Hands-on Review: Sansa Wi-Fi Connect

If you believe that music is as much about discovering new music as listening to your old favorites, then the Sansa Connect Wi-Fi MP3 player is not to be missed. While devices like an iPod let you own and listen to your digital music collection, the Sansa lets you download (think of it as renting) a never-ending supply of music from Yahoo! Music (while you're an active subscriber) over the Wi-Fi network. With a free Yahoo! ID and the Sansa, you can listen to LAUNCHcast Internet radio, browse Flickr photos, and see what other Yahoo! Messenger friends and nearby users are listening to. If you subscribe to the $11.99 Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go you can listen to over 2 million tracks and download the ones that you like to your Sansa. When you're not connected to the wireless network, the unit acts like an ordinary MP3 player, playing all of the music you've stored.

In other words, to be fully enjoyed, the Sansa Connect could be called the Yahoo! Wireless Player—that's how tight the integration between the two is. The Wireless Connect is receiving nice reviews and for good reason, but I'll also mention a few of its flaws I discovered while testing it.

This flash-based music player looks like a mini black Treo phone with a nice iPod-like scroll wheel. It holds 4GB of music or photos (no video), but can accept additional microSD cards for additional storage. It's got an internal (mono) speaker which I like because you don't have to stick your headphones in your friend's ears when you want them to hear your player! The combination of scroll wheel and two navigation buttons to take you back and forth through the menus will feel familiar and intuitive very quickly. The screen is a nice sized 2.2-inch TFT with a lovely, clear picture.

When you power on the unit and select "Get More Music," any Wi-Fi signal in range is detected and displayed. If the network is unprotected you can connect immediately. If it's protected you need to go through a one-time exercise of entering your network's name and password using the scroll wheel and on-screen alphabet (not as bad as many that I've used).

Once you're connected you can choose to play Internet Radio supplied by Yahoo's LAUNCHcast. Without a subscription to Yahoo! Music you'll get 40 stations—everything from oldies to indies. With the subscription ($11.99 per month), you'll get 70 stations plus the ability to save the songs you like to your player. Decide you want to put the song (or full album) on your player and take it with you? All you do is click a button and it's saved to your music library.

By choosing Photos from the menu you can also visit Flickr and view photos on the site. (You cannot upload photos to Flickr with Sansa.) If you're a Yahoo! Instant Messenger, using things gets sweeter still. You can share your photos and music with your friends or see if there are any new nearby friends to meet.

Subscription music services have been around for awhile, but they've been crippled by the fact that you need to keep re-upping your monthly subscription or your music becomes disabled. Sansa takes care of the re-upping in the background each time you connect to the network. That's a good thing.

The other thing about subscription radio worth noting is that while it's a great way to disover new artists, it's not a great way to find the ones you're looking for. You can't tell it to find a Lucinda Williams song, for example.  You've got to listen to the station or scroll through its playlist until Lucinda finds you. It's the difference between listening to radio and visiting a store to buy a CD.

Downloading music using Wi-Fi is a killer app, for sure. It's great. Being able to share that music with friends makes the experience richer still, but the Sansa Connect is not without its limitations. Here's my list of shortcomings:

• Flimsy feeling: For $250, this device is made of really lightweight plastic. Compared to an iPod it feels like a cheap plastic toy.
• Limitations of Internet Radio: I like Yahoo's LAUNCHcast for exploring new music, but as I've said, finding music that you want on streaming radio can be a challenge. That said, LAUNCHcast suggests songs as you rate your favorites and it does introduce you to new artists. 
• Don't think about this like an iPod. It's possible, but not easy, to transfer your existing music on your PC to the Sansa. You need to use Yahoo! Jukebox and connect the Sansa to your PC to move music you already own.
• It doesn't play any video at this time.
• Network problems: For the most part, the Sansa Connect behaves admirably. It seems to able to detect every network that my PC detects. It supports WEP and WPA encryption on 802.11 networks. But, I've had trouble getting it to sign on to my home's protected network which uses nothing more complicated than a plain vanilla Linksys router. After some troubleshooting with Zing (the company that provides the mobile wireless component of the product in conjunction with Yahoo! and Sansa) which included checking my router options, upgrading router firmware, and sending a report  of a session to Zing, I'm still troubleshooting. I've had no other problems connecting to other protected and non-protected networks so I'll have to keep you posted as we solve this problem.

The Sansa Connect is one of the "this changes everything" products. It forces you to ask yourself whether you'd be happier with an unlimited (well, two million songs) supply of wireless music on a monthly basis or if you'd rather continue ripping DVDs and buying single songs. If you're already a Yahoo! Music lover this device is a no-brainer. For the rest of you, think about how you like to listen. Sansa may be the music experience you've been looking for.

Full Disclosure: Yahoo! Music is a Yahoo! property owned by Yahoo! Inc., the same company that owns Yahoo! Tech.