When will Sandisk make a new version of the Fuze? I am looking for a player the size of the Fuze, or perhaps slightly larger for $100 or less that has 40+ hours of battery life, a card slot(of course having two is much better),micro SD connector, and a robust firmware that will allow a large number of songs(at least 8,000) and a unification of card memory and internal memory into a single database. I found a player from another manufacturer that I find intriguing, however it is over $160. It has 90 hours of battery life, 32GB built in, a card slot, but has a semi proprietary connector. I won’t mention the brand and model number. I am just listing it as something to aspire to, except for the $100+ price, and the semi proprietary connector. I am hoping Sandisk could improve on this, and at a lower price.
If it could be Rockboxable, that would be a big plus!
I doubt there will be anything like this released at least from sandisk considering the past 2 players that have been released. Smart phones and tablets have pretty much killed the full feature video capable portable media players.
Smartphones are expensive and bulky. I don’t want video, however I do want long battery life(40+ hours) for music.
I also want SDXC card support(without having to format the card as FAT 32) for Sandisk’s next player, and no issues when using cards that are class 10 or faster. I want support for a database of at least 20,000 songs, and for card memory to be integrated with internal memory, or even better, having two card slots(and no internal memory) with the contents of both integrated into a single database.
Another issue with smartphones is the concern about radiation. When I carry my cellphone with me(not that often), I try to keep it as far as possible from my vital organs to protect from radiation. While smartphones do have an airline mode to turn off the wifi and cellular, I would still be concerned that the setting might somehow be changed, or that there still might be quite a bit or radiation emitted even in the airline mode. I typically keep an mp3 player in my shirt pocket, however I would be reluctant to do this with a phone. So price and size aren’t the only reasons why I wouldn’t want to use a phone for playing music. Others who carry a cellphone all the time might not want to use it for music, as they would fear running down the battery playing music, and possibly missing important phone calls.
No more comments? It seems silly that so many new mp3 player models are priced at $500+(which also have under 15 hours of battery life) while there are so few(none?) new models between $50 and $100. It would be great to get a player for $100(or less) with an SDXC card slot and a 20,000+ song limit(2 card slots would be much better) that has 50+ hours of battery life.
“Plus, don’t ignore the $100-$300 “mid-range” audio player market,”
LOL! I call the $50 to $100 segment the midrange mp3 player market. Over $100 is expensive, over $150 very expensive, over $200 extremely expensive, and over $250 obscenely expensive! What do I call a $5,500 mp3 player? Crazy! Of course it is labeled as a Portable High Fi Audio System, and not as an mp3 player.
The company that makes the $5500 player also makes a $499 one they call the Jr. LOL!
“I always keep in mind that the Apple iPod originally was priced at around $500;”
I wasn’t buying flash memory based mp3 players when they were so expensive though. I bought a $60 mp3CD player instead. The sound quality was great, however it was a bit bulky. It used AA batteries though, and had very high power output, and both FM and AM radio.
A 32GB micro SDHC card was well over $200 when it was first released. I haven’t paid more than $15 each for my 32GB class 4 micro SDHC cards though.
My definition of a jukebox mp3 player would be one with 4 micro SDXC card slots, 100+ hours of battery life, a music database capable of managing over 100,000 songs, a display at least 3", and still fitting in a shirt pocket together with earphones. Hopefully such a player would cost under $200, although under $100 would be much better(so too would be the inclusion of HD radio, and being built with an aluminum or magnesium alloy case). Ideally it should weigh under 2.5 ounces, although up to 4 ounces would be okay.
@jk98 wrote:
My definition of a jukebox mp3 player would be one with 4 micro SDXC card slots, 100+ hours of battery life, a music database capable of managing over 100,000 songs, a display at least 3", and still fitting in a shirt pocket together with earphones. Hopefully such a player would cost under $200, although under $100 would be much better(so too would be the inclusion of HD radio, and being built with an aluminum or magnesium alloy case). Ideally it should weigh under 2.5 ounces, although up to 4 ounces would be okay.
