SanDisk Sansa Fuze in the Makings?
An observant forum member snooped around the new Sansa updater a few weeks ago, and realized a device named "Fuze" was mentioned in the about section.Today he googled around and came across a Sansa Fuze accessory bundle which makes the possibility of a Fuze in the works so much more believable.
From the looks of it, the Fuze might fill the gap in SanDisk's new product line between the Sansa Clip and the Sansa View. Size wise the Fuze looks to be something along the lines of the 3rd gen iPod Nano, and the design resemblance is also very noticeable. If this is a Nano competitor, I'm guessing we can expect up to 8-16GB memory, video playback and SanDisk's usual included radio.
No official word yet from SanDisk
Comments
dragnandy on March 4, 2008 7:00 PM
i bet there will be a micro-sd expansion slot with it also.
Mike on March 5, 2008 12:25 AM
What point would this form factor serve? They have the clip, the e200s (v2), and the View already covering all the flash player bases.
Not to mention this image looks totally and completely fake - it's just a screen shot from an e200/View pasted in there, they didn't even center it. The wheel looks suspiciously photoshopped to be blue as well.
If this is real, maybe it's for Macs? Same form factor as a nano, perhaps even a compatible usb connection? Not a bad plan there, people can buy into this knowing there would be a zillion accessories already out there. Still doubt it, though :)
Brestinder on March 5, 2008 11:10 AM
if it will sound like clip, and have microsdhc ... i will get it ;]
ssjmichael on March 6, 2008 7:04 AM
Mike, Sandisk trademarked the name Sansa Fuze back in December. Still think this is fake?
Mike on March 6, 2008 4:35 PM
Oh I definately still think it's fake :) At least this incarnation of what it looks like. I'm not disputing that a device named "Fuze" may/will exist at some, just that this looks pretty badly done. Who knows? Maybe it's 100% real and has a prototype UI in this image...
I still maintain the form factor appears to serve little purpose given their current lineup of players. Maybe they're planning on killing off the e200s and replacing them with this, which would give the whole line the same look and feel. 16GB would be nice for the mid-range players, too. There's a thought -- maybe the e200s are impossible to bump up to the 16/32GB internal memory level, so this could be a high capacity mid-range player geared solely toward music, leaving the View as the only video platform?
Ah, what do I know :) LOL. Time, as always will certainly tell my friends! Sansa rarely disappoints, I'm sure it will rock no matter what it ends up being!
Mike on March 9, 2008 10:36 PM
Looks like you get to be right! There is a red one on Amazon right now. 4GB, looks mostly like the picture just with a real UI. There you go!
Ahrel on March 11, 2008 3:04 AM
Very nice, I have been looking forward to an mp3 player that uses some kind of flash card. This may be the one to get. 4gb on board is nice too, but with SDHC, you could get 8gb now, and eventually up to 32.
I was expecting a Walkman from Sony to be capable of this, and maybe there is one (I just recently started looking after my iPod broke), but I'll take a SanDisk.