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Get Connected On-the Go! …Without a PC…No Strings (Or Wires!) Attached Haier is taking portable media players to a whole new level with the wireless ibiza™ Rhapsody®. With a press of a Wireless “Hot Button”, instantly connect over-the-air to millions of songs, podcasts, and videos. Or, install included Rhapsody software on your computer to transfer your own music, videos, or photos. Wireless Music: Every device comes with a free 30-day trial for Rhapsody To Go. Search their 4+ million song library and play or save music in seconds. You can also listen to free, non-stop Rhapsody Channels in any genre, without ads. The free trial does not require a credit card, and is cancelled automatically. Free Music Listening: Enjoy free listening even without a Rhapsody membership! Listen to up to 25 new songs a month, or play 25 Rhapsody Channels, without any monthly fee. Even tune to many favorite, preset FM Radio stations. Free Wireless Videos: Use your ibiza Rhapsody to enjoy free AOL® Videos on-demand, for hours of constantly updated entertainment! Browse and stream the latest from the AOL Video library. Free Wireless Podcasts: With ibiza Rhapsody, you can take your favorite podcasts with you! The ibiza Rhapsody uses the wireless connection to automatically update nearly 1000 categorized podcasts that you choose. Wireless Internet: What’s the name of that song? Get the answer with ibiza Rhapsody’s web browser. A quick Internet search and you’re on your way to downloading that song from Rhapsody. AirSkins: Automatically theme your player with styles, graphics, pictures and colors in one click.
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Technical Details
- Wireless MP3 player keeps you connected on the go- 8 GB hard drive; 2.5-inch color LCD; 15-plus hours of battery life
- Hot button for instant access to millions of songs, podcasts, and videos
- FM and Internet radio; 1,000 categorized podcasts; over-the-air updates
- Comes with free 30-day trial for Rhapsody To Go
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By Kenneth D. Mcfadden (LOS ANGELES, CA USA)
I have been a Rhapsody subscriber for several years. I just log on and listen to music like a old fashioned Clock Radio. I do not download..mostly because I don't want to pay for music i eventually will get tired of listening to. I know u can find free stuff out there but that is too much hassle for me. Is anything really free? U either pay with time searching or by giving away your information.
I bought this because the price is right now..got mine for $[...]. Its great..the sound quality is great...the streaming is great...I just bought another for my daughter for graduation..It may not be as slick as an apple product..but for a Rhapsody subscriber it's a no brainer. U have access to thousands of albums anywhere u have a wi-fi connection. For [...] bucks a month.
By Trent Faulkner (Brownsburg, IN USA)
I seem to go through a different mp3 player every year. I usually get the small ones that are chewing gum pack sized. When my 2nd Sansa kept locking up, I decided to go out on a limb and get the Ibiza. It is great! I had no problems getting connected with the Rhapsody account. You can choose one of many Rhapsody channels. You can copy your Rhansody To Go playlists to it. You can browse for any song you want. I'm really geeked out that I can download a song that I'm streaming in and put it into my playlists without interfacing it with my laptop (it's a little tricky to manage playlists but doable)!
My daughter, whom I share my Rhapsody account with, is now looking for a new mp3 player. I looked and looked and can't find anything that interfaces with Rhapsody and has the Ibiza's reliability. Sansa has a Rhapsody device, but sheesh, look at the reviews! People are complaining that it jams all the time. The Ibiza only jammed once over the last month. I was getting on a plane when it happened so maybe a emf pulse from radar or the plane got it. The freeze up was kind of nerve wracking because you're supposed to shut down you wifi devices when that plane takes off. I was able to get a pin in the reset hole just in time.
The biggest flaw is that it doesn't have any easy access to internet video. I mean, come on! If your are going to put a big screen on it and have wifi access, why not make it easier to view video? Youtube? Rhapsody videos? It doesn't do those.
The sad fact is that an mp3 player should be able to do better. It should never freeze and should be able to play internet video. Thus the 3 stars. All other players get 1 or 2 stars though. Maybe apple can do better, but I really love my Rhapsody To Go subscription.
By Scott Eckley (Atlanta, Ga)
I know, you are thinking: How can there be such a disparity of opinions (?) - Some say this was their worse purchase... ever; others love it. For my own part (my own opinion), when you read other comments/reviews - including mine - (1) you should look at the date of the comment, and (2) know the needs or intent of the reviewer.
First, it's obvious Haier had some real issues at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008. Any critical comment made in that time period needs to be carefully scrutinized. There have been 'fixes'. I personally ignore any review that is a year old.
