Sansa Fuze MP3 Player Review

For my birthday, this past year, my brother got me a SanDisk Sansa Fuze MP3 player. I had been interested in getting an MP3 player, but wasn't interested in the prices that iPODs and the MS Zunes were going for. In addition, while I enjoy listening to a variety of music, I don't see the need to carry around gigs and gigs of music with me everywhere I go. That being the case, the Fuze is perfect for me. It has now been about 4 months that I've had the player so I thought it was time to put a review together.

First, some stats. The player that I have is a 4GB player which is identical to the photo. Based on SanDisk's Website, they offer it in other colors options but I've only ever seen the black one. The Sansa Fuze 4GB retails at $100, but you can find it at your local retailer for about $60. Amazon has it here.

The player features the following capabilities:

• play music (OGG, FLAC, WMA, secure WMA, WAV)
• Audio book support
• play videos (MPEG4)
• a 1.9" color screen
• an FM radio with 40 presets
• built in voice recorder
• MicroSD slot

I primarily use my Fuze for listening to MP3 files. I've played with the video option, but only with the sample videos included with the player. I have used the FM radio and it seems to work well, but I don't use it very frequently.

I've been very impressed with the Fuze and am extremely happy with it. The things that I like most about it are:

1. storage space. 4GB isn't anywhere near the largest capacity that you'll find in an MP3 player, but this easily meets my needs. In addition, you have the MicroSD slot to expand the memory if needed.
2. Navigation. This took a little getting used to but for the most part is very easy. It is fast to navigate through the menus and start and stop music. The player responses instantly to your request. This may not seem important, but I had an MP3 player before that when you tried to navigate up or down in the menu, you had to wait several seconds each time. You'd start to wonder if you pushed the button or not so you'd push it again, then it would go up twice. Very frustrating. I'm happy to say this has not been a problem with the Fuze.
3. Music quality. Since I primarily use the player for music, the quality of the sound is important. I don't claim to be a audiophile critic, but the player sounds great to my ears.
4. Delete song option. This is another one that might not seem important, but a feature that I love. Generally, I will dump a bunch of songs onto the player and then weed out the ones I don't like as I listen through them. A few clicks and the song is gone. My wife has a 30GB MS Zune which was probably about 4 times the cost of this. She loves this feature of my Fuze as well.
5. No specific syncing software. For the Fuze, you just plug it into your USB drive and it shows up as another drive on your computer. You can then drag and drop MP3 (or other formats) over to the Fuze player to load them up. You don't have to mess with proprietary syncing software such as MS's zune software or iTunes. I like this because at home I keep my full library of MP3's on a network drive. From any computer in the house, I can just plug in and pull the files. Likewise, if a friend has a MP3 that I want (assuming licensing isn't an issue of course) I can just plug into their PC and grab it.

Some of the things that I don't like about the Fuze:

1. The headphones. As with most MP3 players, it ships with a crappy pair of headphones. These end up hurting my ears after short periods. Throw these out and get a decent pair.
2. The connection cable. The Fuze uses a proprietary connection cable. Would be nice if it was a standard USB connection on the Fuze side. As it stands, the only way to connect to different PC's would be to carry that cable around with you.
3. Play lists. I haven't tried putting play lists on the device, but it would be nice if you could create them right from the device instead of having to do it from a pc first. I don't think I've ever seen an MP3 player with this capability, but it would be nice!!
4. That's it!!!

Given the short list of things I don't like, it should be pretty obvious that I'm overly happy with the Fuze. If you are looking for a mass storage device, this probably isn't for you, but if you are looking for a quality player with lots of nice features, put the Sansa Fuze on your short list.