A touch screen, using the same surface as you are viewing, is quite popular in the mobile telephone market. Just watch someone navigate about using an iPod Touch, or if they have a transciever in that little box, an iPhone.
It’s quite interesting, as you can’t do anything without eyeballing that wee screen first. Tactile buttons are superior in my book. Definitely safer if you are moving about.
The same goes for a “track pad” type control, they involve a lot of fiddling about.
Bob 
@neutron_bob wrote:
A touch screen, using the same surface as you are viewing, is quite popular in the mobile telephone market. Just watch someone navigate about using an iPod Touch, or if they have a transciever in that little box, an iPhone.
It’s quite interesting, as you can’t do anything without eyeballing that wee screen first. Tactile buttons are superior in my book. Definitely safer if you are moving about.
The same goes for a “track pad” type control, they involve a lot of fiddling about.
Bob
The whole “touch-screen” nonsense is just a fad. Here today, gone tomorrow. I’m not sure what will replace it, but rest assured something will, even if it’s back to buttons. Probably “voice-only” commands.
Remember the track-ball contraptions about 20 years ago for PC’s that were going to replace the mouse? Well, they’re gone and the mouse is still here.
" The whole “touch-screen” nonsense is just a fad."
Perhaps on an audio player, but on a video player with a 4" screen, having a touchscreen might mean having the player not much larger than the size of the screen.
An audio only player could have a screen larger than the screen on the Clip+, and could use r-ink or some other low power monochrome screen so the screen can be on all the time when the player is on.
A touch-sensitive layer over the display is not cheap. Individual button controls are better, and quite inexpensive to produce, especially if the button “capsules” are engineered to drop into position and align properly during case assembly. It’s all in the “jig”.
New and different are handy selling points, but this can be overwhelmed with bad press, or feedback. I have grown quite fond of SanDisk’s final products, as the controls make or break the device, as we use them every day. The miniscule iPod Shuffle is a case in point, as one has to master skills akin to getting a Ham license just to navigate the little thing.
Touch-pads are interesting, but problematic in use. A flush pad with tangible “clicks” is an improvement, just like the HP netbook pads have.
The “wobble wheel” of the Fuze is a unique specimen, with great feel and ease of use. I am nervous about any major changes to something that’s proved so utilitarian and reliable.
Now, a big Fuze optimized for video would be sublime. Oh, and by optimized, having a big battery is part of the package in my book. Video processing and display are power hungry functions. A touch screen is quite acceptable for that. Come to thinkof it, a color OLED display would also be cool.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
The Fuze+ doesn’t impress me at all. I would much rather use a Clip+ or Fuze than the Fuze+. I am sorry to see this as a replacement to the Fuze. Imo it should have been a View replacement.
Folks, if you like the buttons on your Fuze, I suggest that you buy a spare Fuze before they become hard to find. I hope Sandisk will come out with some new players with tactile buttons, a scroll wheel, and a built in clip(or else packaged with a case that has a clip on the back).
It’s really more a revised View than a Fuze. And it implies a revamp of the Sansa Media Converter goes with it.
@black_rectangle wrote:
It’s really more a revised View than a Fuze. And it implies a revamp of the Sansa Media Converter goes with it.
True enough…but you can’t blame them for not bringing back that View name again, can you?
@marvin_martian wrote:
@black_rectangle wrote:
It’s really more a revised View than a Fuze. And it implies a revamp of the Sansa Media Converter goes with it.
True enough…but you can’t blame them for not bringing back that View name again, can you?
Was that View . . . or Pepe Le Pew?
I’ve seen some people call it a real stinker! 
You can check out the demo videos via the main SanDisk page (click on the icon). Looks like the navigation is very smooth.
It will take me a little while to get used to the huge font used in the GUI top line, but it does look cool.
Bob
I’d say try it before you judge whether the navigation is better or worse than scrolling on a wheel. The navigation is very similar to an iPod Touch, which is pretty easy.
It does retain one of the worst bits of the Fuze, unfortunately - it still requires mad scrolling to get through a very long list. Even with 16GB, I rely on genres to avoid the artist list. It’d be even worse with 16GB plus a 16GB flash card. On my Touch, I can go directly to a letter and skip most of the scrolling. That feature first showed up with the Creative Zen M (as far as I know), and its really nice.
I would hope it doesn’t retain the Fuze’s lenghty refresh. With 32GB of MP3 music, that’d probably take about fifteen minutes.
32GB in such a small device for ~$150 (16GB + 16gb microSDHC) would be fantastic, though!
The refresh on the Fuze is a weird thing. Before I took my 16GB card out of my V1 Fuze, I had the internal memory and the card full, and in the Sansa firmware, it only took three minutes and a couple seconds to refresh. I know someone with a V2 that says his refreshes take 25 minutes! I think a lot of it comes down to people’s tags.
“And I’m not sure what’s up with a micro-USB port, when mini-USB is the standard and especially with a full-size player–now, just a need for another cable around? (Or, did I get that wrong?)”
Theoretically speaking, micro usb is superior to mini usb, as with long term pluging and unplugging, mini usb is more likely to wear out the jack before the plug on the cable is worn out, while with micro usb most of the wear is on the plug, and the plug will typically wear out well before the jack. Notice I said theoretically speaking, as we are dealing with a player with a built in battery, so even if mini usb was used, it is likely the battery will wear out well before the usb jack.
I think many countries now require cell phones to use a micro usb connector. I would have preferred a mini usb connector on the Fuze+.
| Legal | Terms of Use | Privacy Statement | Forum Terms of Service |
|
| © 2025 Sandisk Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
