I just received my Fuze from ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/SanDisk-Sansa-Fuze-4GB-MP3-Audio-Video-FM-BLACK-NEW-/300425363800?pt=Other_MP3_Players&hash=item45f2bf4158 it was discribed as new and it does look new but looking closely at the back of it I notice the letter “R” on the bottum right corner. Do I Have a refurb?
I also notice that the light from the display escapes on the top left corner in the seam where the two halfs meet.
I have a refurb and it says REFURB, in silver letters branded into the plastic, right under SanDisk.
That’s an official refurb. But who knows what happens to items returned to stores.
I also have a new one and it doesn’t have an R anywhere on the lower back. Does the R look like it was added afterward?
I’d be more concerned about the light leak. Are you saying the two halves are not tightly sealed?
Regardless, your first question should be whether it is working. If it is, enjoy it. You got a good price.
If not, contact the seller since you just got it. That seller has 99.8 % percent positive feedback on more than 900 items–you’d think that if he were shady, it would have emerged by now.
@black_rectangle wrote:
I have a refurb and it says REFURB, in silver letters branded into the plastic, right under SanDisk.
That’s an official refurb. But who knows what happens to items returned to stores.
I also have a new one and it doesn’t have an R anywhere on the lower back. Does the R look like it was added afterward?
I’d be more concerned about the light leak. Are you saying the two halves are not tightly sealed?
Regardless, your first question should be whether it is working. If it is, enjoy it. You got a good price.
If not, contact the seller since you just got it. That seller has 99.8 % percent positive feedback on more than 900 items–you’d think that if he were shady, it would have emerged by now.
The “R” is very faint, barely noticeable and it almost has a stamp like quality to it. Yes the two halves are not tightly sealed. The Fuze froze up on me twice within the first hour and after adding about 50 songs and a couple of videos to it I notice that when I turned the volume up it souded like a mess and was unlistenable, I turned it off then back on an hour later and it was back to normal. The price that I paid for it should not matter, the item was listed as “NEW” and that’s what I should be receiving. If I wanted a refurb I would have bought one at tigerdirect for $30.
Well, it’s eBay. Contact the seller, explain that it doesn’t look new to you–and that the two halves aren’t sealed–and get a replacement from the seller.
And if the seller doesn’t give you satisfaction, reporting him to eBay should definitely get his attention.
That looks very much like the box I got my refurb in. *New* ones should be in actual Sansa packaging. I’d guess it’s a factory refub. Mine is, works great.
Never added an image on a forum so I hope this works. Image of the fuze with the “R” on the bottom right corner.
I contacted the seller and he asked if I could send a picture to him and he also said to return the item and he will provide a refund or an exchange for a new one.
I don’t like the look of that “R.” Contact the seller, and then eBay if necessary.
According to Tapeworm, IIRC, SanDisk doesn’t do its own “factory” refurbs–it lets others refurb them so strictly speaking there is no such thing as a factory refurb. Whatever…
rsdown, does yours say REFURB in big letters on the back, or does it have an R in a lower corner like the OP?
Here’s a guess about the OP’s Fuze:
The eBay Fuze might be in a gray area. I’m sure electronics stores get back a lot of Sansas that work fine but
that people don’t like, can’t figure out, are trying to hook up to Macs in MTP mode, can’t find the power button, etc. They may sell them to people like the eBay seller who inspects, tests and puts it in the generic package. It shouldn’t be called new–but on the other hand, no one did anything to refurbish it because it wasn’t broken.
Obviously the inspection was a little lacking if no one noticed the halves weren’t sealed.
@thatguy84 wrote:
Never added an image on a forum so I hope this works. Image of the fuze with the “R” on the bottom right corner.
It won’t unless the image is hosted somewhere else on the net.
I looked at the images of the one you linked to on eBay. I can’t see the “R” stamped on the back case through the cellophane wrapper in the picture, but as suggested before if you think you did not receive what was described in the listing then contact the seller. I’m sure he’ll make it right for you. The last thing someone wants who’s tryng to build up a business on eBay is a bad rep.
@thatguy84 wrote:
Never added an image on a forum so I hope this works. Image of the fuze with the “R” on the bottom right corner.
Guess I need new glasses, 'cause I sure can’t see any “R” in that photo. But as suggested before if you think you did not receive what was described in the listing then contact the seller. I’m sure he’ll make it right for you. The last thing someone wants who’s tryng to build up a business on eBay is a bad rep.
