SanDisk Sansa Fuze MP3 player

With the world going Apple mad, can SanDisk provide some respite within the type of the Sansa Fuze? We plugged within the 4GB Fuze to search out out.

From a design viewpoint, you’d be forgiven for considering that the Fuze wasn’t that totally different to Apple’s iPod nano, which this participant goes straight up towards. We put that all the way down to a type issue that works: a display and easy controller for quantity, observe choice, menu navigation and so forth.

The Sansa Fuze doesn’t take the minimalist method nonetheless; while it has slick clear strains, it has extra exhausting buttons: you’ve gotten a “dwelling” button and a mixed energy and Maintain slider key as nicely. The facility slider is most welcome, as a result of it’s a constructive methodology of powering on and off the system, in contrast to the iPod’s often doubtful press and maintain approach.

The again of the Fuze is a rubberised texture, so feels good within the hand, while the entrance is shiny – within the case of our assessment unit, black – which attracts fingerprints, however appears to be like very sensible. The central wheel (I’m attempting to not name it a click-wheel) has a great constructive really feel to it, permitting you to easily and simply choose the choice you need.

Discreetly lurking on the aspect of the Fuze is the half that makes us go slightly weak on the knees, for its pure simplicity. Sure, a microSD card slot. The concept right here, say SanDisk, is to supply a brand new approach of organising your music and managing your participant. In fact, it means you may broaden your 4GB participant with an 8GB microSD card, and as SDHC is supported, you’ll be capable of add greater playing cards sooner or later, so out of the blue the worth appears to be like very compelling.

SanDisk level out that you could be not even need to use the inner reminiscence, you would simply use the microSD card after which transfer it from system to system. Refreshing – don’t you assume?

While you insert a card, the album shortly updates and also you view all of your recordsdata collectively, there isn’t any differentiation between inner and exterior reminiscence, so it’s a seamless integration. While that is good for people who simply need to broaden the capability, it does imply that should you plug in another person’s card to hearken to a specific track, you’ll need to navigate to that track from scratch.

The Fuze helps a lot of codecs, MP3, WMA, safe WMA, WAV, Audible and MP4. Home windows customers will discover themselves utilizing Home windows Media Participant by default, so it’s value contemplating the shortcomings of WMP in managing your music, nonetheless, you may navigate by way of the system and do issues manually if you want, in addition to use different music administration applications.

As with most trendy gamers, the Fuze won’t solely take care of your music, it would play video, and show your pictures. However there is a bit more packed into this intelligent little system. There’s an FM radio and a voice recorder, plus, the choice to report from the radio, so you may catch that track you like and play it again later.

We discovered that the radio settings wanted to be set to the “World” area earlier than we may get something from it, then it’s simple to pick out the frequency you need, or scan the vary, and choose favorite presets to return to later. The voice recorder is beneficial, however you’ll want area within the inner reminiscence to have the ability to report something, so once more, utilizing an exterior microSD card appears to be like like a preferable possibility.

In relation to audio high quality: wow. The Sansa Fuze sounds very good. In fact, there any many components to be thought of right here. The equipped headphones are perfunctory: they do the job. They’re maybe higher than some rivals provide, and positively higher than your common cell phone bundled headphones. However to get probably the most from the participant, you really want to place one thing higher in there. While you do, you’ll actually admire the audio high quality you get from the Fuze (as long as your music is sweet high quality to start with). We solely have one minor criticism on the sound entrance, which is a small audible buzz when pausing, most noticeable when resuming playback.

The display efficiency is sweet, with a 220 x 176 decision at 20fps, however with a display this small, you actually don’t need to be watching movies for a very long time – the Sansa View is healthier for that. The menus are easy, and you aren’t overwhelmed with choices, though it’s an irritation that generally the choices you need are within the “Settings” menu quite than the, for instance, Radio menu.

Throughout playback you may nonetheless navigate menus and entry a spread of choices, together with the equaliser, which makes reside modifications as you scroll over, which is a pleasant contact. You don’t get the good clear look of the iPod’s show, and it doesn’t seem you can view the album artwork as a foremost image, however it does seem alongside the artist, album and observe data.

The inner battery, which isn’t changeable, will provide you with 24 hours of music, or 5 hours of video and fees by way of the equipped cable related to USB, though accent packs can be found for separate mains or automotive charging.

Our fast take

We had been impressed with the SanDisk Sansa Fuze. It’s maybe not as stylised as its iPod rival, however it delivers extra on your cash, not simply within the system itself, however mixed with the potential for enlargement by way of the exterior microSD slot. Total, you get the sensation that this participant is extra helpful than some well-liked rivals.

With nice audio high quality and competitively priced, the SanDisk Sansa Fuze is a severe contender as your subsequent music participant.

Additionally accessible in 2GB and 8GB and in a spread of colors.