Continuing to get acquainted with the players of the overseas company SanDisk, let's take a look at the equally popular US player SansaFuze. Although the device looks like one of the competitor's models Apple, he is naturally different from her. Competition for products in our region Apple products from SanDisk practically does not make up, which is good on the one hand, because the price of the latter is much lower than the cost of products Apple. On the other hand, low popularity SanDisk does not contribute to raising the image of the buyer of this company's goods, and for many, the product from Apple is also a fashion indicator. So let's take a closer look at the media player Sansa Fuze.
Contents of delivery
The following products fit in a small box of black and blue colors:
- the player itself SanDisk Sansa Fuze;
- USB cable with a proprietary connector for the player;
- headphones;
- a wonderful cover for the player;
- user's manual;
- CD with software.
In terms of equipment, there is nothing to complain about, the kit is almost complete, if there were also network charging, it would be too good for the truth. The case will do a great job, but its material attracts dust well, this is the only drawback. The headphones are of average quality, but overall they are not bad either. The use of a non-standard connector in the player is not encouraging - if you lose a cable, you will have to look for a new one, with an ordinary miniUSB, while the search will be short-lived, and in this case you will hardly be able to get it quickly and cheaply.
Design and appearance
As already mentioned, the appearance of the player is very reminiscent of Apple's rival iPod classic and nano II. The similar shape and horizontal screen, the control system make the player the twin brother of the latter. The differences are primarily in the materials of the case, in the case of SanDisk Sansa Fuze it is plastic, which significantly reduces the weight of the device. There are five color options for the player - silver, black, red, pink and blue. This was done so that everyone could choose a player to their liking. They are also available in various options for the amount of internal memory - 2, 4 or 8 GB. Fortunately, the size of the internal memory is not critical due to the presence of a special expansion slot for memory cards.
The surface of the player is made of plastic, the front side is glossy, which will inevitably entail pollution with fingerprints, so you will have to wipe the screen and front panel from time to time. The back panel is made of soft touch plastic, at least it is very similar to that. The front panel also houses key controls and menu orientations, the most important is the scroll wheel, which is made of the same plastic as the rear panel, so that the most frequently used part of the player will not have visible dirt. There is a small rim around the wheel that will light up when the wheel is in use. The backlighting has a pleasant blue color, but its presence will not have the most positive effect on the operating time of the player. The wheel is responsible for scrolling through menu items, for playing or pausing songs, for viewing information while playing songs, as well as for confirming the selected action with the central key. Slightly above and to the right of the wheel is the "house" key, which returns the user to the main menu window.
Now let's talk about the rest of the device details.
On the right side there is a power switch for the device, next to which there is a key for locking the control buttons. On the left side there is a slot for microSD cards; cards up to 8 gigabytes are supported.A little below it there is a small microphone hole for recording voice using the built-in voice recorder program.
At the bottom are the main player interfaces - a 3.5 mm jack, suitable for the vast majority of headphones, as well as a non-standard, proprietary player connector for connecting to a computer and recharging the player. The player is not equipped with any other connectors, the most basic interfaces are implemented.
Screen
The player is equipped with a horizontally oriented color screen with a resolution of 176 * 220 pixels and a diagonal of 1.9 inches. As for the color characteristics, the player is very good here. Brightness is at a high level, but in sunlight, the player's readability is quite normal. You don't even need to set higher brightness values - medium settings are enough, although even with the maximum set value - 12 points, the colors remain perfectly distinguishable.
Unfortunately, the screen does not shine in size, besides this there is a noticeable graininess in the image, as well as a problem in color reproduction. However, for watching a cartoon or a short clip, the screen is fine, only the graininess will interfere. Undoubtedly, video playback is not a key advantage of this player, as well as viewing pictures, which are also characterized by all the disadvantages of video viewing.
Battery and runtime
The player has a built-in battery, which, according to the manufacturer, provides up to 24 hours of operation in music listening mode. In practice, this figure is clearly overestimated, even without turning on the screen, it was possible to listen to up to 21 hours of music, of course, this is subject to different bitrates of musical compositions. In the mode of viewing video recordings, the device lasted for the stated 5 hours, so there are no complaints here. It takes approximately 3 hours to fully charge the battery, which is not that long.
