SanDisk Sansa Fuze+ 4GB MP3 with FM Radio - Black

I received this little gem for my Birthday recently and I'm so impressed. My wife purchased a 16Gb microSD to go with it (She was awestruck by the tiny size of that!) so I had a decent capacity, but with very little cost. This is the great thing with this device it is so reasonably priced and yet covers all bases. It has a very broad ability to read files. It copes with mp3 (obviously) but also Ogg, Flac (my preference), jpeg, tiff in fact most codecs you throw at it! Also it acts as a voice recorder..... how handy is that! It also does Video and so much else

Oh and did I mention the sound....no?..... Awesome!!! Best player I've had and if you can get to grips with touch phones etc, don't listen to criticism about the touch pad as it so much easier to use (even with my sausage fingers!). Also to get the most out of it I would recommend reading the full manual, which is easily downloadable from their site; it will allow you to configure your player to your preference.

Go on give it a try. You will save so much over fruity products!

This is a very stylish player, its a nice size not too small but not too large for a shirt pocket, build quality is nice although its all plastic which makes it very light, sound quality is very nice with my own headphones I've not tried the included ones.The menu selection works very well if a little sensitive, I've not found any issues with the loudness as I initially set it up using the rest of the world setting just in case.Works in Windows 7 with no problem.Have given it 4 stars because of the sensitivity issue.

As humans, we sometimes tend to personify our gadgets. Having witnessed the phenomenon in others, I'm happy to see I'm not the only one (a psychologist could explain it better, but it probably stems from our post-toddler, invisible friend/stuffed animal days, but no matter). So if this little MP3 player could speak, I reckon it would probably say something like, "Hi there! I know I'm not as full-blooded as an iPod Touch or as sleekly designed as an iPod Nano, but I'll work real hard to make you happy. Honest!"

First, a bit of history: I've owned iPods since late 2003 when I bought a spanking new 15 GB third generation iPod. Back then, smart phones had yet to come of age and if you wanted a high-capacity MP3 player, Apple were just about the only game in town. It helped matters immensely that my iPod was so well constructed since I used it day in, day out for five years until it finally died and I replaced it with a fourth generation iPod Nano. That Nano sure *seemed* solid enough (what with its sleek, anodized aluminum body and all) but a mere year-and-a-half later it fell apart faster than Joan Crawford in a wire hanger factory (see "Mommie Dearest [1981] [DVD]" for an explanation of that analogy). With hopes held high for an amazing sixth generation Nano, I balked at its rather stripped-down feature set and the tiny, nigh-unusable touch screen.

So, off a-shopping I did go.

Since Sony didn't appear to make a Mac-friendly Walkman, I opted to punt, snapping up the newly released Sansa Fuze+ (black, 8BG capacity). I'd known about -- and respected -- Sansa players for years as affordable and worthy iPod competitors, so this seemed the best available option. Whether consciously or not, SanDisk are filling a huge void in the marketplace right now caused by the absence of last year's multi-purpose fifth generation Nano (and as a student, I really, really needed its now long-gone voice recorder feature badly).

To define the negatives of this particular player: as many reviewers have pointed out, the Fuze+'s touch-sensitive interface can be a bit unresponsive at times and over-responsive at others. The GUI isn't anywhere near as intuitive as anything Apple could have designed. Furthermore, the industrial design is rather plain and the plastic is easily scratched (HINT: rub any scratches that appear on plastic with Brasso and a clean, lint-free cloth; after several minutes, it clears them right up -- promise!). That said...

Onto the positives: the sound quality from this thing is amazing -- rich and full! I've run tests only to have my jaw hit the floor when battery power on my unit clocked in at a WHOPPING 53 hours for 128 kbps MP3s and 30 hours for 256 kbps AAC files. This in itself is an astonishing discovery, particularly having come from the notoriously power-hungry iPod realm. This little fellow plays video beautifully, although the screen's visual "sweet spot" is at a slightly off-centre angle when watching a movie in Landscape mode. Also, it's got a voice recorder -- a good one -- that uses the unit's incredibly wee, shockingly responsive built-in microphone. While the Fuze+ won't win any beauty contests, it is enough for me to say that it *is* solidly constructed, having already dropped it several times without so much as scratching it (Brasso time!).

I give this player a solid recommendation -- especially (way) over the current iPod Nano -- keeping in mind that it is still quite new and there *are* flaws. However, SanDisk seems to really care about their customers, listening to their concerns and working hard to iron out the kinks. Their Website support forums are a good place to go for advice, especially considering that by buying any new first-generation product, you're essentially signing up to be a Beta tester.

It just comes with the territory, folks.