SanDisk’s Sansa connects with Yahoo Music

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 09 April 2007 19:05

Your IT - Entertainment

SanDisk’s “Sansa Connect” gives users the ability to download music wirelessly right from the device, and we now know that you’ll be able to buy music wirelessly from Yahoo’s Music service.

It was previewed at the recent CES in Las Vegas, but now it’s finally available in the US – with access to Yahoo’s Music store wirelessly, to boot.

The unit looks similar to other mp3 players, although it has a small protrusion above half of the screen which houses the Wi-Fi antenna. Equipped with a scroll wheel that physically rotates, as opposed to the iPod’s touch controlled wheel, it mimics Apple’s control system to some degree which virtually all other mp3 players seem unable or unwilling to copy.

The US $249 model comes with 4Gb of memory, a 2.2-inch colour LCD screen, inbuilt Wi-Fi and a MicroSD slot that allows you to expand the storage capacity of the player.

The Wi-Fi connection lets you do more than just buy music wirelessly when it range of and connected to a Wi-Fi access point – it also lets you listen to streaming radio stations from Launchcast and go through Flikr photo streams, although at this stage, wireless synchronization to your PC is not yet an option.

If you pay Yahoo US $15 per month for a Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription, or US $12 per month if you pay for a year in advance, you can download virtually whatever music you want, essentially giving you access to millions of songs for the cost of a CD or two each month.

Unfortunately, Yahoo’s Music Unlimited service is unavailable in Australia and most other countries, but no doubt SanDisk and Yahoo are working, as are other online music stores, on getting global arrangements in place, just as iTunes took a long time to spread to countries beyond the US due to licensing agreements.

Initial reviews suggest the streaming radio and Flikr photo browsing work exceptionally well, with the entire package a worthy competitor to the iPod, especially with a wireless feature that is actually useful, unlike that on the Zune which is only usable when other Zune users are present, and only then if the music you wish to share has actually been deemed shareable by the music company responsible.

One thing is certain: despite all the advancements we’ve seen in the mobile music player space, today’s handheld devices are still quite primitive compared to where we’ll be in a few years.

Apple’s iPhone is a testimony to how rapidly the interface for mobile devices can truly change, and we still haven’t seen an iPod from Apple that makes use of the iPhone’s very cool interface, nor an iPod that takes advantage of the iPhone’s wireless capabilities. That said, we still haven’t seen an iPhone yet either, but we know both are on the way.

If you’re hankering for a brand new mp3 player, because your existing model is broken or is old, then SanDisk’s Sansa Connect is a very capable device that offers truly useful wireless capabilities, especially when connected to Yahoo’s Music Unlimited service so you can always have new music, whenever you want it and you also happen to be in range of a Wi-Fi network you can connect to.

But if you’re happy with your existing player, new models are on the way from every manufacturer, with the most anticipated new models due to come, as always, from Apple. But whether you choose to jump onto SanDisk’s wireless bandwagon now, or not, a wireless music player of some sort (besides a regular AM/FM radio, the original wireless music device) is most definitely in your future.