Published in AI

SanDisk launches the Sansa Fuze

by on12 March 2008
Image

iPod Nano competitor

SanDisk has announced a new MP3 player, although it does a fair bit more than just play MP3s, as is the case with most of these devices today. The Sansa Fuze is the smaller brother of its Sansa View, and even though size doesn't count for everything when it comes to these kind of devices, memory size tends to count for a lot.

The Sansa Fuze will come with 2, 4 or 8GB of built-in memory, but as with previous Sansa players, the Fuze can be upgraded via a microSD card slot. It uses the HC variety of cards which allows for up to 32GB of extra memory to be added, once microSD cards of that size become available.

Supported file formats includes MP3, WMA, secure WMA, WAV, Audible audio books and Overdrive. It can also display JPEG images and play back MPEG-4 video on its 1.9-inch color LCD display. It also has a built-in FM radio, although as with past Sansa players, this is likely to be a cost option for European customers. Sandisk claims up to 24h battery life for music playback, or five hours of video.

The Fuze comes with a USB 2.0 cable and a pair of earphones in the box and it's compatible with Windows XP, Vista, Mac and Linux. It's only 7.6mm thick, although this still makes it 1.1mm thicker than the iPod nano. It's 78.7mm tall and 48.3mm wide, again making it slightly taller than the iPod nano, but not quite as wide. Sandisk didn't provide a weight for the player, so we don't know how it compares there.

The Fuze will be available in black, blue, red and pink, although the 2GB version will only come in black and the 8GB version will only come in silver. It should be available in the U.S. and Canada come April; the 2GB model will cost US$79.00, with the 4GB model going for US$99.99 and the 8GB model coming in at US$129.99. Compare this to Apple's iPod Nano and you're looking at a saving of US$50 compared to the 4GB model and US$70 for the 8GB model.

You can find out more here

Image
Last modified on 12 March 2008
Rate this item
(0 votes)