SanDisk hasn't been in the mobile music arena for long, but its products, and particularly the higher capacity ones, have caused a splash. We loved its 'e' series, and although the video-playing View left us a little less excited, it was still a charmer.

Now along comes the Fuze, and it looks like another winner. In terms of appearance it is squatter than either the View or the 'e' series, has a wide format screen and a rotating control wheel. It is an obvious rival for the iPod Nano and it is small, thin and light enough for its weight not to matter a jot and its size to be barely significant.

The Fuze comes in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities and unlike the Nano you can bulk it out with microSD cards. We took a 4GB Fuze and added an 8GB microSDHC card to give us a 12GB player.

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The Fuze software is similar to that on the 'e' series and View and you simply spin the wheel and press its centre button to get around. A Home button takes you out to the main screen, while there is a hold button on the right-hand edge that prevents accidental in-pocket presses.

The Fuze can be used to view photos and play video should you ever feel that is desirable on the 1.9-inch screen, and it separates out podcasts and audiobooks in its music list, making them easy to find. A voice recorder is built in and an FM radio at last makes an appearance: you can record from it and save presets. And there is a lovely mini thumbnail of album art that pops up as you scroll through album and artist lists.

If some of your stuff is stored on SD card the Fuze rebuilds its library when you pop a card into the slot. It doesn't need to rebuild the library every time it is switched on and off; only when you change cards. And, lest you forget whether tunes are stored on SD or in main memory, a small icon by the track listing tells you.

Audio quality seems improved over our own trusty 'e' series device. The supplied headset is ropey, but add a better quality one and the difference shows. The equaliser settings seem to have more definition too. We aren't too happy about the 3.5mm headset connector being on the bottom end of the hardware, but looking at the design of the Fuze, choices were probably quite limited.

It is a pity you can no longer get the back off the casing to swap batteries as you could with the 'e' series, but battery life is rated at 24 hours.

One more thing. Audio formats currently include the usual suspects of MP3, WMA, Audible and WAV. However, a firmware upgrade will soon add Ogg Vorbis and Flac. Eat your heart out, Apple.

SanDisk has taken its music players to a new level with the Fuze. Roll on 32GB microSDHC cards, we say.