Hands-on Review: Ibiza Rhapsody Wi-Fi MP3 Player

Try this on for size: a Wi-Fi MP3 player that wirelessly hooks into your Rhapsody account and lets you download your favorite tracks, stream music channels, and listen to podcasts, all without ever syncing with a PC. Looks like the new Zune (and the iPod Classic, for that matter) may have some stiff competition.

Slated to ship in the next few weeks (before the year is out, one would hope), the Ibiza Rhapsody comes in three flavors: a 30GB hard drive-based version ($330), and two flash-memory models (8GB and 4GB, $250 and $230 respectively). Not exactly cheap, but I've yet to find an MP3 player that does such a good job of exploiting its Wi-Fi abilities.

I've been testing the 30GB Ibiza for a couple of days, and I'm pretty impressed with its looks and overall build quality—not bad for a company (Haier) that's known more for household appliances than consumer electronics. The player has the same basic form factor as the iPod Classic, except it replaces the scroll wheel with a touch-sensitive navigation pad—yes, very similar to the new Zune, except I thought this one was easier to use. The pad is surrounded by play/pause, skip forward/reverse, and back buttons, with a volume up/down rocker along the right spine of the player. Finally, along top, there's a long, narrow button: push it to instantly see all available Wi-Fi networks (the Zune forces you to dig into the Settings menu). The Ibiza's 2.5-inch display is bright and vivid, with pixels packed in so tight that there was little sign of any screen-door effect.

After you fire up the Ibiza, you're prompted to connect to a Wi-Fi network; using the touch pad, you must select an open access point and key in any encryption passwords. It's not as seamless a process as on the Zune, which transfers all your Wi-FI settings from your PC, but tapping in my WPA password wasn't all that onerous; after a few back-and-forth swipes of my thumb, I was all set. Next, you must log in to your Rhapsody account; again, more swiping is involved, but once you're logged in, the Ibiza keeps track of your username and password.

Once your wireless and login info is all set, the fun begins. First, I navigated to the My Library option in the Rhapsody menu and browsed all my saved Rhapsody tunes; from there, I chose which songs and albums to download to the device. Next up? Podcasts; you can browse a directory covering scores of choices, and once you subscribe, the Ibiza downloads new episodes automatically. You can also browse and search the entire Rhapsody catalog for new music, or stream one of the many Rhapsody music channels. Also, whether you're listening to a saved song or a streaming channel, you can always click to find related songs or artists, then click again to download new tracks or entire albums (99 cents a song, or $13 a month for an unlimited subscription).

There's more: the Ibiza has a video player that handles MPEG-4, WMV, and H.264 file formats, and you can also browse clips from AOL Video (AOL's version of YouTube) over the air. A web browser lets you check the WAP version of sites like Yahoo! and Google; it's not as slick as the iPhone's browser, but it's good enough for quick web searches and checking the news. You can also download new skins (dubbed Airskins) for the player; six are available. An FM radio lets you scan the airwaves for music; it doesn't give you station or music info as does the FM radio on the Zune, and it lacks presets, but I had little trouble scanning for strong signals. Finally, the Ibiza supports stereo Bluetooth headsets for wireless listening.

My biggest problem with the Ibiza is that it's sluggish at times; it has a tendency to choke if you're, say, listening to a streaming Rhapsody channel and downloading a bunch of tunes all at once. Even when I wasn't downloading music in the background, the hard-drive player I tested often paused a second or two before responding to clicks (I'd expect the flash-based Ibiza to perform a bit better). Also, I haven't had a chance to give the battery a thorough test; as I found with the Zune, too much Wi-Fi can cut down on battery life dramatically. I was also bummed that the Ibiza lacks an equalizer (as does the Zune).

That said, I'm very impressed by the Ibiza overall. No, it doesn't have the Zune's community features such as the slick Zune Social, and you can't share tracks from one player to another. But the Ibiza blows away the Zune and the iPod Classic with its ability to browse the Rhapsody catalog over the air (a feature still lacking in the Wi-Fi-enabled Zune), its extras (such as the web browser and AOL Video access), and the streaming music channels. Oh—and I have yet to sync the Ibiza with my PC. So far, I haven't really needed to.

How do you think the Ibiza stacks up to the Zune and the non-Touch iPods? Is it too pricey?

Related:
Haier's Ibiza Rhapsody PMP gets reviewed [Engadget]