I have been using the 8Gb Fuze for a couple months now and am very concerned that either the thumbwheel or my thumb will be giving out very soon. I don’t know the MTBF rating on that component, but I doubt it’s up to the task. I’m starting to rethink my choice of the Fuze based on the UI. I like the player once playing a song, but getting there is a royal PITA.
I have over 2000 songs on my Fuze and would add more with a memory card except that the firmware currently makes this unacceptable. Sandisk engineers should be made to realize that UI considerations change when you start offering large storage sizes. If I had only 200 songs, the Fuze would be okay, but with 2000+, it’s a big pain. As an example, trying to play a ZZ Top song accessed by artist causes me to turn the wheel 118 revolutions!!! Trying to play the same song by title is out of the question as it may take 2000+ revolutions. I’ve considered creating tags for 26 genres (one for each letter) to give me some quicker access, but that seems stupid.
Problems to be solved for the big (8+ Gb) Fuze:
1. Needs Search Function no matter how simple or limited
2. Needs wrap around scrolling - even with no search it will cut my thumb turns in half.
3. Fix the playlist limit bug and allow unlimited songs (Tried getting true shuffle using a randomized playlist but ran into the small number bug.)
4. Offer a true shuffle instead of what is now just a random function
5. Fix the nasty scrolling/select lag when accessing by Album… this doesn’t happen in other modes.
In general, assume the user will have 10,000 songs/2000 artists and design the interface accordingly. Storage is cheap, time scrolling a wheel is not.
Workaround: Use shuffle mode and switch songs until you’re near the song you want, then scroll to it. It takes far less time than scrolling for it would. I want wraparound scrolling as much as anyone but that method works well for me for the interim.
@aircraftkiller wrote:
Workaround: Use shuffle mode and switch songs until you’re near the song you want, then scroll to it. It takes far less time than scrolling for it would. I want wraparound scrolling as much as anyone but that method works well for me for the interim.
Wrap around would certainly be welcome, but what’s really needed is this:
I hope more people will post support for this. I’m basically limited to just using playlists on shuffle at this point because navigating to specific artists/albums is simply not feasible with a large library.
I have over 2000 songs on my Fuze and would add more with a memory card except that the firmware currently makes this unacceptable. Sandisk engineers should be made to realize that UI considerations change when you start offering large storage sizes. If I had only 200 songs, the Fuze would be okay, but with 2000+, it’s a big pain. As an example, trying to play a ZZ Top song accessed by artist causes me to turn the wheel 118 revolutions!!! Trying to play the same song by title is out of the question as it may take 2000+ revolutions. I’ve considered creating tags for 26 genres (one for each letter) to give me some quicker access, but that seems stupid.
***
Not stupid at all, especially if, like yours truly, you never use the Genre tag anyway. You can automate the procedure with MP3Tag by creating a custom Action script.
First, download and install Mp3tagv2.41. In the Tools -> Options -> Tags menu set ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 as the format in which to write the ID3 tags. Load an mp3 file to work on. Highlight it. Select Convert -> Actions menu item. Click the New button, name the new action group Artist2Genre. You should be in the Actions dialog. Click New button, select Guess Values as the action type. In the source format box, enter $left(%artist%,1). In the Guessing Pattern box, enter %genre%. If you want to ensure only upper case genres are created, e.g. use only B’s instead of some b’s and some B’s, click the New Button again from the Actions dialog and select Case Conversion as the action type. Select GENRE for the Field: and UPPER case for the conversion type. Put a checkmark in the Artist2Genre action and uncheck the others. Now you will be able to perform the custom action script on any highlighted files you have loaded into MP3Tag for editing.
Note: You might need to delete the files from your player first, and then update their tags on the computer, and then re-transfer them back to the player for your changes to take effect.
I have been using the 8Gb Fuze for a couple months now and am very concerned that either the thumbwheel or my thumb will be giving out very soon.
I agree that the navigation as it is currently implemented is cumbersome for the amount of storage the Fuze is capable of, I hope they fix it in a future firmware update, and I think they will. But I think you’re mistaken about the wheel giving out any time soon. If i’m not mistaken the wheel on the Fuze is the same kind used on the Trekstor Vibez; The mechanical/electrical interface is magnetically coupled, there’s no direct electrical/mechanical contact. In other words, there’s practically nothing to wear out. The mechanical part is just a wheel on an axle with magnets underneath it. On the circuit board are magnetic sensors that detect when the magnets on the wheel pass over them and register the resulting impulses as the wheel is turning. That’s why sometimes when you adjust the volume it doesn’t register immediately, because the magnets have to pass over the sensors for a certain distance in order to be properly detected for speed and direction. It’s an extremely robust design that will not wear out, since there’s basically no ‘wear’ involved in the whole process.
