First Look: Sandisk’s Sansa Fuze drops the bomb on Nano

Sandisk have been very apt at designing personal MP3 players in the last few years, which isn’t bad for a company whose primary interests are in flash memory. So, it’s not surprising then, that the Sansa players have remained the bees knees of Mp3 players for price. Along with the reliable Iriver and Samsung players, the Sansa seem to encompass just about everything you can fit into a tiny player.

Getting started
The 4GB Sansa Fuze retails for $180, making it a viable alternative to the Nano. At first look, it’s plain to see that the Fuze has obviously taken some valuable design tips from Apple. However, once you inspect the guts of the Fuze, that's where the aesthetic comparison ends.

With its handy scroll wheel, 1.9” wide screen and intuitive menu (search via artists, albums, songs and genres and podcasts), the Fuze is ready to use straight out of the box, once it’s charged via the supplied USB cable.

Performance
The menu is intuitive and we'd recommended it to beginners; we had no problems navigating between video and audio content. The buttons are simple and the scroll wheel is fast enough to access hundreds of files quickly. Jumping between sub menus was a breeze and never confusing.

The best part: Say goodbye to the proprietary annoyance of iTunes and embrace the miracle of drag and drop for adding all your content. Playlists can be made and files can easily be synced with Windows Media Player for added functionality.

Audio and Video
Audio quality is very good as expected, but the supplied earbuds are nothing remarkable and feel a little flimsy. Mp3’s, WMA and AA (Audible Audiobooks) are the supported audio file formats.

Video quality display was lacking however, and paled in comparison to the some of the other portable players on the market. Utilising a measly 20fps, video didn't seem to have much spark, appearing slightly choppy. A minute of video will set you back about 6-10MB.

** One eagle eyed reader emailed us and said that the supplied video conversion software with the Fuze can be quite difficult to use and prone to crashing.

Best part: You can still listen to the radio or your mp3s in the background while watching a 'photo slideshow' or fiddling with the settings.

Supplied software
The Sansa Fuze ships with media centre software that lets you convert videos and photos to fit the unit.

Sansa Fuze vs. Apple Nano
The Fuze easily beats the Nano in a few areas:

1) A good quality FM radio, with auto presets and easy to tune quality.
2) Voice recorder – worked well in our test, save for a few scratches and pops to be expected for an internal mic this small on the side of the unit.
3) Mini SD card slot, making the Fuze one of the better players with expandable memory options.
4) ** Decent battery life – the Fuze claims 24 hours of audio playback and 5 hours of video playback, comparable with the Nano.

Overall
A good value option to Apple’s growing list of players, the Fuze is a mid range player that packs a small punch. It has all the bells and whistles you’d want from a 'quality cheapie' player with the simplicity and ease of use. If the video quality were better, the Fuze would have scored higher in our ratings.

However, give the Sansa brand a go if you're desperate to ween yourself off your iPod addiction.

** We've updated this article to appease our Apple friends out there :)