Bosch - 2 Amp 1/4-Sheet Sander - 1297DK

I paint for a living, so besides a paint brush, roller or putty knife, the next thing I use the most is probably a palm sander. I looked at every palm sander on the market when I went to replace the ancient Makita palm sander that had finally given up the ghost. I decided on the Bosch for one primary reason. The unique SheetLoc clamping system w/ the Bosch lets you change paper 3X faster than any other sander out there. And to a painter that's a VERY big deal, since we can go through a lot of sandpaper on a job.
Another nice thing about the system is that, the way it's made, it's not absolutely necessary to cut a full sheet of paper into exact quarters to fit it. Unlike most other palm sanders, if you're a little short or a little long, the rear clamp's design compensates for the difference. So if you've got new paper ready to load into the sander you can literally pull out the old piece and put in the new one in 2-3 seconds and start sanding again. It's one great design, and I can't say enough good things about it, but w/ the way it's currently being manufactured, it's got a serious flaw that disqualifies it as being the "perfect" sander.
The flaw lies in the padding material in the rear clamps. It's made from 2 rubber compounds that comes in contact w/ the sand paper. And being rubber it abrades when it comes in contact w/ an abrading surface, that surface in this case, being 80 grit sandpaper. I wore out the rubber surface to the lower, rear clamping lever after two days of use w/ 80 grit paper. Wearing that surface out causes the clamp to lose grip on the paper, so to continue using the sander,you end up doubling over the paper to take up the slack, which then wears out the soft rubber on the upper rear clamp. After that rubber wears out then all you're left with is a paper weight w/ a cord. Fortunately, I wore mine out while still under warranty so Bosch replaced my sander w/ a factory Refurb model at no charge, except for the shipping.
Unfortunately, the new sander came w/ the same rubber clamp surfaces as the old one, so I can clearly see the writing on the wall. Every other palm sander on the market (from what I can tell) has metal to metal clamps for the paper, which unlike rubber tend not to be affected too much by 80 grit sandpaper vibrating a very high speeds. If you don't use heavy grit paper w/ one of these sanders it may last a lot longer before the clamp surfaces fail, but I'm afraid fail they will eventually.

P.S.
This is an update to this review. Per above, Bosch sent me a second sander under warranty. It was a refurb model. It worked fine out of the box, but I noticed that the same thing that made the first one unusable (the deteriorated rubber clamping surfaces) was beginning to happen to the second one. Unless you use only 120 grit and finer paper w/ the units this may not be an issue, I don't know, since I use grits that range from 40 up to 400 in mine. It's the coarse grits that seem to wear out the clamp padding the fastest. And when the clamp rubber is worn down, they don't hold the paper. My second sander, like the first, is now unusable because it will not hold paper. Because it is out of warranty Bosch will only offer to replace the clamps at my expense w/ a maximum charge of $42 plus shipping. These sanders can be bought brand new for as low as $49.
Every other palm sander on the market (from what I've seen) has clamps that don't rely on rubber surfaces to hold the paper tight. Although I'm a satisfied owner of many other Bosch power tools, I have to re-rate this tool as poorly designed and not recommended for anyone other than the occasional user or homeowner who my need to do some light sanding. For anyone in the building trades, I would recommend either a DeWalt or Porter Cable unit until Bosch changes the clamps on theirs.