Don't overthink your Fuze

I’ve been   running with the 8gb and a 4gb miniSD since April and i think it’s terrific.Now , i am by no means the most technically adept person on the planet but,i have been able to navigate through some of the potential pitfalls of the Fuze (and there are some)without to much trouble.If you are a new Fuze owner don’t be overwhelmed by the all  technical jargon on these pages because you may be able to avoid it.Here’s what i’ve learned.First off, the Sansa Media Converter is very temperamental (one might even say unstable)and   i try not to have any other apps running while i’m converting because  the SMC can (and will)       sometimes freeze up on you.Also,there are only certain video file types you can use with the SMC so you need a video converter to change your video files into something the Fuze can use.(I’m using the Movkit batch converter and it works great).For whatever reason i’ve had greater success  converting               avi. and MPEG file types  to the Fuze so i stick with these.But,the SMC does some strange,strange things sometimes so don’t be surprised if you end up unistalling the program and then reinstalling (i’ve done this several times)but, it does seem to help.As far as music is concerned the Fuze is a dream because it is so easy to use.By the way i think the way the Fuze manages podcasts is one of it’s best features.I manage all my music by genre so i have no difficulties finding songs (as some people have noted).As far as album art goes,well sometimes i get it and sometimes it doesn’t show up but really, i can live without it. Lastly,there are a few drawbacks to the Fuze, one of which is dust under the screen and Sansa really needs to find a solution to this and secondly,the screen can scratch very easily so what i did was take one of my sons PSP screen savers and trim it to size and then placed it on the    Fuzes screen    and it works perfectly. At the moment i have 913 songs and podcasts,51 videos(including entire episodes of Monk,Stargate SG1,Stargate Atlantis ,anime music videos ect.)and 32 photos! The Fuze does every thing i ask it to and i think it’s way better than the ipod nano.Antway here’ hoping you all good success with your Fuze as well…                                  

Ditto. I too, although not a techie by any means, have been madly in love with the Fuze (and an 8BG microSDHC). I did a lot of reading through these posts even before my 8GB buddy arrived and was a bit intimidated. But, I have not encountered many of the problems others have complained about. The only issue I was hesitant about was album art, but I viewed the video that showed how to copy/paste the jpeg into the album folder…problem solved. I was anxious to get videos and saw a post about AnyVideoConverter…problem solved. I also got the effectmatrix.com dvd ripper to put my favorite movies on my little buddy…problem solved. I would definitely grab a black unit if available. Once the Z-A scrolling is provided I will be completely satisfied.

Yep,this little baby goes everywhere with me and people at work were very impressed by it’s size and capabilities.This is the best purchase i’ve made in quite awhile.  

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a good thread though!  and agreed, my kids ipods take too much thought so i just purchased the 2gb (mistake, proly will return for 4) yesterday.  replacing a sony bean that had awesome battery life but nothing else going on. 

i noticed after downloading 40 songs that i can’t dl anymore, rhapsody message says “full”.  most of my music is from live shows or cds, so yes, the tracks lengths are longer, but this doesnt seem right…any ideas?

I really like my Fuze.  I only got a 4 and wonder if I should have got an 8, but it’s easy enough to use to delete audio books and podcasts I’ve heard and don’t want to save.

I agree, ipods aren’t that easy. My corworkers bought ipods and they are not having as much fun or ease with them.

My 4gb Sansa Fuze Isn’t holding more than 250 songs. HELP!  has info on why you may only have a few songs in there.  If that doesn’t work for a link, it’s a few pages back and you should be able to find it.

thanks…so i did reformat the Fuze and:

  • used rhapsody to upload a total of 29 mp3 tracks, the size noted in rhapsody of these tracks = 3hrs/1.7GB

so if the “play” time is only 3 hours (and for a 2GB device the play time “should” be 32 hours of music) but the file size totals 1.7GB, I’m assuming I need to convert this mp3s into smaller files? if this is the case, how do i do this?

:dizzy_face:  ok…converted em in roxio.  all’s well!  :smiley:

Message Edited by Caco on 08-06-2008 09:59 AM

@dalaug234 wrote:

I agree, ipods aren’t that easy. My corworkers bought ipods and they are not having as much fun or ease with them.

