Just ahead of Apple’s expected announcement of an autumn refresh of its iPod lineup today, SanDisk has unveiled an update to a rival portable media player in the sub-$100 category.
SanDisk claims parity in market share with Apple where the iPod shuffle plays and says its Sansa Fuze+ has far more features.
Daniel Schreiber, head of corporate marketing, told me SanDisk and Apple both have market share in the low to mid 30s per cent range in MP3 players under $100, but Apple is more focused on its higher end iPods
“They tend to neglect the mass-market end and while their shuffle devices are nicely designed, they are very feature-poor and their value for money is questionable,” he said.
Unlike the shuffle, the new Fuze has video as well as audio capabilities and represents a a radical redesign of its predecessor
It has a new look to its casing and interface and touch-and-swipe navigation controls have replaced a scroll wheel.
While the shuffle comes in 2Gb and 4Gb capacities for $59 and $79, the Fuze+ has 4Gb, 8Gb and 16Gb versions for $79, $89 and $119 and also includes a microSD slot.
This makes it slotRadio compatible like SanDisk’s other MP3 players. SlotRadio represents an attempt by the company to sell aggregated content to consumers who don’t have the time or technical inclination to load music onto their devices.
For $40, a 1,000 songs can be purchased in various categories, such as classical, rock and holiday tunes, with built-in playlists.
“We’re addressing a major pain point for consumers with slotRadio: very few people will connect up their devices to add music and create playlists,” said Mr Schreiber.
SanDisk is seeking wider adoption of the format – software is available to enable the cards on BlackBerry phones and more cell phone compatibility is on the way.
