SanDisk Fuze (4 GB) Digital Media Player

I'm not usually a music guy.  If I'm driving, I'm listening to NPR or a book on CD.  If I'm at home, I don't have music on in the background.  I have my favorite bands and artists, but I don't need to listen to music nonstop. I don't know what happened to me, but music just isn't that big a part of my life.  Despite that, once I realized that I'd be traveling four weeks this last summer, the prospect of sitting in airports and on planes for hours and hours, and then in seedy dorm rooms with nothing to do but read a Star Trek paperback, I figured it was time to up my game.  Technically I used to have a small MP3 player--some kind of Chinese knockoff of the iPod Shuffle.  I needed something better than that.  So after shopping around, looking at something I could afford with the minimal features I was looking for, I ended up getting the SanDisk Sansa Fuze 4GB Digital Media Player.  From here on out in this review, I'll just call it the Fuze.

I was looking for something with a screen, so I could organize the contents of the player; I was also hoping that I could load some TV episodes onto the Fuze.  Knowing how much space the video files usually take up, I also wanted something with a lot of memory.  The 4 GB Fuze has a slot so you can upgrade the memory via a MicroSD card, so I went from a 4 GB to a 12 GB player with a fifteen dollar memory card.  The Fuze has been easy to use, durable, and has a longer battery life than I expected. 

The Fuze is available in multiple colors--I almost picked up the red, but settled on the black.  The front of the two inch by three inch player is shiny black with a screen in the top half and the round navigation wheel in the bottom half.  The back of the player is a rubberized non-skid surface that makes it easier to hold onto.  Only 1/4 inch thick, it's slim enough to fit into your shirt or pants pocket without odd bulging.  The sides of the unit include the power switch (including a "lock" option so you don't jostle your way through your playlists accidentally) and the slot for the MicroSD memory card.  The bottom has the power/USB connection and the earphone jack.  All of these work the same as they do on other media devices--if you've used a digital camera, you'll be able to use the Sansa Fuze.  

It takes a while to charge, and unless you have another way to charge it, you need to have it plugged into the USB drive on your computer.  We had another charger that plugs into an outlet and charges other USB devices, but it wouldn't work with the Fuze.  If I'm planning on being away from the house a while, I'll let the Fuze charge overnight, and that will keep me going for a few days. 

The navigation wheel (similar to the way an iPod's control button works) scrolls you through the files in the player.  Settings, Music, Videos, Photos, FM Radio, and Voice are the options you have; I spent most of my time with Music and Videos. 

Music sorts the recordings according to Genre (mine has Alternative, Classic Rock, Country, Country Folk, Dance, Folk, Folk/Rock, General Film/TV Music, Kids, Musicals, Psychedelic Rock, R&B, Rock, Showtunes, and TV among the listings), Artists, Albums, or Songs.  There's also a Play All and Recently Added folder that will pull the songs in the order you added them to the player.  You can set up your own Playlist (for running, sleeping, cleaning the house, whatever), and this is also the section of the player where your Podcasts and Audiobooks reside.  It's a convenient setup, and when you upload your files to the Fuze it does most of the sorting for you.  After adding several hours of music, I thought, "rats--I should have set this up differently--" and discovered that the Fuze had set it all up for me already.  It's smarter than I am.  Not that that's saying a lot.  The files on my computer are a mishmash of different formats, but they all seem to play well on the Fuze.  MP3s, WMAs, WAV, MPEG4s all played just fine.  Audiobooks and podcasts load in the correct order--I know other players have had issues with the format of audiobooks and the chapter breaks, but they played well and in order on the Fuze. 

The Videos section of the Fuze is a bit simpler--it arranges your video files either alphabetically or by your rating; I haven't actually rated any of my videos yet, so I just scroll through them alphabetically.  Most of the television programs I put on there are half-hour (actually 22 minutes) shows, and that seemed to work well.  A half-season of Scrubs, several Justice League and Batman episodes, and a half-season of The Big Bang Theory all fit comfortably on the Fuze.  I did notice that by the end of the episode the video and audio were about half a second out of synch; whether that was from my original files or due to the file conversion, I'm not sure.  Any video files you put on the Sansa have to be converted to their own propietary format through a tool downloaded from the Sansa website; it's more time-consuming than dragging and dropping files (like you do with the music) but the conversion doesn't take so much time that it stopped me from putting the shows on. 

The LCD screen is 1 1/4" tall by 1 3/4" wide, which seems tiny at first, but the display is also crisp and bright enough that it was still enjoyable to watch about twenty minutes of television.  The screen, which times out after about a minute of not touching the control wheel, stays on while any video clip is showing.  The videos drain the battery life faster than the music, but I still got several hours of viewing in without recharging the battery. 

The Photos folder of the Fuze comes pre-loaded with ten images, and also stores album art from your files.  You can upload your own pictures to it--the 21st Century equivalent of your wallet photos, I suppose--and set up slideshows with or without music.  I haven't done much with the Photos section yet, but I can see where it would be a nifty application. 

FM Radio holds up to forty presets, although I only have our local NPR station set up so far.  It tunes easily enough, and the sound quality is good for a small device. 

Voice is simply a voice recorder, recording via an internal microphone built into the side of the Fuze.  There aren't many editing options--record, play and delete are all you can do here.  Still, it's another feature that might be convenient for quick notes to yourself, recording podcast, or even recording lectures to listen to later.  If you're into that. 

Settings lets you tweak the music, audiobooks, videos, photos, radio and the basic system settings to improve your Fuze experience.  You can change your wallpaper, the brightness of the screen, extend the amount of time the screen is lit before it times out, and adjust the language, date and time.  If you (or, more likely, your kid) screws it up too much, there's also a factory reset that will restore everything to how it was when it came out of the box. 

Accessories include the USB cable, an owner's manual, and a small fabric pouch to carry the Fuze around in.  The owner's manual was useful to get started, but more information is on the http://www.sansa.com/players/sansa_fuze than you get with the unit itself.  There's also a set of earbuds that come with the player, but they're cheap and uncomfortable--you'll want to budget in some http://www.skullcandy.com/shop/headphones-earphones-c-42_55.html or another favorite earphone.  It doesn't have anything that lets you carry it on your person, like a belt clip; I'm looking at buying an armband holder for it soon so I can listen to music while I'm running.

In summary, this was a great purchase for us.  I found it on sale for $39.99, and even after adding the additional memory, it was still a reasonable price.  I've probably listened to it for a total of forty hours since May, and it's been a great leap forward in personal entertainment technology for us.  It may even make me a music person. We'll probably get a second Fuze for my wife, and I can even see us getting a smaller one for the boys.  If you're in the market for an entry-level MP3 player, you won't go wrong with the Sansa Fuze.