SanDisk Sansa Fuze MP3 Player Review - Features and Performance
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The Fuze's user interface will look very familiar to Sansa View users, as it's almost identical to the View's design. The main menu allows the user to scroll through a host of icons, including video, music, FM radio, photos, settings, and voice. A nice little feature of the Fuze not included in many comparable players is the convenient home button between the click wheel and the LCD display. This takes you back to the main menu at any point in time with just the click of a button.
The GUI is rather plain in this player, and there's no option for putting custom wallpapers in the backgrounds. The Fuze does display album art, but the pictures are so small that they're pretty much worthless. Overall, the interface is plain, but it's definitely easy to navigate through the menus. This is one of those players that anyone can get the hang of within minutes by fiddling around with it.
This player has the Rhapsody platform built into it. It will not only play any kind of subscription content from this service, but will also play Rhapsody channels (basically Internet radio). Of course, non-Rhapsody subscribers aren't left out, as the Fuze will play a variety of other formats (as listed in the “Design” section of this review). You can also listen to the built-in FM radio, and even record songs that you like.
The Sansa Fuze also has a handy voice recording feature, which allows the user to record reminders to be played back later. I should mention that most of the main sub-menus of the Fuze (video, music, voice record, etc.) allow the user to delete content from the player itself, rather than having to sync to a computer and delete it from there. This is a small feature, but useful nonetheless. And a lot of MP3 players out there don't have this option.
Other than the few features already mentioned, the Fuze is a relatively basic player. It does a sufficient job of playing music, video, displaying photos, recording, and the GUI is smooth and quick. So even though this player is nothing extraordinary, it's still above average in almost every way.
As far as performance goes, the Fuze is above average, but not stellar. The sound performance is okay with the included ear buds, but the bass response is muffled at higher volumes. The mids and highs sound pretty good at any volume. If you have the money to invest in a new pair of headphones for this player, do it. The sound quality is enhanced with a nice digital equalizer with 10 preset options and a five-band custom EQ option.
The battery performance of the Fuze is decent as well. SanDisk rates the battery life of the Fuze at 24 hours for music and 5 hours for video. As of yet, there haven't been any independent battery drain tests to verify the manufacturer's test numbers.
Next: Fuze vs. Nano >>
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