SanDisk's Sansa Fuze gets more details, shipping date

Remember that Sansa Fuze from yesterday? Well, we've gotten some sweet PR on it with a few more details we didn't hear about yesterday. The device will come in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB configurations, feature playback of MP3, WAV, Audible, WMA, MPEG-4, and JPEG files, and will be compatible with subscription services like Rhapsody To Go, Napster, and eMusic. As we mentioned in the previous post, the 4GB model will be available in black, red, pink, or blue, while the 2GB version only comes in black, and the 8GB is only available in silver. The models are priced at $79.99, $99.99, and $129.99, and will be available sometime in April.

[Chip @ Mar 11th 2008 8:54AM]

Love the Sansa stuff. Might be time to upgrade my E280 if this one supports microSDHC

[Chip @ Mar 11th 2008 8:57AM]

Sweet, reading YESTERDAY's post I see that it does. So how big are microSDHC now? Isn't 32Gig coming by the end of the year?

[coolblue @ Mar 11th 2008 9:33AM]

Why on earth do mainstream manufacturers not put flac support on their devices?

Also does anyone know if the sd card upgrades the main memory or is it standalone like the zen?

[Jesse Dula @ Mar 11th 2008 9:46AM]

SanDisk players normally integrate card support into the players memory, so I'm sure it won't be a nightmare like the Zen.

[coolblue @ Mar 11th 2008 10:03AM]

Good stuff. I love my Zen but they need to enable the sd card to upgrade the main memory. Also does this player support wmv, divx or mpeg video?

[tekdroid @ Mar 11th 2008 12:21PM]

Look at the iriver e100 for FLAC support with removable flash memory. Their website proudly trumpets FLAC support as the first thing on their page:
http://www.iriver.com/product/p_detail.asp?pidx=87

It also supports Ogg Vorbis and so on.
http://www.vorbis.com

Hopefully this little number will serve your needs. It also has removable storage like this Fuze.

Hopefully it's a half-decent unit.

I hope the iriver has an easily removable battery, too - so when the useful life of 500 charges of Lithium Ion batteries are up, you can easily replace it, or even hot-swap with another battery without downtime - but I'm not holding my breath here; most manufacturers are completely devoid of common sense here.

[Frank @ Mar 11th 2008 10:15AM]

The Sansa players are garbage. When I try to skip to the next track there is always a two second delay until the next track starts playing. I have the 8gb Sansa... maybe these just suck. I will never buy anything but an ipod.

[Zeus.:God @ Mar 11th 2008 10:21AM]

Looks like you already did buy something other than an iPod...

If you don't like the lag time before different tracks, just make sure you don't get a newer iPod- you won't like it either.

[Frank @ Mar 11th 2008 10:25AM]

So the newer ipods have the same lag time problem? Can anyone else confirm this?

[superfresh @ Mar 11th 2008 10:55AM]

Just jumped through five tracks on my nano. No lag. First iPod product for me after going with Creative four previous times. Loved Creative. Love my nano even more. For me, Apple is finally making iPods I can't resist. One of the best gadgets I've ever owned.

[chris fredette @ Mar 11th 2008 11:04AM]

Yes, the new "classic" is super laggy. I bought a bigger capacity ipod every time they come out butd the new ones are annoyingly enough slow that I'll wait to see classic 2.
The real story is why isn't someone copying the touch and jamming a hard drive in there? Even if they went to 64GB flash that wouldn't be enough for me. It will come eventually but not for a long time.
Also I'm thinking the expansion thing is kind of lame. I have a 1GB express and I like it except when you add a 2GB micro SD if takes a long time to boot as it searches the data on the card. I hate to see what happens when you stick a 32GB card in there.

[Frank @ Mar 11th 2008 1:48PM]

Lag time when skipping through tracks is inexcusable. I dont think the ipod touch or iphone has lag time, but I haven't messed with one yet long enough to notice. The only reason I bought the Sansa was because I did not like the design of the Nano at the time. The new Nano is very nice, a great gadget for music. I have to wait a year or two before getting a new ipod... that's my punishment for going with a non-apple music player.

