Creative’s 8GB Zen is the leading alternative, but it lacks the luxury finish of Apple’s nano. SanDisk’s Fuze comes much closer to that quality feel.
There’s a polished black front and a soft-touch rubberised rear and this, coupled with its excellent mechanical clickwheel system, makes it a pleasure to use. It’s expandable – you can add memory with a microSD card – and there’s a decent FM tuner that lets you pre-set your 40 favourite stations and external mic, too.
It’s not perfect, though: sound quality is on the harsh side; and the price, while reasonable, isn’t quite cheap enough to replace either the Zen or nano in our affections.