I have just received my black Fuze 8GB from Amazon UK, which will replace my aging Rio Karma.
I have started to play with this little beast, and I do like it a lot.
However, there is one thing, which is in my opinion a big let down compared to my old Karma. Maybe it is linked to the fact that I mainly listen to podcasts and speech, instead of music, but this is my big issue: I read in the reviews that the thumbwheel is great to navigate, which is true. What I did not expect is that the wheel could only be used to change the volume, and not to seek the tracks, as I could do with the Karma. Furthermore, fast rewind/forward is silent, and not the fast, high pitched sound of the track, which often helps localise moments in recordings. That is in my opinion very annoying, and I did not expect that from a 2010 player! It would be more logical to change the volume with 2 buttons, and seek with the wheel instead of the contrary! Unfortunately Rockbox does not offer this option either.
I have now to evaluate if this player is good to listen to podcasts. The rio players had a great software, only the hardware was poor (and the transfer protocol was proprietary, making it a pain to use with Linux). As I said, the wheel seeking was very pertinent for podcasts and speech recordings, and this is not emphasised in reviews, as it is made for music listening mainly.
How do other users, who listen to podcasts, think of this?
I don’t know what you mean by “seek,” but you can go up and down through a list of tracks by turning the wheel. A quick right-click (>> ) or left-click while the track is playing goes to the next track if you have a playlist or tracks numbered like an album or “songs” in order. (I don’t use podcasts, but I assume you can also move to the next podcast.) And as you have discovered << or >> seeks within the track.
Yes, it would be nice to have audible seeking, but…
Message Edited by Black-Rectangle on 05-10-2010 12:30 PM
By seek, I mean fast forward or rewind during track play using the wheel, by rotating clockwise or anticlockwise, respectively. The Rio Karma had this feature in 2004! It is a lot more practical than press and hold, and can be accelerated too.
I have only been using my Fuze for podcasts and radio. I got it about a week ago. I agree with you on the following points:
can’t use the scroll wheel to FFWD or RWD
no audible cues during FFWD/RWD (I like to skip over intro/intermission music in podcasts)
It was disappointing as I’m used to having both of these features with my iPod Video; and, my 2nd gen iPod Shuffle has audibles during FFWD/RWD.
But for me, the advantages and abilities of the Fuze more than make up for the lack of those 2 abilities. I’m really loving being able to delete podcasts without having to connect to my computer. That feature alone is more helpful and valuable to me than either of the 2 “left-out” things.
Would I suggest the Fuze for strictly podcast listeners? You bet. Pros > Cons.
In 2004 there were players that played 19 hours on a AAA battery, and had a display that was on all the time while the player was on. Player makers decided that we need a glitzy power hogging display that needs to be off the vast majority of the time to get decent battery life. So silly. Remember when digital watches were like this, and you had to press a button to see the time? So annoying!!!
When you hold down the >> or << it does accelerate. Watch the increments increase.
You can probably find that perfect 2004 Rio on Ebay if that’s the only interface you’re willing to accept.
I am aware that holding these buttons accelerates the seeking, however, it is still less practical than using a wheel for that. Because with a wheel, you can also slow down.
I don’t understand why people are so sensitive about my criticisms. I am not trolling. I regret that a device that has a wheel does not fully take advantage of it, and try on the contrary to suggest an improvement. The rio Karma is not produced anymore and had bad hardware and bad transfer protocol. But believe me, the software was very good.
“By seek, I mean fast forward or rewind during track play”
you are suggesting that there’s no seek function, or acceleration. And there is. It just doesn’t use the particular control you prefer. But the impression you give is that you are unaware of how the Fuze works.
Obviously the Fuze designers wanted a minimum of buttons, whereas you are used to the way your Rio worked.
If you want to slow down, let go of the << or >> and…it goes back to one-second increments when you resume. Oh, right, you knew that.
I’d rather have the wheel as a volume control than having to click on buttons with contacts that will wear out. One thumb movement for raising or lowering volume rather than a bunch of clicks. That to me is an excellent way to “take advantage” of the wheel.
