A player for the people! This Christmas, my wonderful wife gave me the Sansa Fuze MP3 player. I'd been using a Dell Axim X5 as my portable music machine, but of course it wasn't exactly 'portable'. I've been wanting to upgrade to a small, stylish MP3 player for awhile. The Sansa Fuze was a pleasant surprise. While I knew of the Sansa brand name, I wasn't familiar at all with their line of MP3 players. Since I can't stand apple, I've of course been avoiding the I-pod's. I was mostly looking at Microsoft's line of Zune's. When my wife came home from shopping she showed me what she'd gotten me because she was afraid to just wait and give it to me for Christmas since it might not be what I'd want. Gladly, I opened the package and checked out this little player. I was immediately impressed by the feel and weight of the Fuze. The player is 3.1" x 1.9" x .3" with a 1.9" color screen. Holding it in your hand, it has a really "meaty" feel to it, most players I've checked out feel so light and plastic-like I feel like they're cheap and breakable. Not so the Fuze, it is made of plastic, but it feels and looks more like metal. It fits perfectly in your hand while allowing your thumb to reach every button that you need to control it. Speaking of buttons, there are very few. Taking up the largest area beneath the screen is the selector wheel. When the unit is turned on, it glows bright blue and is used to cycle through the menus. Inside the ring is a clickable "enter" button, you can also click the ring itself in the four directions, up, down, left and right. To the upper right side of the selector ring is the "home" button, which takes you back to the home screen from anywhere else for quick navigation. On the right side of the unit is the power/hold switch. A quick flick up on the switch turns it on or off. If you pull down on the switch while it's turned on, the screen shows a momentary "lock" picture which tells you you've locked out the controls so that you won't accidentally skip past your favorite song when you press a button while handling it. |  I've been using the Fuze now for almsot two months, and I love it! It has great sound through earbuds, with options for playlists, equalizer settings and just about everything else you could want in a music player. The video looks crisp, clear and with beautiful colors on the screen, which isn't hard to see at all despite being 1.9". It also has a voice recorder option which works very well. An FM tuner that will let you set as many pre-set stations as you want to, which gets great reception in the city I live in, even inside buildings. The Sansa website lists the 4gb Fuze at $99.99, prepare to get jealous though, my wife got mine on black Friday for $59. That was a real steal, but even at a hundred bucks, I recommend this player for anyone that wants a good quality MP3/Video player. My verdict...LIKE IT! -Forcemaster2000- |
|
|
|
IN THE NEWS >
Tech Reviews: Sansa Fuze 4gb |