About 3 years ago I got my first mp3 player, the Sansa e140. It was a decent little $80 player for the time, did basic things you need an mp3 player to do and was great for the gym. There really is nothing wrong with it even today, but the lack of features and some of the quirks were finally getting to me and I decided to start scouting out new mp3 players. I didn’t get far beyond the new Sansa Fuze line, my old Sansa stood the test of time and these new Sansas met my key qualifications:
- Pink
- Works in Linux
- Plays oggs
- Micro SD/SDHC expansion slot
- FM tuner
- Under $100
It arrived from NewEgg today.
The headphones above aren’t the ones that came with it, the ones that came with it are pretty awful, a disappointment next to the great little ones that came with the e140. And in case you don’t get a good enough impression of the size from that, I uploaded a European-friendly size comparison photo too ;) Hey, what else am I supposed to do with pounds and euros stateside?
I love it. The firmware that this one shipped with didn’t support ogg, but the firmware upgrade was only a .bin file away – even on Linux! The firmware extraction wizard for Windows may make things easier, but on Mac or Linux the directions explain that you just need to pop the player into MSC mode, plop the .bin file into the root directory of the player and let it install itself. It worked perfectly, the screen shot above has it playing oggs. The firmware upgrade also added flac support, which is a bit excessive on a 4G player, but options are good!
Well done Sansa.
Perhaps more important responsibility-wise I also got my new graphics card delivered today for my desktop. Over the weekend my old one had developed the infuriating habit of causing red pixel flurries on my screen and looked to be close to death. I replaced it with a $26 MSI RX1550 Radeon, which I just popped into my machine, booted back up, and with no interaction from me Ubuntu loaded up without a problem. It’s so nice when it’s that easy.
Tuesday, Apr 21st, 2009 at 22:07
check out Rockbox for a Sansa !
Tuesday, Apr 21st, 2009 at 22:16
Unfortunately there isn’t a Fuze version of Rockbox yet.
Wednesday, Apr 22nd, 2009 at 2:03
I have the Sansa Fuze as well and once I thought I broke it, when in a hurry I just unplugged the USB cable (without unmounting the drives) and rushing to the train.
Because I deleted and added new tracks before, it started its usual database refreshing, but this time it wouldn’t stop.
Found out later that it was the remainders of the trashbin that caused this problem. Proper unmounting would have warned me about those files in the trashbin.
After manually deleting the trash remainders the db update worked flawlessly again.
Tuesday, Jul 28th, 2015 at 1:38
. So if this little MP3 pleyar 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 pleyar, 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 for an explanation of that analogy). With hopes held high for an amazing sixth generation Nano, I balked at the 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 pleyars 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 pleyar: 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 battery tests only to have my jaw hit the floor when power usage 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 pleyar 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.
Wednesday, Apr 22nd, 2009 at 2:51
I have one and the problem I have found is that Linux users cannot encode video that plays on Fuze.
Wednesday, Apr 22nd, 2009 at 7:04
I have one too, and I was hoping someone had an answer for the video encoding on linux. anyone????
Wednesday, Apr 22nd, 2009 at 8:00
It’s really sad you didn’t get the pink edition of that evil ATI card. ;)
Wednesday, Apr 22nd, 2009 at 9:00
Congrats on the new purchase. How is the VorbisComment support for Vorbis and FLAC files? Does it display the metadata correctly?
Wednesday, Apr 22nd, 2009 at 12:44
I love my non-pink Fuze!
Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 18:00
Just found Sansa Fuze 4gb’s at the 34th and Walnut Ritz Camera Shop (going out of business) for $40 each.
Awesome community around the Sansa’s, got my GF a little Sansa Clip and it’s been wonderful, especially given that it works on Linux. However, the Fuze with its RIDICULOUSLY easy firmware upgrade in Linux, as well as ogg support, made this a must-have upgrade, and the fire sale sweetened the deal.