“Bad hardware and bad transfer protocol.” Wow, I wish I had owned one of those fantastic 2004 devices.
“By seek, I mean fast forward or rewind during track play”
you are suggesting that there’s no seek function, or acceleration. And there is. It just doesn’t use the particular control you prefer. But the impression you give is that you are unaware of how the Fuze works.
Hold on, if you did not truncate my sentence, maybe it would make sense:
“By seek, I mean fast forward or rewind during track play using the wheel, by rotating clockwise or anticlockwise, respectively.”
I could not be more clear. And if you had read my first post, you’d see I was talking about the wheel function to navigate. You are definitely showing some bad faith here
It is obvious that the Fuze is a great player, but that the software is not as mature, as advanced as some other players. And there is no shame to compare it with older players that could have a better GUI or functions. Look at Rockbox for instance. The Karma was one of the player with excellent interface, but indeed the hardware had faults. But let’s try not mix the two things, they are completely independent issues.
Remember, you bought a Fuze, you did not design it, so I don’t see why you are so sensitive about this subject. Look how the firmware has been improved from the start. Am I the only one to request more functions in the firmware ?
You want the functions where you are used to them–no more than that. Seek is still seek whether it is via wheel or buttons.
As I said, your posts left the impression that no such function was available.
In fact (full sentence): “It is a lot more practical than press and hold, and can be accelerated too.” Which implies that you were unaware of acceleration with the >> and << buttons.
Meanwhile:
“It would be more logical to change the volume with 2 buttons, and seek with the wheel instead of the contrary!”
More logical to you, perhaps. Since the >> and << buttons control moving through menus, someone else might think it’s more logical, since they seem directional, to also have them control seeking.
Well, when I wrote “it can be accelerated too” I meant “it can be accelerated, like the press and hold method is”, not unlike. Anyway, I don’t want to have a lengthy discussion about English language.
I have installed Rockbox (I was lucky to get a v1 from Amazon UK) and it is really amazing ! The wheel seeking function is not implemented, but there are discussions about it.
Regarding habit,that is true. However, what would be perfect is to have the choice! It is not onlly habit, therer are perfectly objective advantages: seeking with the wheel is really useful, because contrary to the press and hold, it does not only accelerate, it can also decelerate, depending to the speed you turn the wheel. That makes all the difference and it is useful for podcasts, especially if it were associated with audible seeking. Wheels are especially adapted for forward or backward seeking. No wonder why professional editing video/audio devices all use wheels to navigate in a stream.
Now ok people oror Sansa can take criticism badly. But better software would make them sell more devices, that is as simple as that. There is no need to be on the defensive when people point out the weaknesses and limitations of the firmwar. If I were Sansa I would listen to the potential buyers and the users, and possibly opensource the firmware, or offer a SDK.
I thought I’d clarify by what I meant by using the scroll wheel to FFWD/RWD through podcasts.
On my iPod Video, “rotating” the wheel normally controls the volume alone. In order to FFWD/RWD through a track using rotation with the wheel, I press the center circle button and the bottom progress bar on the screen changes its design (so that you know you are scrolling through the track and no longer controlling volume) - I think it changes from a regular blue bar to a blue bar with a diamond-shaped scroll marker. I can then rotate the wheel to progress through the track. There is also audible feedback so you can tell where you are in the track as well as showing the time.
I will have to check, but I also think you can press the iPod wheel (the way the Fuze works, pressing the wheel instead of rotating) to seek within the track. I just find that it is not as fine-tuned a control compared to using wheel rotation to seek.
These are some things that I would have liked to see with the Fuze, but as I said, it was not a deal-breaker for me.
Yeah, the Fuze is lacking or has weak support for several features that would make it much better for use with Podcasts and Audiobooks.
As you already mentioned, the FF and RW features are weak, especially when you’re trying to FF or RW through a two hour long podcast file.
And for Audiobooks where there’s usually lots of really short files it very handy to be able to FF and RW into the next or previous file in the current folder which the Fuze can’t do.
