We loved the original Sansa, it was the office darling in a world filled with more showy Apple products.

It did what it did without fussin' or fightin' and did it well. It could play a multitude of formats and record clearly on the fly. For a good year every press briefing I attended was recorded on my wee Sansa.

The Sansa Fuze is an updated version of the older models; the family resemblance is definitely there but the refinement is just as evident.

Sturdier Sansa

It's wider, yet slimmer in depth than the old e200 series, and has thankfully gotten rid of the plastic scroll wheel in favour of a more stylish rubber-effect spinning platter.

It feels solid and reassuringly heavy with technology. It boots from off to functioning in a few seconds, into the same easy-to-use interface that made the previous Sansa's so friendly.

It's not going to win any design awards for the software, but it's all there and simply laid out.

Easy conversion

The conversion software from the Sandisk site is just as simple; I encoded an AVI file of over two hours into playable dimensions in barely quarter of an hour.

You're not going to want to watch too much on the little screen, but it was clear and there was no noticeable frame skippage.

Quality MP3 player

The Fuze then is every bit as useable as its forbears, and ups the ante in the style stakes.

Unfortunately, it does still have that annoying proprietary charging/ transfer cable instead of the standard USB, and it's the same price as the excellent 4GB Zen from Creative, which has a far better screen.

Still, the Fuze is a quality device you can't really go wrong with and a better Dictaphone too.