Future FUZE upgrades. What would you like to see?

That would be interesting with 32 GB internally.  There’s probably room in the housing to accomplish that without enlarging the unit anymore.  I wonder if you could still add a 16 GB Micro SD card, thereby bringing the total memory to 48 Gigs!  That should be enough for most junkies.

I have the 8-gb model have several 4 and 8 gb cards for switching out Podcasts, other genres,  and movies.  That’s sufficient for my needs right now.

Gapless playback or a speaker built in the fuze for others to enjoy

What great ideas!  Gapless play would be a big plus.  Also, somebody makes an MP3 player with stereo speakers…I can’t recall right now who it is.  A speaker on this model would be nice, if there is room without enlarging the unit.  I like the size right now, even with a clear cover on the unit.

Several users have mentioned the “recessed” power button, which is a bothersome area, and even more so with a cover installed.  There should not be much of a problem making the ridge for a finger(nail) stand out a little more.  I don’t think its going to turn on or off by itself with the heavy spring-loaded action present now.

@challenger wrote:

What great ideas!  Gapless play would be a big plus.  Also, somebody makes an MP3 player with stereo speakers…I can’t recall right now who it is.  A speaker on this model would be nice, if there is room without enlarging the unit.  I like the size right now, even with a clear cover on the unit.

 

Several users have mentioned the “recessed” power button, which is a bothersome area, and even more so with a cover installed.  There should not be much of a problem making the ridge for a finger(nail) stand out a little more.  I don’t think its going to turn on or off by itself with the heavy spring-loaded action present now.

I have the player with stereo speakers…it’s the Sony in my sig. They are not exactly “hi-fidelity”. Can you hear it in a quiet room? Sure. But they don’t sound very good, which is no surprise. And the rated battery life drops from 42, with headphones,  to 17 hours with the speakers. 

They’re useful for a few minutes here and there…for example, if you are getting dressed, and headphones would get in the way…or when you want to ask someone, “have you heard this song?” They also allow the use of the alarm clock built in to the player. But they are not the reason I bought the player, for sure. I briefly had a Creative Zen Mozaic which had a speaker too, and the same negatives came into play, with the addition of the fact that the Mozaic only had the one speaker.

A built in speaker would be handy for listening to podcasts or lectures, however I wouldn’t want to listen to music on it.

I don’t understand the obsession with gapless. Many songs have empty space before or after the song. Are you going to edit all those songs to eliminate the blank time?

@jk98 wrote:

A built in speaker would be handy for listening to podcasts or lectures, however I wouldn’t want to listen to music on it.

 

I don’t understand the obsession with gapless. Many songs have empty space before or after the song. Are you going to edit all those songs to eliminate the blank time?

 

 

Gapless is not for the songs you describe…it’s for albums designed to not have that blank space between songs, like live concert albums, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon and The Wall, and electronic DJ mixes. A gapless-enabled player will play a non-gapless album normally…only the albums meant to be gapless will play that way.

Speakers also reduce water resistance.

To sum:

Slightly larger screen

Glass screen

32gb internally

MicroSDXC

Better power button

Gapless

Resume Audiobook/Podcasts

Marvin, I agree with you on the speaker quality in MP3 players.  Mine sounds good hooked up to my Sony surround system, or even a Pioneer QRX-747 mid-70s Quadraphonic unit.  I something use mine like you suggested, but with a small flip-out set of battery operated speakers.  They will fill a medium room if the room is quiet.

Its a handy bonus for listening while in the bathroom and dressing, as you stated.  The earpieces kind of get in the way while shaving…lol.

 I also have an interesting item with a good sounding speaker.  It’s one of my GPS units, Clarion model 430 with a MP3 PLAYER, built-in speaker, Bluetooth, and phone dialing.  Maps are hard to get updated, but it’s a good player with enough volume to fill a room.

I’m pleased with battery life on the Fuze. I only end up charging it once or twice a week.

