Hands-on with the SanDisk Sansa Fuze

Those of you who haven't annihilated your cognitive abilities over the weekend recreational substance abuse and Deal or No Deal marathons may remember we gave you the first taste of SanDisk's Sansa Fuze last Wednesday. Well, your second dose is right here: we've now got one in-house.

Honestly, we like this little MP3 player. It feels good, like squeezing a bullfrog until one of its eyes protrudes from its head. It doesn't have the aluminium finish of the iPod nano, but it's got a solid, weighty build quality and an uncomplicated design. Plus, its interface is lightning fast with no lag between menus or items.

Physically, we found it pleasing to use -- the slightly rubbery scroll wheel actually rotates, with five clickable areas spread across the top, bottom, centre and sides of the wheel, a la iPod.

We've only had a brief chance to play with the Fuze, but our real criticisms so far are the screen -- it's not great, bright or geared up for video like the nano is, leading us to believe the focus here is on music and simplicity -- and using a proprietary USB connection: we hate that with a passion.

We'll be discussing sound quality and performance at great length in our full review, due shortly, soon, in the near future, presently, before too long and, most importantly, next week sometime. But we're pretty pleased with how the player sounds. -Nate Lanxon