Second, if you are not already a Rhapsody fan, You need to think seriously about purchasing a Rbiza Rhapsody - and spending the premium for the Rhaposdy features. Note the word Rhapsody in the name? If you are not a Rhapsody fan or have not heard about it, you owe it to yourself to at least know what you are missing. In my mind, there is iTunes and Rhapsody. There is no contest if you are a PC guy - Rhapsody is a better service (thus my need and intent).
So, yes, I am a Rhapsody fan. Not a power user by any means - I have a job and children, so I don't sit around with ear buds in my head all day. How anyone can conceivibly put 1000+ songs on anything is beyond me (much less 5000+?). If you need or want to load that many - on any device - don't be an idiot and try to do it wirelessly; connect the thing to your computer and drag them... then go to bed. (Is there some status associated with having the most songs on your MP3? Something I don't know about?).
Two features made me spend the money for the 8G version. The obvious one is the wireless link to Rhapsody. The second is the podcast feature. When I workout in the gym (which has WIFI), I hope to listen to my fav podcast while running. Too often I forget to pull them off the desktop and drag them to my old MP3; half the time I don't have the receiver running, so I don't even have the latest versions on the PC.
And, in the event you want to see the device in action before you buy, there are help videos on the Haier site. These are not produced by Steven Speilburg; they are short, to the point and show exactly what the unit does without any marketing noise. I don't know what that says, or if you like that (I do), but, if nothing else, they are 'helpful'. There is also a 74 page user manual that is in PDF format you can download, view, print. The manual does NOT come with the unit. I like that too.
So, down to the brass-tax.
The device seems solid to hold. It's metal and not heavey but substancial. There's obviously a lot of 'stuff' packed into the little box - which maybe bigger than most, but I like that - being over 50 years old, my eyes prefer this size as opposed to something you might loose in your pocket.
Navigation is straight forward. The touchpad is also a clicker. Not being one to read directions, I started out tapping the touchpad to select an item and it wouldn't select. After a few minutes, I figured out you have to Press on the touch pad to select. (duh). Note the help video called short cuts. Like I said before, very helpful.
The manual switches on the outside of the box work. You can turn it on/off; adjust the volume and there's a lock switch to keep accidental fumblings from doing anything unintentional. Nuf Said.
WIRELESS CONNECTION
So, back to the real reason for the purchase. I have a Linksys Router (provided by a cell phone provider - My Land Line goes through the internet). Attached - either directly or wireless - are 5 computers, an eBook reader and a PlayStation 3. I say this because (1) there's a lot of potential traffic going out of my house on the broadband, and (2) something, I'm not sure what, can knock my desktop computer off the network: Probably my wireless phone or cell phone. Or neighbor's? Whatever it is, I'll come home from work and the PC will be off line (a Repair doesn't always work). Your network maybe more reliable and traffic free. Point is, the world is still not a perfect place.
Also, to be considered is the amount of traffic Rhapsody has to deal with. You would think that it's most busy in the evening; not so much in the morning... My experience with the Rhapsody connection has been very good - considering.
For example, I have been listening to a Rhapsody channel since 8:30 this morning and currently it is 10:42 AM. I've not had one hic-up. The battery was fully charged and still has a lot of juice left (if you can believe the little icon). Granted, this time of day, there is no traffic on my home network and presumably the traffic to the Rhapsody site is minimal.
I have a two story house - with 9 foot ceilings and a basement. The router is on the top floor. I can walk anywhere in the house and not lose the connection. When I'm in the basement, I still have 3 Bars (of of 4).
During what I would call high volume times (evening), the stream does skip at times. In the hour of being connect last night, it dropped the signal (or whatever) about 5 times. It reconnects after a short time (less than a minute) and picks up with the next song. So, if you are in the middle of a song you like (streaming to a channel) and it drops the signal, you won't be listening to that song when it comes back. Course, my 16 year old daughter was on her laptop, and my wife was on her laptop, and it was evening, so something just wasn't able to keep up entirely - either my internet connection or Rhapsody - or one of all those components between me and Rhapsody. Still not perfect.
I got the 8G version because (1) I don't watch video on this thing - remember my eye issue, (2) I won't load 5000+ songs on it - remember the status issue and (3) the 30G device has moving parts (a disk drive). I don't like moving parts. They use up more energy (shorter battery life) and there's more that can go wrong. I don't go with the lesser (4G) of anything. That's just who I am. The 8G is JUUUUUSSSSST RIGHT (said Goldielocks).
And, I did not even open the package of ear buds that came with it. I use what I have. If you don't like the ones that come with it, break down and go buy a new pair. You just spend 200+ USD on a box that essentially just plays music, you can go spend a few extra bucks on good buds.
