In no particular order…
Nice timing Sansa. I was a week away from making my final decision to go with a Samsung P2 or a Creative Zen when I saw the fuze was coming out.
Was not thrilled to see the 8GB was only going to be offered in silver. Oh well. This is not really “silver” as in tacky, fake looking, too bright silver though. It’s more of a silver grey and actually looks quite nice.
The finish is shiny on the front, tactile and rubberish on the back. Nice. The weight is good, has a solid feeling. Yes, it looks a lot like a nano but the proportions are even more pleasing for the fuze than the nano for me.
The shorter, wider, thinner form factor compared to the e200’s is nice. Very pleasing to the eye and easier to hold for me. My e250 looks old and frumpy compared to this.
Thank god they got rid of the **bleep** RECORD button. I hated that **bleep** thing.
At first I kept thinking the display was a little disappointing. It wasn’t as bright as my e250, seemed a little washed out. After playing with the bright setting I realized I could turn the bright level much lower than on the e250 and the display actually looked better at lower settings. I’m assuming this also gets me more battery life.
That being said, one of the very few disappointments is the same old UI essentially. Something a little jazzer would have been nice. You can have 6 different wallpaper colors but the UI is still dated looking.
Two things the fuze has that were “musts” for me in a new player are included. I would not have bought it without these 2 features.
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You can delete tracks from the unit itself.
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Progressive scan.
Yippee. Trying to scan thru a 1.5 hour podcast on the e250 was a chore to say the least.
The power/hold switch works really well the way they designed it.
The scroll wheel. The first 5 minutes I wasn’t too thrilled. After a few hours I love it. Works very nice. Hated those damned tiny buttons outside the e250 scroll wheel. Pressing the edge of the scroll wheel or the center button on the fuze gives a nice tactile feel and click so you know it did what you asked.
Another small thing that bugs me. There seems to be no rollover in the menus. When you hit the top of a list it stops, it doesn’t roll over to the bottom of the list. Same when you hit the bottom of a list, no rollover to the top. Unless I missed a setting in system settings, which is possible. Would really be nice if there was a manual available.
It uses the same connector as the e200 series so now I have a spare. I’ll keep my e250 as a backup but to tell the truth I think if the fuze goes belly up I’d get another one before reverting to the e250.
Video and pictures seem to work fine but I really only use my players for music. It is nice to have the screen oriented horizontally so you don’t have to tip the unit 90 degrees to look at pictues or video like the e200’s. More natural feeling.
Headphone connector on the bottom of the unit instead of the top, that’s good for me.
Everytime I go thru the menus I seem to find more settings and nice touches. Just realized there is a brightness setting just for videos in it’s menu. The full size album art once selected stays on the screen until the screen turns off. Just tons of nice little tweaks to the menus and functions.
The only other little disappointment for me is the lack of embedded album art support. Back to folder art.
The sound quality to me is fantastic. I never had a clip but it sounds better than my e250 for sure.
I am very pleased with it so far. If it also came in black, supported embedded album art and had a newer UI I’d give it 99 out of 100. As it is now, for me personally, I’d give it 95 out of 100. This could be my player for a few years depending on what else Sansa has coming along. Thumbs up.
