Sansa Nation

Every now and then, someone puts out a good review on the Sansa, and this one happens to be one of those. Check it out:

The Sansa Fuze from Sandisk is a top-notch music and video player, and it’s all Apple’s fault.

You see, Apple has had a string of hits with its hugely popular iPod line of music and video players, and other manufacturers have lined up to try to get their own slice of that pie.

It’s taken several years, but I daresay the Sansa Fuze is a better choice than Apple’s iPod nano.

First, let’s look at what the two players have in common.

They both look very similar, with an almost square case, horizontal screen at the top and a control wheel at the bottom. The nano has a 2-inch LCD; the Fuze’s screen is 1.9 inches.

Both can play audio and video files and get about 24 hours of audio playback and five hours of video play from their batteries. Both players talk to your Mac or PC through a USB cable with a proprietary connector (which are not compatible with each other).

Both have a built-in memory capacity of up to 8 gigabytes, which both companies agree is enough to hold about 2,000 songs.

Both players also allow users to display JPEG photos.

Now let’s look at what’s different about the Fuze.

Its case is made of plastic instead of aluminum like the nano, and it doesn’t play nice with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. It does work with the Rhapsody and Napster music systems, and it works with Windows Media Player.

The Fuze has a built-in FM tuner that allows for up to 40 station presets.

This feature came in very handy at our last Dallas Stars game for listening to Ralph and Razor do the play-by-play. The Fuze takes up almost no room in a pocket.

The Fuze also has a voice recorder with built-in microphone. You can also record from FM radio.

And probably the most important difference – the Fuze has a slot for a microSD card to add storage. Adding another 8 gigabytes of storage with a tiny card is a huge feature Apple fans have been clamoring for (well, at least I have).

The Fuze plays MP3, WAV, WMA and Audible audio files. The Audible files can be bookmarked so you can pick up the book where you left off.

Video formats are limited to MP4 and JPEG, and all video must be converted through the Sandisk’s provided software, which isn’t a big deal, but it’s worth mentioning.

The built-in software isn’t quite as elegant as Apple’s iPod operating system, but I found it to be quite intuitive and not a bother at all. In fact, the Fuze has a home button, which returns you to the home screen from any point.

I’d love to see Apple add that to the nano.

Let’s talk price.

Everyone seems to love the iPods but quite a few complain they cost too much.

Sandisk sells the Fuze at starting at $79 for a 2-gigabyte model, the 4-gigabyte goes for $99 and the 8-gigabyte will set you back $129.

Apple’s 8-gigabyte nano costs $199.

You could take that $70 you save and buy an 8-gigabyte microSD card and have double the storage.

Pros: More features than its competitors, lower price.

Cons: Needs more video playback formats.

Bottom line: Move over nano, the Fuze just about has it all.

-Jameson

[Source: Dallas Business News]

SanDisk has recently announced that their Sansa Fuze MP3 player is currently available in Singapore. Available in the U.S. for some time now the Fuze was never previously available in the tech-heavy Singapore market. The Sansa Fuze will go for only S$139.00 SRP ($101 American). With competition so fierce in the MP3 player wars hopefully the Sansa can take a foot hold in this new market.

-Ray

[Source: Hardware Zone ]

Shop Sansa posted another great article about the differences between the different types of Mp3 playing devices. Be sure to check this out if your aren’t sure exactly what you want.

There are three basic types of MP3 players – Flash Players, Micro-Drive Players and CD MP3 Players. Each works a little differently:

1. Flash Players are the smallest, least expensive, and most reliable of the MP3 player types. These use solid-state memory with embedded software and have no moving parts. The batteries on these types of players last longer and there is no skipping. The downside with many flash players is their limited amount of memory – from 1GB to 8 GB. However, Sansa® MP3 flash players solve this problem by providing external storage capacity. You can easily expand their storage capacities with either SD cards or SD™ micro expansion cards. You can keep separate SD cards for different music, videos, photos and data.

2. Micro-Drive Players contain tiny hard drives that have storage capacity of up to 80GB of memory. They can hold literally thousands of tunes. Some also store and display photos and videos. Anti-skip technology helps, but because these players have moving parts, shock or vibration can still cause skips.