I've not messed with the BlueTooth feature and I'm not sure I ever will. Maybe one day when I get tried of dealing with wires coming out of my ears, and there are BlueTooth earbuds (?), maybe then I'll crack that shell.
One last consideration. I don't know how technically savey you are, but in my case I was already a Rhapody To Go member. I was carefull to do things in a specific order when I first got the device. First, I charged it up - it comes with a wall charger - which I also like.
Then - the order is very important - I got online with Rhapsody on the Desktop. I GOT ONLINE. Then, with the unit off, I hooked up the Ibiza. Then I turned it on.
The desktop Rhapsody software recognized it - listed it in the window pane on the left. I right clicked on the player icon and selected the menu item to Authorize the Player. It did.
I they clicked the button to disconnect the unit; it said I could and I then disconnected the player.
I then, on the device, selected the Settings menu and then Wireless. I setup the device to connect to my home network - which, by the way, you only need do once. Once connected, it checked for updates - which it found. I let the updates download. It then said for the updates to be applied, I had to connect the unit to the wall power outlet - which I did - and it then loaded the update and rebooted itself. (Sometimes, you just don't ask why; you Just Do It).
I then connected to Rhapsody. It did NOT ask me for my User ID. I thought that was a bit strange, but then I recalled I did 'authorize' the device on the PC - it was then that it figured out who I was. It did ask for a Password, which I gave it and it connected without any problems.
I've only connected to Rhapsody from home (so far), but in each case I was NOT asked for the Rhapsody password again... it just connects.
It's now 11:24 AM - almost 3 hours of non-stop, uninterrupted channel listening - wirelessly. The battery indicator now says it's half used up... so, I figure 6 hours of wireless connection. It would last longer if I wasn't connected to Rhapsody real time...
But then, I don't walk around with earbuds stuck in my ears...
Or do I?
Scott
By Michael Klement (USA)
Overall, I truly like this player and its self-contained nature.
Read this review if you're already sold on the player's features in general (Wi-Fi, excellent Rhapsody integration, podcast support), but would like to learn about real-world use and problems (which may or may not be problems for you):
- Hardware reliability: The third player's the charm (so far), after the first one's hard drive died within minutes, and the second one's headphone connector gave up the ghost within hours. Annoying, but the player's promise made me hang in there, and my current one has been operating fine for several weeks now.
- Wi-Fi reception: Don't expect to get the same range as with your laptop; my player gets intermittent or no reception in places where my laptop still connects reliably. Also, from what I hear, reception is even worse on the hard-drive-based model.
- Battery life: The battery drains noticeably more quickly when there's a lot of Wi-Fi activity. Note that the player automatically initiates Wi-Fi downloads of podcasts periodically, unless you explicitly turn it off.
- Touchpad: The touchpad takes some getting used to, and may continue to misbehave slightly in situations where your fine motor skills may be compromised for whatever reason: A selection is made by pressing the center of the touchpad, which can be tricky, because it means that your finger always has to return to the center first; if you attempt to click while off-center (as that is where moving the mouse pointer has just taken you), you may end up inadvertently moving the mouse pointer away from what you were aiming at just before the click takes effect, resulting in selecting something other than you had intended.
- Fimware stability and DRM: I've had two crashes so far that required resetting the player. This may not sound like a big deal, but it potentially is, due to the licensing requirements of Rhapsody content: after every reset, the player needs to reconnect to the Rhapsody servers before you can start playing Rhapsody content again. That can be a real nuisance, if, say, you've loaded up your player with downloaded Rhapsody content before a vacation during which you'll have no Wi-Fi access. (Podcasts and non-DRM music you've manually copied to the player are not affected). I'm not sure there's a solution for this, however; just hope for nearby Wi-Fi and improving firmware stability.
- Navigation within tracks: the fast-forward/rewind buttons operate in increments that are too small for my taste; the increments get larger the longer you keep the buttons pressed, but navigating longer spans in a long track is very time-consuming.
Also, it would be nice if the player had a navigation mode in which you simpy move the track-position indicator to the desired location. This method would also allow for navigation in streams (e.g. when you stream a podcast episode rather than downloading it), which is currently not supported at all.
