Amazon.com Product Description With the SanDisk Sansa Fuze, you can fuse your portable entertainment, featuring 8 GB of storage. Listen, watch, and play all day with 24 hours of battery life and room for up to 2,000 songs**. Watch your favorite video clips on the Sansa Fuze's 1.9-inch color screen. Measuring just 0.3 inches thin, the Sansa Fuze marks the next wave of music and video players.
Your portable music machine with 8 GB of storage. (Click image to view larger.)
The MicroSD/SDHC memory card slot means storage possibilities are essentially unlimited. (Click image to view larger.)
Smaller than a credit card and as thin as a pencil, the new Sansa Fuze MP3 player looks great--and has the brains to match. (Black player shown here; click image to view larger.)
Audio Player Smaller than a credit card and as thin as a pencil, the new Sansa Fuze MP3 player looks great--and has the brains to match. With room for up to 2,000 songs**, you can listen all day long. Jam to FM radio with 40 preset stations, play with the built-in voice recorder, and listen to your favorite audiobooks wherever you go. And with 24 hours of battery life, you're free to listen, watch, and play all day--literally.
Watch Your Favorite Videos The Sansa Fuze comes with 8 GB of built-in memory enough to store 5 hours of video playback. Watch your favorite TV video clips from wherever you are. To ensure speedy file transfers, the unit features a USB 2.0 connection. Simply connect the player to a PC, and start dragging files from your Windows Media Player 10 or 11 applications.
Expanded Capacity With an option to extend the capacity, its MicroSD/SDHC memory card slot means storage possibilities are essentially unlimited. Expand your music collection, show albums of photos up to 4000 images*, and watch your favorite videos on those long trips.
Compatible Formats The player supports MPEG4 video files and audio files saved in MP3, secure and unsecured WMA, WAV, Audible, and Overdrive file formats.
FM Radio If you're feeling like a break from your own tunes, or want to dial in the TV frequency at the gym, use the digital FM tuner. Save your favorites on the 40 user presets.
Voice Recorder Use the voice recorder with built-in microphone to take memos, record meetings or lectures, or capture whatever else you might feel inclined to point a microphone at. When you're ready, transfer your files for listening on your PC.
What's in the Box SanDisk Sansa Fuze 8 GB MP3 player (silver), earphones, USB 2.0 cable, quick start guide
* 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes; some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions; thus, it is not available for data storage
** Based on continuous audio playback at 128 kpbs MP3; video playback at 512 kbps/ MPEG 4; photos based on 1.7 MB average file size; battery life and performance might vary depending upon usage and settings; battery not replaceable.
Good player, small bugDecember 5, 2008 All in all I'm pleased with this purchase; it seems to be of decent quality and works well. Buyers should be aware that (as of this writing) there is a bug in the audio caused by a battery-saving measure. When the equalizer is at its default flat settings and the backlight turns off, a motorboating or "bumping" sound can be heard when listening to certain audio files. This is easily worked around by either changing to one of the EQ presets (i.e. "Rock" or "Classical"), or by choosing "Custom" and slightly changing one of the EQ sliders. The manufacturer is aware of this problem and plans a fix for it in a future firmware release; you can find details in their website forums.
Sansa Fuze AdvisoryDecember 3, 2008 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I recently bought a Sansa Fuze music player, 8g plus 8g external memory card. *When* it plays, it plays well and sounds a little better than did my last that crapped out, a Creative MuVo 5g. The trouble with the Sansa Fuze is that it won't play a lot of things loaded on it. They're there but the player skips over them as if they were not. So far I haven't figured out the solution. I've downloaded the new firmware as advised by the Sansa website but it changed nothing. They refer without explanation to "compatible" files, but in my case there is no rhyme or reason to what it will play and won't and no advance way to know until you try. It will play some older CDs but not all, some newer CDs but not all, some downloaded music but not all.
I got a good price for it but I'd rather have spent more money on a different player, even one of lesser capacity because the larger capacity doesn't matter if you can't play the music.
Also, a smaller gripe, unless you buy further gear, the (excellent) battery (plays about 24 hours) can only be recharged from a computer with a proprietary cord.
Another smaller gripe is that the screen isn't covered with a "skin."
Anyway, that's my advisory notice. People buy things this time of year. If you're looking into a music player, I advise a different choice.
A Nice iPod nano AlternativeDecember 3, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm a Mac person. Most of my computing is done on a MacBook, and I have owned almost every iPod since the 2nd generation of the device, so for my review to declare the Sansa Fuze 8GB media device a "Nice Alternative" for the iPod nano (which I consider probably the best player available), that means something.
Physically, the Fuze is about the same size as the previous "fat" nano, though it's a wee bit thicker. While you do gain a little size, you also gain a moving, mechanical selection wheel (not a touch-wheel) and a back side that is slightly rubberized, so it isn't as slippery or prone to scratching.
You also gain three features not available on iPods: Memory expansion by way of a mini SD port on the side, FM tuner for those times when you may need to tune into the airwaves, and a built in microphone with recording function for taking voice memos or recording whatever sounds you may desire to keep.
