That usability also transfers to plugging the device into your PC. Sure, you can use it like a standard USB drive and simply drag files onto it. But we chose to take advantage of the offer of syncing music files from Windows Media Player as soon as we plugged it in. This allowed us to highlight songs or pick entire albums to transfer across, with a handy guide displaying how much space we had left. Supported formats include MP3, WMA, secure WMA and Audible audio file formats. You’ll get up to 30 hours of music – around 500 songs – on the 2GB model, if you encode your MP3s at 128Kbps. Which means, maths fans, up to 15 hours and around 250 songs on the 1GB model (but you knew that, right?).

The FM radio – which could be seen as a tacked on feature – actually plays with surprisingly sharp sound. This is helped by homing in on a signal one tenth of a point at a time. Once you’ve found what you’re listening for, there are 40 pre-sets available to stop you following that slow process again. And the Sansa Clip’s recording function isn’t just wasted on your own thoughts. Those pearls of wisdom and top tunes doled out by radio DJs can also be captured for future reference.

Anyone with an existing product that uses a standard mini USB lead will also be happy to see that connection point on the side of the Clip. As this becomes ever more popular on devices, it cuts the amount of proprietary cables you need to bother carrying around (we can attest to this, using a single mini USB cable to deal with camera, smartphone and MP3 player). One concern here is that the connection point is left open to the elements. Some kind of stopper to shield it when it’s not in use would safeguard anything getting in there – especially as a device this inexpensive and small could well be bought by the kind of user that’s going to dump it in the bottom of their bag.

The usual low point when it comes to a product like this is the addition of a cheap pair of headphones. While the pair SanDisk has bundled won’t win any awards, we did prefer them to the ones Apple keeps insisting on including with its products. Leakage was minimal, so you’d have to be blasting your own eardrums to annoy those sitting near you. The quaint five minutes we spent fitting tiny foam headphone covers to them did take us back many years, though.

Battery life on the unit was also impressive. With a lot of unnecessary playing around with menus and listening to the sound of our own recorded voice, we didn’t really expect to get near the quoted 15 hour target – but our test time wasn’t far off. The only drawback is that, as with Apple music products, the rechargeable battery is embedded in the item and use over an extended amount of time will cause it to hold less charge.

Overall, if you’re looking for something to strap to your arm before you go jogging or something to clip to the inside of your suit jacket as you head into the daily commute, the Sansa Clip won’t disappoint.

Verdict: 9/10