[Kurt @ Mar 11th 2008 2:08PM]

No lag on my 8gb iPhone. To me the iPod touch and the iPhone are by far the best players on the market. I prefer the phone as it is always at my hip and has pretty much rendered my laptop as useless. Only complain with phone is the headphone jack...damn you apple.

[Anthony @ Mar 11th 2008 10:35AM]

"Compatible with subscription services like... eMusic"? Wow- thanks Sansa for making it compatible w/ DRM-free MP3 files.

[Alex @ Mar 11th 2008 10:47AM]

How incredibly cheap! I may buy a 4GB Sansa Fuze as a backup mp3 player to replace my Zune in case something happens to it.

[PenaltyKillah @ Mar 12th 2008 9:10PM]

Well, that's their way to get you turned off over the ol' classic. It's like a Elliot Spitzer escort that's aging to nothingness, but has that cute little thing about her that would make your fingers spin.

I don't really think there'd be classic 2Gs... that player's made out of obselette standards, excluding the long-awaited aluminium. It'll be two or three more updates, a la the 5.5G, then the classic's discontinued. In brutal Apple fashion.

[Bob @ Mar 11th 2008 11:34AM]

That design is dangerously close to that of the ipod...

[Waveblade @ Mar 11th 2008 12:45PM]

Dangerously? I mean how many different designs are there? There's only a finite amount.


http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/25/sandisks-sansa-clip/
It just looks like the next gen of this :O

[bAY @ Mar 12th 2008 12:38PM]

I want to see the silver 8gb version. Hopefully, it will have a mirror finish just like the 4gb Sansa Clip. I like my e280, but the controls still bother me a little bit.

[freakmarket @ Mar 11th 2008 4:43PM]

I'm in Love with my Creative Zen at the moment ... The Sandisk Sansa models do have an advantage as they integrate the SD card into main music memory and my Zen can't.

I had an iPod Touch for 5 weeks and it was annoying ... it required too much menu navigation to play everything by one artist or a specific album due to it's lack of a play button. As soon as i saw the lame SDK announcement and Apple controlling everything that you can put on the iPod touch i ebayed it.

I also don't like Apple controlling what i can put on my iPod ... With my Zen i can play music no matter who i bought it from just by drag and drop or syncing.

The Sansa Views are a sweet machine at $179 for 16gb flash memory plus MicroSDHC ... the Fuze will be too.

[PenaltyKillah @ Mar 12th 2008 9:10PM]

Copied & pasted from the crave blog:
Great, there's a e200 succesor that's slowly catching up to the iPod nano, and I don't just mean thickness. Colours are nice, though the blue ring isn't doing any favours for the non-monochromic colours, giving them a sorta cheap feel. (When has that ever hurt SanDisk?) Apple and Creative can pull off better colours IMO, but is that the point? I'm still a bit disappointed that the Sansa Connect's the only SanDisk player so far to grasp one of the many emerging next-generation PMP features. Yes, the Sansa View is a 32GB flash, but navigation is a bore & chore. Same goes with the rest of SanDisk's PMP line. They're still awesome with the budget babies. Them m200s' still flyin' off the shelves in Amazon! They never seem to run out of those obselette things!

(But now I'm nosebleedin' all over the silver. Still not diggin' (micro)SD.)

[aleks @ Mar 14th 2008 10:00AM]

Not knocking anyone else's thing, but I don't want to watch video or look at photos on a screen that small. My 2gig Sansa Clip ($35 on Black Friday baby) has exactly the feature set I want. Long prelude to a short question: Is there any word on a higher capacity Clip in the works?

[aleks @ Mar 14th 2008 10:18AM]

Oh, there it is.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Sansa-Clip-Player-Silver/dp/B00126V8WU/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1205504226&sr=8-4

[Sean @ Mar 18th 2008 1:43AM]

Give me this in 32GB and I'll be happy...for now.