@black_rectangle wrote:
I don’t like the look of that “R.” Contact the seller, and then eBay if necessary.
According to Tapeworm, IIRC, SanDisk doesn’t do its own “factory” refurbs–it lets others refurb them so strictly speaking there is no such thing as a factory refurb. Whatever…
rsdown, does yours say REFURB in big letters on the back, or does it have an R in a lower corner like the OP?
Here’s a guess about the OP’s Fuze:
The eBay Fuze might be in a gray area. I’m sure electronics stores get back a lot of Sansas that work fine but
that people don’t like, can’t figure out, are trying to hook up to Macs in MTP mode, can’t find the power button, etc. They may sell them to people like the eBay seller who inspects, tests and puts it in the generic package. It shouldn’t be called new–but on the other hand, no one did anything to refurbish it because it wasn’t broken.
Obviously the inspection was a little lacking if no one noticed the halves weren’t sealed.
Image of the display light leak
Sorry, I missed the part where you contacted the seller. Glad he’ll make good.
But y’know what? I just took my once-new Fuze out of its silicone skin and turned it on in a dark room, and mine leaks light too. Never noticed it before.
It’s more a quarter-inch slit than the circle in your photo, but obviously you were shooting in low light, so I don’t know if you actually have a circular hole. The leak in mine is on the right side–that is, to reproduce your photo, the screen would have to be facing down.
Anyway, it seems that SanDisk is not exactly precise about sealing that seam. This was a new Fuze direct from SanDisk itself, once upon a time.
I’d be curious what other Fuzers see if they check this out.
Anyway, mine has been working great for two years plus. Your “R” is still a mystery, though–unless it’s some subtle difference between the v1 (mine) and the v2 that you may possibly have. Or…could it stand for “return”?
I do recommend getting a silicone skin and screen protector, because the Fuze is very susceptible to scratches. It’s up to you if you think your gap is big enough to endanger the inner workings of your Fuze. The only moving parts are the wheel controls and power switch, and obviously you don’t want to be dunking the Fuze in liquid anyway (though some have survived that).
Clearly SanDisk itself lets them out of the factory imperfectly sealed–so aside from that R, and possibly even with it, yours could still be new. The mystery continues.
Back to your OP, was there any pattern to the files that made the Fuze misbehave? All from the same album? Do they behave now? If it’s a software glitch, that can usually be diagnosed or fixed.
@black_rectangle wrote:
Sorry, I missed the part where you contacted the seller. Glad he’ll make good.
But y’know what? I just took my once-new Fuze out of its silicone skin and turned it on in a dark room, and mine leaks light too. Never noticed it before.
It’s more a quarter-inch slit than the circle in your photo, but obviously you were shooting in low light, so I don’t know if you actually have a circular hole. The leak in mine is on the right side–that is, to reproduce your photo, the screen would have to be facing down.
Anyway, it seems that SanDisk is not exactly precise about sealing that seam. This was a new Fuze direct from SanDisk itself, once upon a time.
I’d be curious what other Fuzers see if they check this out.
Anyway, mine has been working great for two years plus. Your “R” is still a mystery, though–unless it’s some subtle difference between the v1 (mine) and the v2 that you may possibly have. Or…could it stand for “return”?
I do recommend getting a silicone skin and screen protector, because the Fuze is very susceptible to scratches. It’s up to you if you think your gap is big enough to endanger the inner workings of your Fuze. The only moving parts are the wheel controls and power switch, and obviously you don’t want to be dunking the Fuze in liquid anyway (though some have survived that).
Clearly SanDisk itself lets them out of the factory imperfectly sealed–so aside from that R, and possibly even with it, yours could still be new. The mystery continues.
Back to your OP, was there any pattern to the files that made the Fuze misbehave? All from the same album? Do they behave now? If it’s a software glitch, that can usually be diagnosed or fixed.
It’s a bad picture. it is a slit, two of them one larger then the other. Funny story, when I first started playing with it I pretty much noticed the light right away but it was during the day time and it looked exactly like gold plated metal so I tried sealing it shut by squeezing it in between two fingers, I thought I fixed it because I couldn’t see the “gold plated metal” but it was actually the display light turning off automatically. I went through the same process about 4 times through out the day and was getting annoyed thinking why does it keep opening back up. It wasn’t until the evening when I walked in a dark room that I notice it was actually a light, I felt pretty dumb.