It seems to me that since clicking on the center button switches the display between the volume and the position, that it should also switch the scrollwheel control at the same time. So the default would be the same as it is now, the scrollwheel defaults to the volume control. But when click on the center button and change to the postion display then the scrollwheel will change the position.
The lack of true bookmarking is also a significant weakness of the Fuze. It’s really annoying when I’m in the middle of a audiobook or a really long podcast that I have to constantly have a pencil and paper handy to write down where I left off, if I want to go listen to something else for a little while. The lack of this feature is especially irritating because the Fuze has it for videos but not for audiobooks and podcasts. WTF is going on here?
More granular and a wider range of playback speeds would be also be nice.
I have a couple of other nits to pick, but the postion and bookmarking features are the main nits.
Knifethemac: you should really try Rockbox. Installing it is very easy, and regarding bookmarking, it is excellent. You can basically bookmark any playlist, or file directory. It is very handy. After having tried it, I don’t think I would go back to the original firmware now. Sandisk should partner with them in my opinion.
I use my Fuze mostly for Podcasts and Audiobooks and I got use to the fast forward. My favorite feature is the speed setting, even if everybody sounds like a chipmunk. For Audiobooks with multiple chapter/files you can click on next and it goes forward although I usually merge little chapters to between 1-2 hours.You can also go into them under the folder view and see chapters in order that way
Since I listen to pocasts until I run out (I delete them as I listen to them) when I go back to an audiobook, in a long list, it remembers what file I was listening to and the exact place where I was at (it says " do you want to resume from where you left off" You do have to set the tags to ‘podcast’ and ‘audiobook’ for the bookmarking to work
@zeb wrote:
Knifethemac: you should really try Rockbox. Installing it is very easy, and regarding bookmarking, it is excellent. You can basically bookmark any playlist, or file directory. It is very handy. After having tried it, I don’t think I would go back to the original firmware now. Sandisk should partner with them in my opinion.
I have a V2 Fuze so that hasn’t really been possible in the past. Although from what I read in another thread it sounds like the V2 Rockbox firmware might be far enough along to actually try now.
The very first mp3 player I owned was an Archos 20GB jukebox (this was over a year before the first iPod was released). It was the first player that the Rockbox guys targeted and it was a huge improvement over the original Archos firmware. So I am a big fan of the Rockbox guys and I’m really looking forward to trying the V2 Rockbox firmware on my Fuze. But I’ll probably wait a little longer and let a few more bugs get fixed and maybe let some more features get implemented before I try it.
For Audiobooks with multiple chapter/files you can click on next and it goes forward although I usually merge little chapters to between 1-2 hours.You can also go into them under the folder view and see chapters in order that way
…
Next and Previous commands are no help for my use case.
The most common issue I have is when I missed what someone said and need to rewind about 30 seconds to a minute. But if I’ve just started a new file that means several button clicks navigating through several different screens and when I finally get to the correct file, having to FF all the way to the end of the file, which might be an extremely long time if it’s a big file.
Are you really going to claim that that is acceptable alternative to just holding down the RW key for a few seconds and having the player automatically continue rewinding at the end of the previous file when it reaches the start of the current file, which can be accomplished without ever having to look at the display in case the player is in my pocket or I need my attention elsewhere?
It’s not as if this is some horrendously difficult feature to implement. Even my 10yo Archos player had this feature. It’s not as if I’m asking them to do fluid flow analysis on the Fuze. i just want it to have a few easy to implement features that numerous other players have been able to do for many years.
Since I listen to pocasts until I run out (I delete them as I listen to them) when I go back to an audiobook, in a long list, it remembers what file I was listening to and the exact place where I was at (it says " do you want to resume from where you left off" You do have to set the tags to ‘podcast’ and ‘audiobook’ for the bookmarking to work.
…
And then it promptly “forgets” where you were at when you start listening to another file or when it “refreshes” the media after downloading new files. It’s not a true bookmarking feature, it’s a half-assed “resume” feature (which is better than nothing at all, but still no where near as good as true bookmarking. Which they’ve already implemented for video files but not for any other files. So we know it’s possible, but for some unknown reason they won’t do the right thing and give us true bookmarking on all file types.)
