ibiza Rhapsody Shows You Can Differentiate in Portable Media Player Space

Michael Gartenberg | November 20, 2007, 07:10 PM

We all know it's hard to compete with the iPod. We all know that Apple dominates the space for portable media players. While others have tried to compete with Apple, it's been hard. Yes, SanDisk has made some inroads as a distant second by offering a value play (twice the memory, same price point) most folks haven't offered a compelling differentiation. But what if you could offer features that Apple doesn't offer and appeal to a different segment of the market? That's exactly what Haier has done with their new portable media player  that they've brought to market in conjunction with REAL and AOL and it's called  the ibiza Rhapsody.

I've been using a 30gb unit for a while and it offers a very different take on media and content with some features that you can't get from anyone else. The device is about the same size of as an iPod classic with a similar sized screen. in place of a the scroll wheel, there's a touch pad for scrolling up/down, left/right and can be pressed for actions. Flanking it are four buttons for going forward, backward, moving back in the UI and play/pause. The unit itself is metal and resistant to fingerprints. Unlike other devices the unit uses a simple mini USB port for sync and charge and can charge directly over USB on your PC.  One less proprietary cable to get lost. Wish other vendors would do this.

The battery is not removable and is rated for about ten hours with all wireless activated which isn't bad. That's one of the keys. The ibiza is one of the few devices that has both WiFi on board and Bluetooth. Bluetooth has full audio capabilities but it's WiFi where the device shines. Yes, it's a standard MTP device that you can load content on either through Windows Media Player or drag and drop but it's also a full Rhapsody client that also supports Rhapsody-To-Go. In fact, there's no need to ever use a PC if you choose not to. The Rhapsody client is well done and I had no problems accessing my albums, radio stations, finding new albums by artists in my collection. It's a great tool for listening to music you own AND discovering new content. What's more, Haier thoughtfully included a small web browser so logging in to WiFi at hotspots is a simple task. Finally, a device that really takes advantage of what Rhapsody is capable of offering. Yes, we've seen Rhapsody clients for things like the Sonos and the Nokia Internet tablet and Rhapsody to go client devices from SanDisk but this is the first unit I've used that combines the feature set in a way that's usable and useful.

Another feature I love are podcasts. There's a nice podcast directory built in (adding your own is as simple or as cumbersome as typing in a URL) but the best part is they're all updated automatically over WiFi.  No need to download to the PC and sync over. This is a feature I'd have expected to see from Apple and Microsoft but it's Haier that's got it to market first. Excellent!

Video content supports a variety of codecs including WMV and there's access to AOL Video (AOL's answer to YouTube). It's easy to find and play content although most of it is of the YouTube user generated variety.

The UI is pretty basic but there's downloadable themes you can get directly on the device to personalize it a bit more. It's functional and works but it's nothing like the multi touch UI of the iPod Touch. Pictures in particular are lame with folders just showing up in one scrolling list. My collection of a few thousand pictures that the iPod handles with ease choked the player. In general, the player stuttered far too many times in scrolling large collections of stuff

Overall, i'm mostly jaded by new media players. Too often, they're just poor copies of the iPod will little differentiation. The ibiza is different, if not perfect. It's got some high end features such as WiFi and Bluetooth and excellent support for subscription content. More importantly, they've made the WiFi a real core part of the device experience (and actually recommend you just leave the device on and connected so it can refresh content automatically). This is the type of stuff I was expecting to see from Microsoft in Zune and shows how you can think different about the market and come up with something new. The UI is still way too rough around the edges, scrolling large content collections take way too long. These folks need to merge some of what they've done in terms of technology with some more style and elegance and an overall focus on UI and performance.

While I don't think that Haier will take the crown away from Apple anytime in the near future (especially with a price of $330 for the 30gb device plus the cost of the Rhapsody service) , I do think they have a good offering for an audience that might be looking for more features than you can get from other players (at least at the moment) with a trade-off in design and UI. It's not a device for everyone but if you have like the idea of subscription services and a connected player to go with them, this gadget is worth a closer look.

The big challenge will be taking this to mainstream consumers who still need to be educated on the benefits of subscription services. Consumers still see music as something that comes for free on the radio or is purchased online or in stores on CDs (even though they rent a lot of other media from other sources). Education and evangelism are going to be needed here in a big if this is to go from enthusiast device to mainstream market. But then again, that's the path the iPod had to go through as well.