Monday, October 05, 2009

SanDisk Sansa Clip Survives Washing Machine 1000 RPM Journey in Pant Pocket

I thought my precious 2GB Sansa Clip MP3 player was destroyed when I found it had gone through our Fisher & Paykel washing machine.  I let it dry out for a few days in a bag of uncooked rice.

When I finally powered on the Sansa Clip the screen lit up, but nothing legible was displayed.  It was as if all the pixels were turned on but were very dim.  Then the device powered off.  I thought the display was shot.

2 months later my son convinced me to recharge the device.  I was able to read files from the device, but when I turned it on, the display problem persisted.  Only this time, when all the pixels lit up they were noticeably brighter.  I looked in the Sansa manual to find ways blindly navigate the controls, and found an option to reset the player by holding the switch in the powered off position for 15 seconds, so I tried that instead.

When I again turned on the Clip, the display worked!  The device had survived with no apparent ill effects, other than needing a reset.  I had to take a picture.
Sansa Clip Resurrection 004-cropped

This thing is small and tough, and unlike the Apple ipod firmware, it plays Ogg Vorbis(some of my preferred podcasts are in that format).  Thank you SanDisk engineers!

4 comments:

r4 dsi said...

I've had this for a month and love it for books that I rip from CDs. I use it several hours a days while working out, driving, walking, etc. However, I often download books from public library sites and it doesn't work so well with them. On long book tracks (45-75 minutes), it won't start up where you turn it off.

Lars Rasmussen said...

Agreed! I would really like to see this feature of resuming playback added. I am however, able to play Ogg Vorbis & FLAC files - something I couldn't do on an ipod.

Wingvan 2011 said...

Rough little player! I lost my one on Monday of this week. And earlier today (Friday) my father found it in the snow on the rocks of our driveway. It had wheel-tracks covering it, and it has apparently been run over several times.. I gave it a blow through the mini-jack, and it lid up! Seems to be working fine, but I'll give it a rest to dry out.

We are talking steady temperatures of -12 degrees Celsius for those 5 days. Thats remarkable! Just some scratchings and even the clip is 100% intact!

Thank you SanDisk!

The Bee said...

O.M.G.! Smacking it worked for me too! Lit up like an Xmas tree! Thanks.