SanDisk Sansa Fuze (4 GB) Digital Media Player Review

For those of you who aren't interested in buying into all of the iPod hype The SanDisk Sansa Fuze is a nice alternative.

Hardware wise the case is very sturdy feeling, metal not plastic, the navigation wheel has a nice feel and you can spin and click it with ease.  I like the on/off switch on the side, you won't accidently hit it and can turn it on or off quickly.  The data/charging cable attaches on the bottom which is a good location.  The head phone jack is also on the bottom which is a little awkward, when using it with a docking station or something similar it ends up sitting on the headphone jack.  The battery life is excellent.

Software wise the player was automatically recognized by all of the computers I connected it to (at least 5, all Windows Machines).  You can either treat the player as a removable hard drive and drag and drop files to it or use the Windows Media player to sync files.  The benefit to using Media Player is album art is automatically transferred, it's also a bit easier for people not comfortable managing files manually.  The menu structure on the player is well organized and easy to control with the click wheel.  Compared to the iPod I like the fact that it is a physical wheel, it's easier to operate it when you can't see it (when it's in your pocket for example).  The screen is very clear.

I haven't used the photo or video feature of the player so I can't comment on that.

The biggest drawback to the non iPod players (this one included) is the lack of 3rd party devices to use with it.  You can't truly "dock" the player to other devices where you can remotely control the player.

With the microSD slot in the player you can easily expand the memory.