When used in OS X, I will admit that the Sansa is-- Shall we say, crippled? Yes, that's probably the best word. It's not much more than a drag-n-drop mp3 player in OS X. There are some scripts out there for iTunes that automate the process of moving a playlist to the Fuze, but really, OS X is not the ideal place to use the Sansa Fuze, because you have so many limitations! You can't get video into it in this mode (at least, I've found nobody who has had success in doing so), and you won't get your iTunes album art to show up on the Sansa when you deposit it from your OS X partition into the Fuze.
However, one of the handy things about a Mac is that it can run Windows, and in that world the Sansa is as full-featured as possible! If you use Windows Media Player 11, you get album art, you get playlists, and you also get compression.
Yes. Compression. Much like the iPod shuffle, the Sansa Fuze (and WMP 11) will convert your music into a smaller bitrate before transferring to the player. I have it set for 192kbps (the highest WMP will allow with the Fuze) and in this mode I manage to get well over 1000 songs on the built-in 8GB memory, and that still leaves me room for over a gigabyte of video, photos, or music.
Yes, the conversion process makes the sync slower than an iPod would be, but the trade-off for more content on the device is worth it.
This leads me to one of my pet peeves with this device: The Sansa Media Converter.
No, you can't just drop videos into the Sansa Fuze. You need to use the Sansa Media Converter, and it's a dumb, buggy program. It's chintzy and cheap. I absolutely hate it because it does everything as if it's a throwback to the early 90s technology. Yes, it handles many codecs, but it's slow, clunky, and converts to a specific format that the Sansa requires to play videos properly. This should not be necessary. If Sandisk has any sort of brainpower in their PMP division, they'll write some firmware upgrades that allow users to just pop in videos in their raw format, instead of needing to go through the filter of the SMC every time.
That being said, the SMC *does* get the job done, and I have to be fair: The iPod has very specific codec requirements, too, and iTunes is a LOT slower at converting files than the SMC is. It's just that iTunes is a lot more stable, while the SMC has a habit of locking up when it's done converting. It also gives very little in the way of options. You want it to be high quality, low quality, or something else? Tough. You get two choices: "converted" or "not converted".
The radio works just as it should. I never really use it (that's why I have a PMP) but it's nice to know it's there if I ever want news, weather, or something different.
The voice recorder is also fine. Nothing special, but a nice add-on.
The menu display is rather dull, but then, I'm not gazing at the menu all day. It does the job, and at least allows you to change its color scheme a bit. The iPod doesn't even do that.
The music sounds very good, even after the conversion. Of course, my entire iTunes library had to be ported over to my Boot Camp partition, and it is in MP3 format instead of AAC (I made this switch once I realized that no other devices- PSP, PS3, or other audio players- would use AAC). For me, the switch to Windows being my media center for my PMP was fairly easy. I still maintain an iTunes library in OS X, but I just make sure to drag over all my music whenever I get new stuff, and I avoid DRM'd music like the plague.
No, this won't play your iTunes purchased music, but it will play Audible formats, so that's kind of cool. It also supports subscription-based services like Rhapsody if that's your cup of tea (not mine. I like to OWN my music.)
All in all, its a good media player with more features than an iPod, but less versatility than one. Considering the price is at least 25% less than the 8GB iPod nano (and often closer to 50% less when on sale) this is an excellent purchase if you're a Windows user, don't have a lot of protected music, or don't mind switching to Windows Media Player for your management needs.
If you're a Mac user, you'll probably have to weigh the limitations and heavy preference for Windows Media Player on the Sansa in your purchase decision. If you're up to the change, it's just as capable as an iPod (even moreso in some ways), but it is of course not going to be as polished an experience as the familiar iPod interface and connection with iTunes.
PMPs have come a long way. My first one was a 32MB device that could hold very few songs, and had no display whatsoever. Apple revolutionize the industry with the iPod, but SanDisk has done an admirable job of borrowing the iPod's innovations and making them work in different ways-- Some better, some worse, but all comparable to the original and for a lower price.
If what you want is value, then you'll be happy with the Fuze.
Would be a great mp3 player but...November 29, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having had the Sansa e130 I was really looking forward to this mp3 player. Unfortunately it has 2 problems, one of them sufficient to return it to the store.
First, minor inconvenience, it uses a proprietary cord, instead of a standard usb cord, so...its now one more cord to carry and if something happens to it...you pay.
Second, major problem, this player will NOT be even seen by your computer unless you have Windows Media Player in it (10 or higher to get some MTP somethin or other. It will not act like a flashdrive.
Along with this, of course, is the fact you now cannot also port it into your car stereo or anything else (read "not compatible" by Sansa tech) (makes you wonder if they made some deal with Microsoft).
Frankly I'm not paying $75-100 plus dollars for this.
Its too bad because this would have been a great mp3 player...
Great Value with lots of perksNovember 29, 2008 I love my new Sansa Fuze for several reasons. The price was very reasonable, lots less than the big name competitors. It is an 8GB unit and that can be doubled by added in up to an 8GB memory card. It has an FM Radio and has preset station functions. It is small and good looking. Lastly, it works great. I recommend this to anyone looking for performance, adaptability and value.
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