I have mixed feelings with the new fuze+
On the plus side, when the touch controls work, they are sexy, and I like it. The new menu system is awesome and the look of the product is great.
Another fantastic feature which is not mentioned here is transfer rate. The transfer rate via Rhapsody and Winamp is outstanding. I love how fast Rhapsody channels now updates. It’s almost twice as fast. The transfer rate for winamp is also sweet.
On the down side, the player takes too long to boot, the sluggish performance navigating menus is really annoying.
What I am finding is the biggest delay is when I go from “albums to Songs” in the Music menu. Since I have over 4000 songs listed, when it has to make this list, it is several seconds and I just have to wait.
Unfortunately, I use Genre as my preferred method of picking music, which means I have to always navigate through the songs sub menu to get to Genre.
Ideally the lists should be seamless, but if Sansa can’t physically make that happen, at least let us “order” the sub menus in a specific order.
Let me pick which sub menus I want in which order. (Of course looping through menus would also allow me to navigate the other way and thus avoid the problematic “songs” menu.).
I also want to eliminate the “card” menu from the top like other menus. Since the only navigation possibilities in “card” is by artist, it’s not very useful. Also, since the card is already integrated into the other menus, I don’t see the necessity of the “card” menu unless a “slot music” card is inserted.
Either way, let me disable that menu if I wish.
The higher catalog size (10,000) is nice and hopefully will be expanded even further considering a 16GB unit can eventually support 48GB.
I think since Sandisk does it’s “capacity” based on 128Kbit/Sec MP3’s, then the database size should also sized accordingly.
I have high hopes for the device. There were similar “gaffs” with the Fuze when it first came out (such as non-looping menus and a “fixed” scroll rate). Sandisk matured the product nicely and eventually the Fuze became my favorite player.