About the “R”, I have searched online and there are little results but the results that do show up all lead me to believe that it is a refurb, especially the final post on this forum thread http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55416
As for it misbehaving, I don’t know what may have caused it to freeze twice. I was just getting familiar with the controls and the settings when it happened. I also don’t know what could have caused the sound problem. There was a pattern I was using when adding files. I would add an entire album using WMP then I would disconnect to check if everything showed up fine on the Fuze, did this for 4 albums. Then I decided to add a movie trailer using sansa media converter, disconnected it to check if it showed up on the player and it did, I then decided to add an episode of Family Guy and that also showed up but a couple of minutes into the the episode I noticed the sound problem, I turned the volume up and it got worse, when I lowered it back down it stayed the same. I checked the mp3 files and they also had the problem, that’s when I turned it off to deal with it later.
I’m sure that refurbs work just fine and was actually going to buy one until I seen the price for this “new” one and couldn’t pass it up. If I get a refund I will use the money to get a refurb from buy.com ($30) along with these earbuds http://www.buy.com/prod/meelectronics-m9-hi-fi-sound-isolating-earphones/q/loc/111/212545063.html I have been looking into them and have read nothing but good things about them.
The seller also said that he doesn’t know why my Fuze has the letter “R” on the back, he bought the batch as “NEW” from his supplier and that the other ones do not have the letter “R”. I decided to contact the other ebay members who also recently purchased a Sansa Fuze from this seller and asked them if they see a letter “R” on the back of their player, so I guess I will soon find out if the seller is telling the truth or not.
thats weird, I have a fuze i got from bb a while back (new in box) that has that weird R on it…now you got me wondering if somebody has been slipping a few referbs in as new…(it looked new…but i have also bought referbs that looked brand spanking new still in the factory sleeve. )
It would be in SanDisk’s interest to make sure that Refurbs, which don’t have a warranty, are clearly distinguished from new units.
Best Buy would also want to be selling new units in case it needs to return customer rejects to SanDisk.
It doesn’t make a lot of economic sense to think that Best Buy would be selling shady refurbs in factory sealed new packaging, Really, does it?
Now I am not sure, I was almost positive it was a refurb. I got a response from another ebay member who also purchased a sansa fuze from this seller and he/she also has the R.
I checked the sellers ebay store and it looks like he has removed all listing for a NEW Sansa Fuze and now only has a USED one for sale http://cgi.ebay.com/SanDisk-Sansa-Fuze-4GB-MP3-Audio-Video-FM-BLACK-/290473952890?pt=Other_MP3_Players&hash=item43a198c67a perhaps it is a returned item. If you look at the last picture you could see the R on the bottom right corner and since the item is listed as working perfectly it is more then likely the reason it was returned. Why would the seller tell me that the others didn’t have the letter R? Obviously there is something going on.
Fuze was refurbished. The seller told me his supplier accidentally gave him a batch of refurbs. He gave my money back after he received the Fuze on Thursday. One of the ebay members I contacted who also bought a Fuze from this seller emailed me yesterday, he sent an image of his Fuze with the R on the back to Sandisk customer support and they told him that it was a refurb.
Thanks for doing all the investigative work. Now we know there are at least two ways to recognize refurbs: the silver branded-in lettering or the R on the lower right. Very good to know.
And kind of sad that the clearly distinguishable REFURB is giving way to the little dark R that a less vigilant buyer could miss. DIsappointing that SanDIsk has allowed that change–it encourages shady types.
@black_rectangle wrote:
Thanks for doing all the investigative work. Now we know there are at least two ways to recognize refurbs: the silver branded-in lettering or the R on the lower right. Very good to know.
And kind of sad that the clearly distinguishable REFURB is giving way to the little dark R that a less vigilant buyer could miss. DIsappointing that SanDIsk has allowed that change --it encourages shady types.
Don’t know as it’s really up to SanDisk, or requires their approval. But I can see where stamping an ‘R’ on the rubberized back of models like the Fuze would be more attractive and less destructive than another form of identification like gluing on letters that might not stick or could peel off the backing material, or even etching the refurb ID into the back itself like I’ve seen on the metal-backed e200 refurbs.
But, that doesn’t change the fact that this seller on e-Bay should have examined his shipment from his supplier to verify he wasn’t mis-representing the products as new when in fact they were refurbs. If this was indeed the case. It’s very easy to deny & pass-the-blame to make yourself look innocent when caught in a ‘no-no’. The courts and prisons are full of people like this.
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