I’ve had an iPod for years. Its plenty easy. The biggest problem with it is that you’re completely bound to iTunes, whereas I can hook my Fuze to nearly anything. Of course, if I want a case or accessory for an iPod, I can go just about anywhere and have many choices - with the Fuze, they are few and far between. Which pretty much leads back to this thread - you have to keep it simple. Forget about line-in to your car stereo and all that, and just use it as a portable audio player.

Did decide to update to the 4GB, really do like this thing!  IMHO it’s what you’re used to and how comfortable your are in navigating brand-specific functions.  Ipods are more complicated, too many clicks to get to where you want to go.  It took my kids 1 minute to figure the Fuze functions, and me less than an hour, and we all said the same, “this is easy.”  Whoever created this interface had the Ipod to use as their benchmark to simplify things, no doubt, but they did a VERY nice job.  My son calls my Fuze the Jitterbug of mp3s, and was quick to diss my video screen, but when he got over himself and his brandwashing, he was REALLY digging Rhapsody options vs ITunes!  & it works great on the car’s line-in.  

Nothing can be more goofy than the Sony Bean I used for two years and still have to think about how to turn on, off, etc.  Clunky and non-intuitive, great battery tho.  Yet some people find it so easy to use, so go figure!  

The Fuze and E200 series are very intuitive machines.  I wish they had more options, but the ones they do have are certainly easy to find and use…

@bdb wrote:


@dalaug234 wrote:

I agree, ipods aren’t that easy. My corworkers bought ipods and they are not having as much fun or ease with them.


I’ve had an iPod for years. Its plenty easy. The biggest problem with it is that you’re completely bound to iTunes, whereas I can hook my Fuze to nearly anything. Of course, if I want a case or accessory for an iPod, I can go just about anywhere and have many choices - with the Fuze, they are few and far between. Which pretty much leads back to this thread - you have to keep it simple. Forget about line-in to your car stereo and all that, and just use it as a portable audio player.

I bought the cassette car adapter.  Works fine.  I turn up the volumne on my Fuze and a little on my car and can listen to my podcasts during my commute.  (there’s another thread about using the Fuze on your home system too, so not completely just a portable, but that’s what I love about it too).  And I have a pillow speaker (bought a year ago for my Cd player) which works for the music best and some podcasts (not all).  I just turn up that volumne all the way and my Fuze volumne up too.  It’s not super loud, but works fine for me (Plus it’s a pink one to match my pink Fuze–luck there).  Yes I do have to check the volumne before putting in the ear pieces, :smiley: but now it’s a habit.

Yes accessories are hard to find.  But I saw some that were generic that could work, like a $10 arm band or a generic case.

 I agree with everyone on this.I just love this little        thing it does everything i ask of it. This is by far the best purchase  of any sort i’ve made in years.I got this 8GB Fuze completly by chance the first week they came out in April.I hadn’t done any research at all! At Best Buy the cashiers were all checking my Fuze out because they hadn’t yet noticed this new item.I  12GB now and i have so much music,podcasts,tv shows and photos it’s ridiculous. 

I forgot to mention that i also bought a generic casette convertor to listen to my Fuze in the car and it works great.I turn the volumn about half way up on the Fuze and then slowly bring up the volumn  on the radio.By the way i really like how you can customize the EQ it makes a big difference in audio fidelity.

Hi-where is this video about how to get album art into the fuze?

Ask and ye shall receive: how to video library.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

 Thanks Bob,the videos were very helpful.Everything is working and my Fuze rocks!

 I  can’t believe people are having so many problems with their little guys.I suppose i may just have gotten lucky this time but,i haven’t reformatted or even updated the firmware.If it ain’t broke i ain’t fixin’ it.I’ve seen far to many things go wrong while updating firmware on some of my other Sansa products.Well good luck… 

@shmince wrote:

 I  can’t believe people are having so many problems with their little guys.I suppose i may just have gotten lucky this time but,i haven’t reformatted or even updated the firmware.If it ain’t broke i ain’t fixin’ it.I’ve seen far to many things go wrong while updating firmware on some of my other Sansa products.Well good luck… 

I haven’t had too much trouble either.  Just little things (such as podcasts ending in the music area when I forget to change them or for some other odd reason) and I only had to the soft reboot (holding the on button for 10 seconds) once.  

I am more then happy with mine.  I love the little micro cards.  I’m so use to not deleting things (don’t ask about my files on my computer…) that I  have a hard time with this, but am getting better at it, but it helps with having memory cards!