less than $75.00 spent total for a gift that my husband calls "The best anniversary gift in 11 years!"? Priceless!'
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