One thing I’d DEFINITELY like to see for the Fuze is F\OSS (Free and Open Source Software, Free here meaning Freedom) Firmware. Why? Well let’s analyze this:

  1.  Those of us who know how to program in the Fuze’s language can help the Sansa team with debugging the new firmwares (more debuggers means a more stable Fuze) and help add requested features. In addition, we could find more of the security holes in it, as in, say, if someone could crack my Fuze via the FM Radio or while it’s connected to the computer and totally jam it up – think about it, for every cracker (hackers in the Linux world are coders, crackers are the ones that “crack” into things) that would target Fuze users, there are at least five Fuze fans (just a guess), so the fans definitely outnumber the crackers; taking this into account, we are more likely to fix the security holes than get hacked. Also, once I learn the language, I can customize my Fuze however I want.
  2. The Sansa team would attract more Linux users, and more users of the F\OSS community, more money for Sandisk :smileyvery-happy: Of course, people who don’t know about F\OSS wouldn’t know the difference, so no loss there :wink:
  3. This would make it easier for the makers of F\OSS firmwares (e.g. Rockbox) to decode the Fuze and port their firmware. Why is this so important? Some people like to have more choices than just ONE. I have enjoyed using Rockbox on my V1 Fuze (I don’t think that it works on V2 yet), but there are some glitches, the most annoying one where it reverts back to the Sansa firmware after disconnecting it from the computer because they’ve been unable to decode the proprietary USB on the Fuze as of yet. Making a F\OSS firmware from Sansa would make this process a LOT easier.
  4. This would make it more compatible and supportable in the Linux world. While this does not affect Windows users (the support would remain the same – unless, of course, the Windows user were to install a third party firmware, but then the third party can support the user or the user can easily revert back), it would definitely be a major improvement for Linux users like me. Also, this would more likely than not build up more of a community for the Fuze, and therefore take a load off of the Sansa support team to work on improving their version of the firmware and to support the other Sansa players.

Get the picture? I say we start a petition somewhere to F\OSS the firmware! :smileyvery-happy:

Oh, and expand the OS support to, say, other Unixes, such as the *BSDs, *Solaris,  MINIX (yes, MINIX is still around), etc. And not just Unix, but any other OS still in existence. There is more to computers than Micro$#!% Winblows, Macintosh, and Linux.

Message Edited by Pikidalto on 10-18-2009 10:53 PM

Seems everyone is overlooking one feature that I think would be the best.

I like to listen to audiobooks and not all audiobooks are aac format or audible format.  A lot are found in mp3 format.

Everytime I load my FUZE I have to remove others that may clash with ID3 tag settings or whatever.  I don’t like to spend forever fixing the Tags or filenames or shortening the filename until it lookes like **bleep** to be able to find it on the player.

Just simply.  A way to shut down parts of the menu in the system and customize your own.

I see they have set the Slot Radio feature first in the first tier of the menu but have not placed audiobooks there.

If they can change the menu with an upgrade, why can’t the customer.  Give us a menu or a way to make the menu the way we want.  Just like on our computer.

I don’t care for a menu that compiles my music by recently added or artists or albums or songs.  If I load my player with the albums in folders.  Problem solved  Player looks at Tag for track # or file name and plays in selected order Problem solved.

To me most of us listen to our music with a logical approach and don’t need 20 or more different ways to access it.  It just makes for a sloppy player to put it all on one plate and hope that the Tags are correct and your system can figure it out.

That is how I think the White Screen of Death hits a player.  When it tries to figure out what the tag says and gets a conflict.  I have come across 2 players now that have given me the WSOD and I am thinking it is because the system cannot handle some of the Tags.

Not to negate what you say, but I think many of us here run our players in ‘expert mode’, i.e… We want to not worry about certain things and there are others we do care about.

The reality of the general market is that probably 90+% of users don’t know about folders, tags, formats and the like. They just expect to get their files via iTunes or wherever and that afterwards the music magically shows up in some logical order on their players. Therefore the player must be able to sort by genre’, artist, etc  and be able to figure out which are audio books and the like. This (I believe) means that the firmware on any marketable player must be able to do those things well or it’s not competitive. For example a player could be made that only supported folder playback, but that 90+% of the market would never buy it.

