Posted on December 25, 2009 - by ericholter

New Gadget Love

It’s Christmas, which means not only did I get a new gadget, but I actually have time to blog about it. A couple months ago I updated by Rhapsody software and ever since I haven’t been able to get my Sansa View to sync up with Rhapsody. It’s been a great device, but this failure made it close to useless to me. In the process of looking up a fix I came across the Rhapsody ibiza. Suddenly, with Christmas around the corner, I decided it was time for an upgrade!

This 30GB player has built in wifi and Rhapsody integration. I can now connect to my Rhapsody account without any wires or syncing with a computer–nice! I’ve only been playing around with it for a half hour or so at my sister-in-law’s, but so far it’s working exactly like I hoped it would. I was able to easily connect to her home network and start listening to tracks streaming right from my Rhapsody account. All my library and playlists are accessible–and they sound great on the new Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones my wonderful wife also got me for Christmas (my old pair had a hard plastic top which left a mark on my bald head).

The interface is extremely intuitive and the touchpad is smooth and substantial. I always felt the Sansa view scroll wheel was kind of flimsy. Connecting to the wifi network was very simple thanks to the wifi button that automatically detects any local networks. While listening to any track you can easily select the “Keep this song” option and save it to the device to listen to when there is no wifi access (which requires the Rhapsody To-Go subscription). I can also download entire albums and subscribe to podcasts. I’m psyched about the podcast feature, since now I can automatically get the latest sermons from my church without downloading and transferring to the device.

The only downside so far is that is a bit bigger and heavier than the View, and it’s so new that I didn’t find a velcro sports accessory available for it yet, but I bet it will fit in an iPod strap. So far I’m loving this new device!