- Bookmarking/resuming where you left off:
o With respect to the active play list: You lose your place in a playlist when the player turns off: when turned back on, it always returns to the first track in the list, which can be frustrating. Also, even if you were in playback mode when the player turned off, you are always returned to the top-level menu when you turn the player back on, and playback is stopped (and, as stated, you've lost your place in the active playlist). Even though it is not obvious, however, you can simply press the Play button to start playback, regardless of where you are in the menu hierarchy. Also, as an alternative to navigating the menu system to get to the playback screen, you can hold down the Play button for a second or so.
o With respect to the position inside a lengthy track: the player automatically remembers and returns to the last position inside each downloaded podcast, which is nice, but doesn't for streaming podcasts, or tracks that were manually copied to the player, or any Rhapsody content, whether downloaded or streamed (Rhapsody offers spoken-word content, too); there is some hope, however: the product's support forums suggest that support for auto-resume in user-supplied tracks is in the works.
(The question then arises how to distinguish tracks where you want auto-resume (spoken content) from tracks where you don't (music); podcasts can generally assumed to be spoken content, whereas user-supplied content would have to indicate its nature somehow, and there's no generally agreed-upon convention; it may be easier with spoken Rhapsody content, which, presumably, uses a shared genre designation. A simple solution would be to base the auto-resume behavior on the length of a track: if it exceeds, say, 8 minutes, then auto-resume.)
Unlike some players, the ibiza Rhapsody has no explicit bookmarking feature, and there is no central list of saved locations across all tracks that you can navigate.
I haven't tried spoken content from audible.com, but I would expect the auto-resume feature to work there.
- Podcasts:
o Only the latest 2 episodes of any podcast are downloaded and retained; unfortunately, this number is currently fixed. However, you can opt to keep any given episode indefinitely.
o Older episodes remain listed (not sure how far into the past), available for streaming or manual download. A minor quibble is that you cannot remove episode listings, which would be useful, as it would allow you to reduce list clutter by removing the episodes you've already listened to.
o Some podcasts, even some listed in the provided directory, refuse to play, with no information given as to the cause.
- Deleting content from the player:
You cannot delete a track that is currently playing, such as you would want while sampling downloaded Rhapsody content that you decide you don't like; instead, you have to go to the top-level 'Music' and manually navigate to the same song there, which I find really annoying. It is worth nothing that many other players have the same odd restriction.
- Manipulating playlists:
A related, similarly odd restriction is that you cannot manipulate the current playlist at all. Thus, for instance, you cannot browse it and remove unwanted items further down in the list. Only saved playlists can be modified, and only via the top-level 'Music' menu. (You can, however, easily save the active playlist, and then modify it through the top-level menu; note, however, that such modifications do not affect the current playlist.)
- A few minor quibbles:
o There is little tactile feedback from the Hold/Lock button, so you have to make sure that you slide it to the right all the way for it to take effect.
o When you browse a partially downloaded album through the 'Music' top-level menu, you have the option to connect to Rhapsody and show all this album's songs, whereupon you can download them one by one. It would even be nicer if you could choose to download all missing tracks in one fell swoop. This functionality does exist, but it is only accessible from the playback screen (where you can click, select 'More from this album', and then 'Download this album').
o I've had cases where not all songs queued for downloading downloaded successfully; I received no notification, and so was unaware until I tried to actually listen to the downloads; it is, however, possible (but cumbersome) to browse the download history for problems.
o While it is possible, from an artist's Rhapsody page, to download all the tracks in the artist sampler with one command, it is not obvious how to do it. You have to first display the list, highlight one of the tracks (not the 'Play this list' command), and hold down the touchpad button until the menu with the relevant command appears. (You would expect to access this through the 'Artist sampler' or 'Play this list' menu items.)
Oddly, the songs making up an artist's top tracks cannot be downloaded as a whole (perhaps because the top-tracks lists can be much larger than the samplers).
o Like many (all?) players, you need a narrow, pointed tip to press the player's reset button (to revive it after a crash), which you may not always have handy. They also decided optimistically that the protective silicon sleeve that the player lives in needed no opening for the reset button, so you have to remove the player from its sleeve first.)
By Sheba (Lancaster, CA USA)
If you subscribe to Rhapsody, this is the MP3 player for you!
PROS: Easy setup without PC, Wi-Fi, Rhapsody, Firmware Updates, Silicone Skin
CONS: Not best looking player, no bluetooth, few accessories, only 8GB flash memory and no memory expansion, expensive
I own other MP3 players but this is the only one that will connect to Rhapsody via wi-fi and you will have access to Rhapsody with Rhapsody to Go subscription. I bought the 8GB version because I was intending to stream the music directly from Rhapsody, so I did not need a player with large memory. Rhapsody is great when it works. Sometimes a song will stop playing in middle of song and skip to next song. I have had that happen when streaming albums and channels. You can also download albums and songs to the player if you want to keep them and play them when there is no wi-fi available.
If you are looking for a player that will primarily stream Rhapsody via wi-fi and not store the music, I recommend the Ibiza Rhapsody 8GB.
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