ibiza Rhapsody H1A030BK 30 GB Wi-Fi/MP3 Player by Haier (Black)

I bought this as an upgrade from a Sansa Sandisk e200 for my Rhapsody subscription.

Out of the box, it needed a charge but that's not unusual for consumer electronics.

If you are an existing Rhapsody user, don't bother using the included CD. The install messed up the install of Rhapsody on my computer and I had to uninstall and reinstall it from the Rhapsody website.

I got it hooked up using Wi-Fi at the office (we have a "guest" hotspot for visitors) and at home. I had it check for firmware updates which it downloaded and applied automatically.

The sound quality is really good.

The ability to load and play videos is a nice touch.

The screen is beautiful and the use of album art is well done. Additionally, just like other Rhapsody devices, you can download channels and play them back offline while still getting album art, artist bios, etc.

The fact that the player includes WiFi and Bluetooth support are just icing on the cake. I take the player to the gym and use my Motorola bluetooth headphones to listen to music while the player is sitting in the cup holder or is safely in my pocket.

I was considering an Apple iPod Touch (32GB) but Apple doesn't offer a subscription model for music. That's a big deal to me. Sure, I could download music illegally but the cost of getting caught isn't worth it. Also, I'm not interested in "owning" music since my tastes change and for the cost of one (1) CD a month, I can download and take hundreds of albums with me.

The only things that keep me from giving this product a 5 out of 5 are the following:
* WiFi antenna doesn't seem to pick up signals as well as laptops which limits my range.
* Data transfer rate from PC to player over USB 2.0 seems slow even when the music or video files are stored locally on the PC. (Of course, it could be just that I'm used to a flash-based player with 1/3 of the capacity too.)
* Some of the podcasts don't load or the RSS feeds appear to not have any updates.
* Text entry is cumbersome and there is no software interface to load podcasts/podcast feeds or browser favorites from your PC.
* No instructions for existing Rhapsody users (i.e. they assume you are a brand new Rhapsody user).

All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase and look forward to any added functionality that the manufacturer builds into future firmware updates.

The ibiza has great potential:
1. It has wifi and a web browser, but - the web browser is hard to use with the touch pad; the wifi drains battery life (<10 hrs even if it not in use)
2. Podcast support over wifi, but some of the podcast subscriptions just don't work - I'm sticking with my iPod for now
3. Streaming video, but many of the videos just give error messages
4. Streaming Rhapsody music is great
5. The touchpad interface is GREAT - I like it just as much as the iPod, but - it is not used for FF/REW and volume control when it could be (like iPod). The dedicated FF/REW buttons are horrible when trying to FF/REW
6. Customer support is GREAT, much better than Apple.
7. No accessories - just try to find a decent case.
8. Good looking and solid case
9. A lot of features to play with for the buck

For now, this is a work in progress. If the great programmers keep working on it and Haier continues support, I think it will deserve 5 stars soon.

I've had this player for about a month and I truly do love it! I became hooked on Rhapsody when I bought the Sonos system about a year ago - no need to buy music, and I know that I'm not stealing it. I quickly upgraded to "Rhapsody to go" for my Creative Zen micro; mostly for gym use. I've been looking for a device like the Ibiza since then. Early reviews knocked it for not having an equalizer.

There have been two firmware upgrades since I've owned this unit..the first one was fairly transparent, but after the second one, there was all of a sudden an equalizer; no need to connect to the computer for this. The sound quality was excellent when flat, but I've kind of liked the "jazz" setting. There are no custom settings, but it should satisfy those that must have some sort of ability to tweak the sound.

It's actually fun to grab stuff right from Rhapsody, but it does drain the battery faster than listening from the hard drive. This should be no surprise to anyone. Dragging songs from my computer's hard drive to the player via WMP is a breeze, and it's very fast.

This is a great device. And for those who think it's ugly, I have the black one and it looks much better than the pictures would suggest.

Finally, you can listen to anything you want ,anytime you want
great sound , great display ,plus you get Rhapsody music chanels,
playlists in any genre you can think of. who needs an ipod?
This device is brilliant! Why didn't anyone think of this sooner,about 10 ipods ago? this is a MUST HAVE!

I've been using this player for about a week now. For players in the "Rhapsody compatible" category that I've tried - this is hands down the best. I've gone down the list of iRiver alternatives - all the way to the first gen Clix. They all pale in comparison. Dealing with the "plays for sure" cluginess quickly became ridiculous.

Right out of the box I was able to connect to my Rhapsody account and start streaming music in just a couple of minutes. The player is immediately ready to use when plugged in to the wall charger. The user interface is extremely intuitive. While you are listening to a streaming tune - there's a one click option to store it to your device via wireless connection. Simple as that - no jumping through hoops! You can even download entire albums at a time.

For mass downloads i.e. downloading your entire Rhapsody library - you'll be better off connecting to a PC. The USB transfer rate and drag and drop interface make it the only sensible way to do this. I moved over approximately 8GB of my rhapsody library in just over 3 hours - much of the time was spent by Rhapsody downloading the tracks locally before it made the transfer to the device.

The touch pad was surprisingly effective. I was skeptical at first but after using it I can honestly say it rivals the iPod wheel.

If you are looking for a Rhapsody compatible player - there really is no other player that can compete with the level of integration the ibiza has. "Plays for sure" was a nice idea - but to get to where the user experience is on a level with the iPod and iTunes - this is appears to be the way to get there.