Review: Sandisk Sansa Fuze digital music player

There’s little doubt Sandisk is pitching the Sansa Fuze as a direct competitor to iPod Nano.

Although around twice as thick, its height and width are similar to Apple’s player, however, its black plastic and soft rubber chassis can’t match the style of the Nano’s chrome casing.

The player has a 1.9in display and the overall build quality is solid. Capacities range from 2GB to 8GB, though, like the Sansa View, it also offers a Micro SD slot for memory expansion.

The player connects using a proprietary port at the bottom which looks very similar to the iPod interface; unsurprisingly, it’s not compatible with iPod cables.

You can copy music and photos via drag-and-drop, but to make video content viewable you will need to download Sansa’s Media Converter software to encode and copy on the fly.

This doesn’t appear to have changed much, but it does perform a bit faster than before; in tests it processed a 100MB file in around five minutes with a reduction in size of around 25 per cent. It’s still not an ideal scenario though, and it’s a shame format support isn’t better.

The interface hasn’t really changed since the original Sansa e-series of players, though we did notice that it’s a little smoother and more responsive. The display is decent enough without being outstanding, and while playback quality is reasonable the 1.9in screen means you won’t want to watch long movies.

With a customisable equaliser, audio quality is also good, though you’ll need to replace the headphones supplied. You will also find an FM radio and voice recorder, with the two able to work together to copy broadcast content direct to the player.

The features, quality and usability of the Fuze aren’t radically different to other players in the series, but the small size, expandability and low price make it a decent choice.