I guess I have been so critical of the Fuze and Sandisk’s other mp3 players not because they don’t stack up to the competition(the Fuze is imo one of the top mp3 players available), but because imo Sandisk could do so much better. Yes, I am disappointed with all the mp3 players on the market now. They all seem to be lacking in one area or another. Most MP3 player makers seem to be unreasonably obsessed with player thinness, and with video. Video is a good thing if the screen is large enough, battery life is long enough while playing videos, and videos don’t need to go through a special conversion to play on the player. Imo video on the Fuze is not practical.
It is unfortunate that Apple has so much market share in the US, and perhaps because of that other player makers have decided to incorporate some disliked aspects of Apple’s players into their own players. Navigation by tags only, a built in battery that is not user replaceable, and a proprietary connector are undesired attributes that the Fuze has in common with ipods. I am hoping that Sandisk will come out with some new models that don’t have these attributes, and have great sound quality and a display(the Slotmusic player has no display, and is said to have sound quality lower than the Clip).