Review on SanDisk 8GB Clip Jam MP3 Player (Orange) by Joel Young

Let me get right to it. The software for this thing really sucks. Before you think I'm just another complainer read my reviews, I've rarely been this negative. First (and this is my biggest complaint), you can't search by genre. The genre category does not appear in the menu at all. The menu options are Shuffle, Artists, Albums, Songs, and then Playlists (which is a joke, as explained below). Second, there are 3 playlists (labeled GoLists 1, 2, and 3) and you need to add a song. on time for playlists. You cannot add an artist or an entire album. And you cannot create more playlists. At least I can't after 3 hours of trying to figure it out and looking for ClipSport help boards online. I thought maybe I could make up for the lack of genres by making playlists for them. There is supposed to be a firmware update to allow whole albums to be added to playlists etc, but I couldn't find an update anywhere. Unfortunately I bought two of these, one for me and one for a friend. I feel like I totally wasted my money. Bottom line, it's an awkward way to listen to music, especially with the lack of a genre menu. I like to choose music based on mood ie instrumental, pop, dance, light music etc. I have more than one artist in each of these genres. But instead, I'm either stuck with one artist/album at a time or fidgeting with all sorts of different things that I might not be in the mood for. To update. a few hours later: Okay, after all the whining, I'll tell you how I finally cleared this hurdle. I removed all music from Sansa that I synced with Windows Media Player. I then returned to Windows Media Player and opened the original playlist I originally used to transfer the music. In this playlist (which shows genres) I sorted by genres. Then, in each genre, I highlighted all the album titles and right-clicked Edit. I entered a genre for the album title. So instead of a ton of different albums, I had six albums (of course they were genres). I'm doing a new new sync with a customized playlist. I certainly lose the true album titles on my Sansa, which is a shame, but the fake genre names were worth the sacrifice. Since I was able to figure out this fix, I upgraded it from 1 star to 2. If I had to do it again I wouldn't buy it. I would do more research to find a more efficient player. I'm doing another sync right now. If everything works as intended, this is where my review ends. If not, I'll get back to you.