One issue is standards:  if we assume that everything we put on a player is ‘tagged’ correctly, there is no problem, otherwise it comes down to an issue of where the thing eventually shows up on the player. That same issue would appear on any player, not just the sansa, for poorly tagged items.

That’s also why playback by folder is a ‘cool’ thing to us… It ignores the tags.

Maybe I’m wrong…

I wish for a simple one, that there are no glitch in sound playback, if we scroll the audio files while listening the music played at the same time

I haven’t noticed any glitches or pauses in my playback during browsing other files or even other folders.  Has anyone else had this problem?

  1. Higher capacity Fuzes+ bigger screens (say 2,5-3 inch screen)

  2. adapters for Ipod accessories

  3. integrated Bluetooth

  4. Native JPEG et PNG support

  5. Ability to view Youtube and other internet video sites natively

Xavier suggested all the above features.  Why don’t we just add WiFi to the Fuze, so we can watch all this YouTube and other streaming activity.:wink:  I like Internet FM and XM Radio so much that I “stream” mine around the house via FM modulation on the lower end of the FM dial. 

The FM receiver seems pretty sensitive, but it would be very convenient to have all this available on WiFi.  But, don’t we have this capability on other devices?

Higher capacity Fuzes and larger screens:  I have been reading and studying about “bubble memory” since I was a teenager in the Fifties (not to give away any hints to my age).  I used to subscribe to “Popular Electronics” and “Electronics Illustrated” back in the 50s-60s.  Those great and informative magazines have long since disappeared.  Back to my point; I would have envisioned bubble memory (small scale memory of today) small enough to fit, say, 50-100 gigabytes or more, into the Fuze case.  This was discussed more than 50 years ago.  But, don’t we have this capability on other devices?

As for really large screens without increasing the unit size substantially…Pocket magnifier? :neutral_face:  But, don’t we have this capability on other devices?

And I would like Bluetooth, so I can make calls while my cell phone/Iphone stays on my belt.  A bluetooth mouse would also be handy for navigating the menus and folders on my Fuze.  Hey, that would allow me to do all this while carrying around only four electronic items, not including the magifier.:smileyvery-happy:  But, don’t we have this capability on other devices?

Native Jpeg support and presentation on the Fuze?  If only the Iphone and other “feature” phones were the size of the Fuze…:smiley:

Xavier, those were good points you made.  I was just adding a little crazy humor…I hope.

3 things for me would make this player the best:

  • True On-The-Fly playlisting.

  • More PUSH AND HOLD options (shuffle, track info just to name 2 ideas)

  • Some more play options. I would love to be able to PLAY > MUSIC > TRACKS added a week ago, a month ago, 6 months ago…

or

Play > All 1 star music, 2 star music

or

Play > stuff I have not listened to in 1 week, 2 weeks, a month.

My old player had that last option (actually all 3) and I miss it SO bad. :wink:

Message Edited by Peregrine on 10-20-2009 11:46 AM

  1. A resume bookmark for every audiobook.  So you can stop listening to a book. Listen to FM or music or another book for awhile then return to the original book.

  2. Separate Enable/Disable setting for Sleep Mode.   If Sleep mode is enabled, and goes to sleep.  It stays enabled.  If you shut it off manually, then sleep mode gets disabled.  But sleep length is “sticky” and always stays set.

  3. Icon on display to indicate sleep mode active. Perhaps a quarter moon.

  4. Books are distributed in three ways. As a single large MP3/WMA, a file per CD or Tape, and as tracks (ripped books).  The latter two should  appear as a single book for playback and should function as a single stream.  Right now I setup a playlist for this but it would be really nice if the fuze just did this automatically.  When distributed in file per CD format the file name can be used, when playing a ripped book then the album name could be used.  Typically the album names are things like   “My Book, Disc 1”.  The track names for a ripped book very, but they never contain a title, usually just a number, so you have to use the album name.  In either case you could compare the names and ignore any digits.