Working with a personal computer
There are two possibilities for working with the player's memory. The first mode of operation is the simple USB flash drive (MSC) mode, which makes it very easy and simple to transfer the necessary files and directories to the player's memory, which is displayed in the window as a removable disk (a memory card is displayed separately, if it is inserted, our player plays the role of a card reader) ... The second way to work is to define the player as a media device and work with it using Windows Media Player version 11 or higher. Which is better - you choose, each method has its advantages and disadvantages, personally I would choose simplicity and use the flash drive mode. The data transfer rate to the player is quite good - about 5 megabytes per second. It is possible to flash the device using a firmware program that downloads and installs the required version into the player, after which it is disconnected and the firmware is automatically updated.
Multimedia functions
First, let's talk about additional multimedia functions - video viewing and viewing pictures.
To work correctly with video, i.e. to view a video file, you need to download a converter program from the manufacturer's official website, it is not on the disc. Only after that, the already converted video will be automatically loaded, using the same program, into the player's memory, and you can watch it. The same can be done with graphic files, otherwise they will be automatically scaled to a resolution of 176 * 220 pixels, images cannot be enlarged, and the only supported format is the most ordinary JPEG.
The only positive thing about the video is the quality of the reproduced sound - it is good, so you can watch the clips.
As for audio files, there is a significant disadvantage - the lack of support for formats without loss of quality. The player only supports MP3, WMA, WMA (DRM), audiobook format - Audible and WAV. I don't know if the ability to listen to FLAC will be added in new firmware versions, but so far we have what we have.
As for the playback quality itself, it is excellent. Not thanks to the headphones, they are just mediocre, although not the worst, but thanks to the player itself. For listening to music, it is better to choose third-party headphones, with them you will see how good the player is. And in general, the Sansa line is very good in sound quality, although this parameter is subjective, even the overseas colleagues praise SanDisk players, opposing them in this quality to Apple products, and other well-known devices. Even despite the lack of support for lossless formats, the player plays songs with dignity. As for the equalizer, it is better not to use it, although some of the settings will seem useful, as for me, subjectively, the sound is better without an equalizer. The equalizer has only 11 settings, taking into account user settings. Regarding the volume - in the player's menu there is a possibility of setting the volume types - normal and loud, the latter option is better, because at a normal level, you will often miss the sound volume even at maximum. Better to have some stock.
Radio
The player has a built-in radio receiver that can store up to 30 radio stations. Unfortunately, it lacks RDS support, but there is a broadcast recording function, which is useful if you want to listen to an interesting melody heard on the air again and again. Autostore stations work well, tuning works well.
Dictaphone
The built-in voice recorder provides voice recording in three different bit rates and, accordingly, in 3 quality levels.
user's menu
Let's talk a little about the graphical menu of the device. It is quite convenient, there are several items responsible for various functions of the media player, including setting the menu itself. You can change the color of the menu, set the time and date, set the power saving mode, language, brightness and more. Music, video, radio, voice recorder and others are displayed as separate items. Russian language support is fully implemented.
Summary of the review
What can you say in the end? And the fact that we have a good competitor for Apple, as well as for other manufacturers. And this competitor is primarily in sound quality. Undoubtedly, the appearance of the player also plays an important role, and in our player it is also nothing, but agree, if you choose a player only because of the appearance, then it really makes sense to turn to competitors. I'm not saying that the sound quality of other manufacturers is necessarily worse, but when listening to this player, you feel that its sound quality is, if not ideal, then very close to that. At the moment, the Sansa series players are one of the highest quality in terms of sound among all kinds of combines and players. Of course, the implementation of the rest of the multimedia components of the player is not as good as the music playback. The quality of the video is by no means sugar, the diagonal of the screen is very small for comfortable viewing, but, nevertheless, you can watch some things, moreover, video viewing will brighten up the agonizing minutes of waiting or a trip to the subway and more. What is important is the presence of a memory card slot, thanks to which you can significantly increase the amount of internal memory of the device, and therefore download more songs into it.
So, to summarize, it should be said that the SanDisk Sansa Fuze player is an excellent device for those who are used to high-quality music and for whom the famous brand is not of paramount importance (although the SanDisk brand is already famous in the USA). High-quality music reproduction is guaranteed to you, and minor flaws, such as a soiled case and not the best video playback, are more than compensated for. You can buy the SanDisk Sansa Fuze media player, as well as other models of players from SanDisk, for example, Sansa Clip + (also featuring high-quality sound), at F.ua.com.ua.
