• Up to 15 hours of playback
• MicroSD card slot to expand memory
• Weighs roughly 24 grams

SanDisk’s Sansa Clip+ is a compact little device measures in at 2.1-inches by 1.3-inches by 0.4-inch and weighs a mere 24 grams. Yes, I weighed it. Haven’t you guys learned by now that I love to know how much my gadgets weigh? It boasts a super handy clip at the back, making it a clip-and-go gadget, ideal for going to gym, going for a jog or travelling. While I can’t vouch for durability of the clip (as I’ve only been able to use it for a couple of weeks now) I can say that it certainly looks sturdy and once you clip it on it stays put. It is available in black, red and blue, however the outside cover remains a brushed plastic black, regardless of the color you choose.

The Sansa Clip+ is really easy to navigate. The main menu includes selections for music, FM radio, voice and settings. The music menu is subdivided into artist, album, genre and playlist making it a pleasure to browse through the thousands of songs stored. The screen is quite small, and while I didn’t have an issue reading anything, the tiny monochrome text may be difficult to read for older people or people with impaired vision.

The player supports a pretty wide variety of audio formats including MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC and OGG. And is compatible with Windows XP SP2, Mac OS X 10.3 and Linux. Making it universally usable. SCORE! This little music device also comes with an FM tuner with autoscan mode.

And now we get to my all time favorite part of this entire little gadget. A couple of months ago I made a big career move from auditing into the world of fraud and money laundering and handwriting specialists and criminals as a forensic accountant. I often have to interview possible witnesses and suspects and in most cases we like to be able to record these conversations. Now, you are probably wondering what this has to do with the new Sansa Clip+? It has everything to do with it. This cute little gadget boasts a recorder. Making it ideal as an emergency Dictaphone or voice recorder. (A very useful feature when an unplanned interview needs to take place I assure you.)

While the quality of the recordings are by no means perfect, they are quite clear, and considering that being a recording device is not it’s main purpose, the quality is more than sufficient to keep me happy.

As I mentioned in my snapshot, another very smart feature is the microSD card slot, which allows you to expand the player’s memory capacity to whatever size microSD you can find. SanDisk currently makes microSD cards up to 32GB, but a little birdy told me that they will be launching a 64GB microSD card before the end of the year, which would make the memory of your tiny little player as large as some of the smaller external hard drives on the market. That equals A LOT of music.

The sound quality is pretty good, clear and without distortion. I would suggest though that if you are passionate about your music and the quality of the sound you might want to look at getting a really good quality set of headphones to optimise your listening experience.

My overall opinion on this one is: I like it. The Sansa Clip+ should definitely be ranked tops in the budget-friendly MP3 player section. After all, if it’s all about the music what more do you need than a cute, small and reliable gadget with plenty of storage space, a pretty impressive battery life and the ability to play back music?

Turn ons

• Up to 15 hours of playback time
• Dictaphone (still my favorite feature)
• Super easy to use

Turn offs

• The monochrome display is small and may be hard for some to read
• The earphones, while sufficient, do not optimise the listening experience