Me and my Sansa Fuze

I do not like iTunes, I think my previous posts say that perfectly clear. But, that means I don’t have the ability to have an iPod. Correct you are, my friend. Why don’t you click on some ads? I have a Sansa Fuze, and this is my review of it, because there are not enough people talking about it.

I use my Sansa Fuze with Windows Media Player 12, an excellent player/sync-er, and Media monkey to download the podcasts. Something that has bothered people for a long time is the fact that WMP 12 does not download podcasts. Well, I think it would be nice for the people who don’t want a third party application to do that. Don’t get me wrong, I like media monkey, but it would be nice if I didn’t HAVE to use it. Oh well.

The cable for the Fuze is long enough to reach my hub, and I bet it would be far enough to reach behind the average desk as well. If you have plugs in the front of your computer (as I do) you could use those as well. I know you know that, but I felt like pointing it out. I have the 8GB model, which is enough to hold most of my music. I have all of the overclocked music downloaded, but I don’t like all of it, so I don’t sync ALL OF IT, which is why I am able to sync my collection to it. But, I only have about 2GB left, so if I need more space, I could delete stuff, or expand it using a microSD card. I heard it accepts up to 4 GB, but can’t confirm that as I do not have one of those cards. So, if I need more space, I could up it to 12 GB. When I need/able to/want to get one of those cards, I will comment on how well it works.

I don’t know how big the screen is, but it has to be less than two inches. But, for listening to music, and reading what it says, it’s perfectly fine. I tried to watch some videos on it before, but I didn’t like it, and it was weird. So, this is not a video playback device, it’s a MP3 player. If you want to get a video player, get a Zune, or something. Depending on how much music you move on or off of the device, it may take it a while to detect all of it. I’m not talking about minutes, but maybe 30 seconds. If you only add a few podcasts to it, then it should only take maybe 5 seconds to refresh. The screen can be adjusted to be as bright or not-bright as you want. I sometimes have issues seeing what it says in really bright sun light. So, that’s a drawback, but I imagine that many other devices also fall under this category.

When cursing the album list (yes, I still listen to albums) you can change it to display the album art, or not. When displaying it, it takes a second to display the art next to the name. It’s a minor annoyance, but it’s good for if you only know what the album art looks like, and not the name.

I wish the device was a little larger and had a little more heft, because that’s how you know it’s built to last, but I have yet to have any issues relating to it staying together. But, the screen can get scratched up if you keep it in with your keys. Mine did, but I can still see it well. The Sansa Fuze also comes with its own ear buds, which eventually broke for me, but to be fair, I’ve had the thing for maybe 3 years. I bet most people don’t have iPods that long, maybe.

I don’t know how long the battery lasts, as I rarely ever run it down, and when I do, I am usually trying. After about 2 days of heavy listening and rather bright screen, I get down to about half power. Because it’s a flash based player, there are no hard drives to spin up, and thus can go for longer. I know Media Monkey detects it, but I don’t know how well it works, because I could never get Media Monkey to work well. I just can’t figure out the sync.

The Sansa Fuze also has a radio, but I never used it, so I don’t know how well it works. The same goes for the microphone, I never used it.

So, those are my thoughts on the Sansa Fuze. It’s a good low level-ish MP3 player, but not good for those high end “I want to watch some HD video” people.