  5. when listening to a book then the display could switch to a “page” mode.  It should display the page of the book, and the chapter if known.  I’ve found that 3 minutes is a convenient “page”.  Forward and back can then work by page.  Or 1/3 page (option).  If you hold the button down then by Chapter, or if the chapters aren’t known perhaps 10 pages at a time (option). 

  6. When playing a book by pages the display could have a little image of an open book, with a little progress indicator working it’s way down the pages.  Like a finger following the words on the virtual page.

  7. When you’re listening to a book you’re much more likely to want to go backward or forward, and much less likely to change the volume.  So the wheel should handle back/forth, while the buttons should handle the volume. If rotating slowly then go up or down the lines on the virtual page, If rotating faster then go through the pages of a “chapter”

8)Finally, a user programmable skin ability, similar to “pocket tunes” on the palm, so folks like me could make many of the above changes without begging. 

I would love an option to modify how many wheel turns it takes to turn on the screen when the player is in locked mode. It only takes the tiniest turn of the wheel to activate the screen showing the lock icon. I feel like I’m wasting a lot of battery when the wheel gets turned when it’s in my pocket. If it took an entire 360 degree turn of the wheel, the screen wouldn’t turn on in my pocket anymore and I’d waste less battery.

I will echo the recommendations of others, higher built-in capacity, same size screen but better resolution (to keep the size the same) and I would add the following:

  1. Keep the “unique profile” the same, just because iPod changed its Nano back to its old profile, I prefer that the Fuze remain distinctive (now that iPod changed).

2)  Offer an optional IR/RF remote.  I use my Fuze in my shed, hooked to a set of speakers and it would be nice to be able to raise/lower the volume and skip a song from across my shed/shop (especially since I am working on insulating the roof and working on the loft to make it ready for storage and my Fuze/speaker combo is safer on the table below).

3)  Keep the 30 pin proprietary connection for things like FM transmitters and speakers specifically designed for Sansa products, but also provide a female micro USB port so that I can U/L or D/L songs to my work computer or other computers w/o needing to carry my 30 pin cable.  Also, it would allow me to charge my Fuze while at work.

4)  MORE ACCESSORIES such as speakers and clock radios and such.  Sansa needs to do a better job of partnering with mp3 player accessories makers.  Alternatively, as others have suggested, while you could leave your 30 pin connector prioprietary, make the Fuze and other Sansa mp3 players iPod compatible in a sense that all is needed is an adapter to go from the Sansa to iPod so that we can use iPod accessories and have those accessories act like an iPod is attached (i.e. some speakers can charge an iPod plugged into the dock, some allow the use of remotes that control the iPod through the speaker system, etc.).  So far the only Sansa specific accessory that I have/can find is an FM transmitter, which I found 2 Sansa specific ones.  The one I bought works great considering FM transmitter limitations.  I would love to have a speaker/dock system that would allow me to not only listen to my Fuze, but allow me to charge it, too!  Bonus would be to have the speaker system control the Fuze which would allow a remote to work, which would satisfy my need for a remote.

As long as the sound quality remains, I would like to see more memory and bluetooth. As others have stated accessories would also be nice. A bluetooth transmitter that would plug into the 30 pin port and still allow charging would be fine.

Message Edited by Tinkerer on 11-13-2009 10:57 PM

A better implemented customizable EQ would be fabulous…especially if you could save 2 or 3 custom settings. Get rid of the presets ( only two of them are any good anyways )  and replace them with savable settings. Not every headphone/earphone sounds the same, so the custom setting allows tinkering with them to bring you closer to your ideal sound.

For whatever reason, the current custom EQ ■■■■■. Is it better than no EQ at all? Yes…but after seeing how some other brands’ EQ’s work, I would like to see more from Sansa.If they would do this for the Fuze and Clip+, I would be interested in getting one of them again. :smiley:

Message Edited by Marvin_Martian on 11-14-2009 02:49 AM