Written by dgoldring on Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Sandisk Lights My Fire With The Sansa Fuze.

Earlier this week, although we did not write about it in this space, rumors started trickling in about a new Sansa media player from Sandisk. In fact, it wasn’t long before Amazon confirmed these early reports of a new media player, posting for pre-order sales.

Well, today, Sandisk made it official, releasing the Fuze, an extremely attractive mid-range media player, which should fill the void between the high end View and the ultra-portable Clip. The most attractive feature of the Fuze is the player itself, which comes in a veritable rainbow of new colors. Not only that, but it is among the most affordable media players, with all of the models coming in under $130.

Like the View, the Fuze will play music, video, photos, FM radio and audiobooks. Other features include:

a microSD card slot;
a voice recorder; and
a 1.9 inch color screen.

The Sansa Fuze will also allow users to access a myriad of subscription download services from numerous sources, including: Rhapsody To Go, Napster, eMusic and others. In addition, it supports playback of a wide range of popular music formats such as MP3, WAV, Audible (for audio books) and Windows Media Audio (WMA) in both unprotected and protected files. It also plays MPEG-4 video and JPEG photos.

The Sansa Fuze is expected to be available in early April in the United States, with a release in Canada and Europe later in the Spring. Expected Pricing, Colors and Availability

The 2GB player (holds 500 MP3 songs3) will have an MSRP of $79.99
The 4GB player (holds 1,000 MP3 songs) will have an MSRP of $99.99
The 8GB player (holds 2,000 MP3 songs) will have an MSRP of $129.99.

The 2GB Sansa Fuze is available in black; the 4GB Sansa Fuze is available in black, red, pink or blue, and the 8GB is available in silver. For more information visit http://www.sandisk.com/sansafuze/.