Fuze-like player?

[weapingwillow33]

I recently found my old Fuze player.  I loved the feel of it, the wheel that was so nice and made selecting songs so easy and fast.  Of course, it had been years since I last used it.  It shows “Connecting” and it getting charged after being plugged into my laptop for awhile, but within 30 seconds or so of playing it unplugged, the battery was empty, so I’m guessing the battery is just shot, which sounds like is what happens to these things after years of use.

So I am looking for a new player.  I don’t care about movies, pictures, books.  I just want a nice easy-to-use music player (radio nice, but optional), speakers would be a nice plus but not absolutely necessary.  I really loved the wheel design instead of clicking through each song or each screen.  

Is there anything out there comparable (in your minds) to the Fuze?  

[weapingwillow33]

Well, good news is this time I tried charging it but left it plugged in for around 5 or so hours instead of the 1 hour or so I had it charging before, and this time the battery didn’t drain right away.  Although, it seems still like it’s draining a lot faster than it should - as so far, I’ve had it playing for 14 songs (say maybe an average of 2.5 minutes per song, means a bit over 40 minutes) and the battery is half way empty.  So maybe I’ll need to charge it overnight next time, see if that makes the battery last longer.  But at least it’s playing now!  I’ve missed this little thing!

[weapingwillow33]

But would still love to hear people’s thoughts on a good replacement, as I’m sure this won’t really last much longer, especially if the battery doesn’t fully “revive”.

[tapeworm]

Given the current trend of people using their smartphones for playing music, audiobooks, podcasts, etc. there isn’t a whole lot of interest or resources dedicated by manufacturers to further the advancement of dedicated mp3 players. They are a dying breed. Personally, I don’t see this changing except for the worse.

[weapingwillow33]

Yeah, it is pretty sad.  I personally don’t think cell phones are safe (I know, that’s for a different forum/thread, haha) and only use them for emergencies, plus I would think it would use up a lot of battery (at least that’s what I’ve heard people say and/or they’re so expensive they’re worried about damaging them just to use for music).  But there’s got to be some good ones still out there (Amazon has a lot, just hard to know).

[weapingwillow33]

I haven’t received it yet, but just purchased a Dodocool mp3 player from Amazon.  It has the scroll wheel that is so important to me. I hope it’s at least close to as good as the Fuze.

[tapeworm]

Let us know how it works & how you like it after you’ve had a chance to play with it a while . . .