3. CD MP3 Players are the new generation of portable CD players that in addition to CDs, play MP3, WMA and ATRAC files. Some also burn CDs. They can hold 10 to 45 hours of music per disc and play standard and/or 3″ MiniDisc CD’s. Most also play both pre-recorded and CD-R/RW discs. Features are similar to the other CD players but because these also have moving parts, they are also susceptible to shocks and vibrations.

MP3 — the latest advancement in music formatting!

In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the first phonograph using records made from tinfoil. Initially intended to be used to record dictation, the quality left a lot to be desired. Through the years music recording quality continued to improve. In 1948, the 12-inch (30 cm) Long Play (LP) 33 1/3 rpm microgroove record album was introduced by the Columbia Record Company. This would become the standard. In 1958, the first stereo two-channel records were issued. Quadraphonic records were introduced in 1971.

The problem of size, however, remained a major obstacle. Record quality kept improving, but record players were still big pieces of equipment. Portability soon became the key. Consumers wanted to take their music with them, wherever they went. To meet this need, music formats and players needed to get much smaller. This happened with the introduction of the 8-track in the 1950s, compact cassettes in the 1960s and compact disks (CDs) in the late 70s.*

Then, in the late 1990’s, came the next step in small size and portability — the MP3 digital file format. The MP3 compression system reduced the number of bytes in a song, while still retaining sound that was near CD quality. The smaller file size allowed players to be smaller and more portable and made it easier and faster to downloaded music from the Internet. An MP3 player with 1 GB of storage space could carry about 240 songs or the equivalent of about 20 CDs.

The MP3 player – the ultimate in portability and ease of use!

The MP3 digital format allows users to put music on their MP3 players by simply connecting their MP3 players to their computers and then downloading it. None of the older music formats (records, tapes or CDs) provided this level of convenience, control and portability. In addition, many MP3 players, including Sansa® Fuze™ from SanDisk® allows you to watch your favorite video clips on the Sansa® Fuze’s 1.9″ color screen, jam to FM radio with 40 preset stations, play with the built-in voice recorder, and share your photos wherever you go.

What started as a tinfoil record played on an enormous phonograph is now a tiny, lightweight player that lets you take everything you want to hear and see with you wherever you go!]

-Jameson

[Source: Shop Sansa Blog]

The guys over at Shop Sansa have written another great article about mp3 players, this time on audio bitrates and compression.

Whether you are purchasing your music online or copying from your own personal CDs, records or tapes, there are three things to keep in mind – the bitrate, the storage capacity of your Digital MP3 player, and the playback quality of your player and headphones.

What is a bitrate?

The bitrate is the average amount of data required per second of music. This determines the audio resolution of an MP3 music file. The higher the number of kilobytes per second (kbit/s), the closer in sound quality the MP3 is to the original source - and the larger the file size. The bitrate you use when compressing your Digital MP3 player files depends on the quality you want and the space you have to store it. An MP3 digital file created using the mid-range bitrate setting of 138 kbit/s creates a file that is about 1/10th the size of the original CD.

When compressing audio, the extremely high and low frequencies get discarded — even with just minimal compression. Although considered inaudible, these frequencies reinforce harmonic frequencies that “shade” the sound, giving it fullness and presence. The more you compress, the more you diminish the differences between loud and soft passages and this may decrease the music’s dramatic impact. Extreme compression - down to 64 kbps and lower — can completely flatten the music, making it harsh and muddy. By contrast, MP3 files of 192 kbps, 256 kbps or greater preserve most of the sonic information of the original WAV file. Acoustic instruments tend to keep their natural warmth at these resolutions, and electronic instruments sound fuller while retaining their punch.

Digital MP3 player bitrates provide the following quality results:

• 32 kbit/s is equal to medium wave of AM qualify
• 96 kbit/s is equal to FM quality
• 128-160 kbit/s is the standard bitrate most often used for its quality relative to file size.
• 192 kbit/s is digital audio broadcasting quality and is becoming the standard bitrate for MP3 music. However, not everyone has the ability to discern this difference in audio quality.
• 224-320 kbit/s – near CD quality. The audio is nearly indistinguishable for most CDs.
• Read the rest of this entry »

A little bigger then a golf ball, this handy little MP3 player speaker sounds very good for being so small. It can work with a laptop, iPod, Zune, Sansa or any other MP3 player. Just twist it open and extend the speaker and plug it in. It can be connected via a USB cable or audio jack. The tiny speaker includes a carrying case and one rechargeable lithium-ion battery for retails for $29.95.

-Ray

[Source: seventhavenue ]