I'm on my fourth Clip+. They never last more than 1.5 to 2 years, which I suppose is good value for the money, since I use mine almost constantly as a media player and my portable USB drive. One survived two drops into the pool but the battery finally gave out. Two others simply quit working, I think because the firmware got into an unrecoverable state. My fourth one is now having mechanical problems in the USB jack, but I think I can fix it with spare parts from the others. They can be taken apart if you are gentle. The guitar pick is a good idea.

It's a shame that the mechanical parts of this player are underdesigned. Mine have all had the headphone jack start to fail, to stop retaining the plug. The USB interface also gets stubborn from time to time, file transfers often slow way down to the point of locking up the host computer too. I've never understood that.