I purchased a sansa clip+ that failed within a year. Sansa replaced the clip with another unit that failed 9 months later with the exact same issue. Don’t waste your money on this garbage product. Spend your money on a company and product that not only stands behind it’s wares but manufactures quality merchandise.
Care to elaborate on exactly what the problem was? Or were you just trolling?
Sure. Music playing ability and screen went dead in 11 months and 9 months respectively. Gets recognized by computer but nothing on the player screen so goes from being an mp3 player to a storage unit. First time I contacted support and after troubleshooting they admitted there was a problem with my unit and they sent another. After having the exact same issue with the relacement and troublshooting with customer support they suggested multiple times I purchase a new one because combined the two players lasted longer than a year.
I expect something I purchase to last multiple years, not need to be replaced each year. I’ve had 3 other sandisk mp3 players that were great. However, this product (or atleast the units I keep getting) obviously has issues and Sandisk could care less, all they want me to do is purchase another one. Too bad the company doesn’t stand behind their products because they lost me as a customer and anyone else I can convince.
P.S. See if you can find the contradiction in their unsolicited follow ups to my customer service incident.
“… I understand that your issue has not been addressed as per your satisfaction and I am sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. We provide only one yesr warranty with each of our sansa players. I would suggest you to buy a new player. Its unfortunate that the players are not working…”
“…I understand that the player stopped working for you. Its unfortunate that the player failed on you within 1 year. We do manufacture quality products. SanDisk do stand by the warranty but unfortunately the player is not under warranty now. I can only recommend you to purchase a new player.”
Most companies don’t restart a warranty with each replacement unit, so there’s not really a contradiction there. They are guaranteeing you get a year of use for the price you paid for the original unit, and you got 20-21 months.
You’ll find virtually every other manufacturer treats its warranty items the same way–one purchase, one warranty period. And good luck, with any small electronics (even expensive ones like laptops and cellphones), getting a warranty longer than one year.
Clips are quite inexpensive, and thus not built to last forever. How they are used also varies for each owner. (i.e., do you leave the screen always on or does it time out? Do you run the unit every waking hour? For other users, are you gentle inserting headphone and USB cords?)
When you switch brands, it will be interesting to see if you get the same price-per-month-of-use proportion. Hope it works out well for you.
Interesting interpretation of the term ‘warranty’ there. Just return something after 11 months and get a new one - repeat to fade…
If that catches on, I’ll only ever have to buy one of everything!
As a counterpoint to this post, I’d like to say that I’ve had my clip+ for almost five years. Still works as well as it did back then - and I’ve battered it, dropped it, dunked it in water and run/cycled thousands of miles with it jumping around in my pocket (the belt clip broke about three years ago). The old ‘hold finger down on power button until logo displays’ trick has never failed to work for me when the unit has crashed
Zebulebu perhaps you missed the cause of the post. This is not regarding the interpretation of a warranty, it is the interpretation of a quality product. If I could have a clip+ that lasts 5 years I would be elated and sing sandisks praises. However unlike you that is not the case. I didn’t just return something after 11 months. I contacted Sandisk because their device failed within a year. The quality of the product I received was not good enough to last a year. When they replaced it, that replacement had even less quality and failed in an even shorter time.
It’s great your experience is that your player has lasted a long time. I also had Sandisk MP3 players years ago that lasted a long time (and did sing Sandisk’s praises). However, since you have not had the need to purchase one in recent years because your’s has lasted so long, perhaps Sandisk’s quality is much different now. Based on reviews on various web sites, my issue does not appear to be uncommon which would lead support to my assertion that the current qualitty is lacking and perhaps make my experience more the norm than yours.
Sandisk contacted me to highlight that they warrant their product for a year and make quality products. These were unsolicited communications. Regardless of what they and anyone else writes, the only fact that I know and the bottom line is, both the original and replacement failed in less time than time period they warrant and that definitely is not a quality product.
While the clip+ is not the most expensive product on the market, it is competitive in price with the Apple Shuffle. Do you think Apple would be satisfied with products that last less than a year? Regardless of what I buy, I expect something to last a relevant amount of time and a company that stands behind what they make. If one clip+ failed after half the time you’ve had yours I would not complain (I would hope for longer but would not complain. However, I recently had two that combined couldn’t even last half as long as yours and a company that doesn’t see a problem with that.
Quality is quality regardless the price or warranty period. I am not willing to spend my money on a company that repeatedly delivers sub-standard products (or doesn’t stand behind them). I also feel others should be aware of this information so they can make an informed decision taking into account both of our experiences.
Yeah, go for that iPod Shuffle for $50 with 2GB and no display and no expansion slot.
http://store.apple.com/us/buy-ipod/ipod-shuffle
Your display failed. Nope, that wouldn’t happen on the Shuffle for sure. No display, no failure. Quite the value proposition.
That’s vs. the 4G Clip+ for $50 with 4GB, expansion slot, radio, display, voice recording. Which you probably got at something under list price anyway, unlike undiscounted Apple.
You think Apple devices don’t fail?
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/apple-sued-over-failing-ipod-shuffle-controls/
Maybe you were unlucky, maybe you used the backlight a lot more than most people do, but your experience is unusual. I don’t know about “reviews on various web sites” but I just saw one on Amazon where someone was too stupid to take off the screen-covering sticker from the original package, thought it wasn’t working, and sent it back with a one-star review.
So sure, try another brand. But for any device, you’re paying price per month of use. Nothing lasts forever. Hope your next device lasts longer.
No, they shouldn’t die in less than a year. The warranty declares that the company doesn’t expect them to and it replaces them if they do.
But that’s under normal use. Given the number of posts here, which is actually a sample skewed toward people having trouble, I don’t see early burnout as a typical problem.
By the way, the fabulous iPod Shuffle warranty is also one year, with lots of conditions.
http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/nios-ipod-english-row.html