Rhapsody portable device recommendation

September 10, 2005 3:00 PM

Which one of the portable devices usable with Rhapsody is any good?

I'm open to either Flash or hard-drive based. I don't mind having to "reload" it fairly frequently, so a lower-capacity Flash-based player could be OK.

I'm surprised this hasn't been asked before, but if it was asked (specifically for Rhapsody) I couldn't find it.

posted by mcguirk to technology (10 comments total)

Don't hold your breath. I've trialled several of them, most specifically the Audiovox phone, the Samsung YH-999 and the Creative Zen Micro.

It's not the hardware which is at fault so much as the Windows Media 10 digital rights management system and/or the Rhapsody software itself. Such a terrible shame, as I have long been once of Rhapsody's biggest fans. But the portability software has caused me no end of heartache, despite trying it on several different devices.

Sometimes I attempt to transfer a playlist across and some or all of the tracks will fail to download. If I try to download the tracks and then transfer them, quite often some of them will fail to transfer due to licence issues. Or they will end up on the player but then not play, again due to licence issues. Still other times, I transfer the tracks across successfully - and they play - but they fail to associate with the playlist they originated from. I have more luck transferring tracks across using the Windows Media software than Rhapsody itself, but nothing is consistently reliable.

The player I've found least reliable is the Creative Zen Micro. I've had two players die on me completely. That's after a lot of mucking around with the firmware just to get it to work with Rhapsody. The YH-999 is a lovely bit of kit but I still need to hard-reset it regularly just to get Rhapsody to recognise the player.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I don't think these guys have fully got their acts together yet.
posted by skylar at 3:37 PM on September 10, 2005

Hmm. Not much of a selection so far, is there? Between the 3 HD players, I'd go with the iriver H10. I'm not terribly fond of the player, but I've heard it's the least problematic with Rhapsody (that's entirely second-hand info, though).

As for the flash players? Barf.

If I were you, I'd wait a bit for the software issues (mentioned by skylar) to be improved and for more variety in players.

BTW: This really poorly-designed page indicates that there are some players not listed on the page you linked to. Might want to check it out. Look for "subscription" compatible devices.
posted by selfnoise at 3:54 PM on September 10, 2005

By the way: If you do end up getting the H10, remember to upgrade the firmware. Will probably save you some headaches.
posted by selfnoise at 3:57 PM on September 10, 2005

I tried an H10 when they first came out. It went back very fast.

I use tunebite and an iPod. Well, ok, not an iPod nano. But one day, my pretty! And your little dog too!
posted by trevyn at 4:33 PM on September 10, 2005

(I suspect not, but:) Does it help if I expand the question to include Napster or Yahoo Music? Basically I just want the subscription-buys-you-everything model and not the pay-per-track model.

Thanks for the replies.
posted by mcguirk at 5:20 PM on September 10, 2005

I tried an H10 when they first came out. It went back very fast.

Huh. I've got an H10 and I love it, though I had the benefit of getting mine a year or two from the original release.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 5:29 PM on September 10, 2005

I have a Dell DJ, and it's been a good player for me. But you need the firmware upgrade for it to support the subscription services, and it really slows down the transfer time between the player and your computer. If you don't mind leaving it on all night or during the day when you're not doing anything on the computer, give it a shot.

I have used it with Yahoo music and it works decently well. They have a list of compatible devices, and I'm guessing they all work with the other subscription services too.
posted by kyleg at 6:58 PM on September 10, 2005

Mcguirk - All the subscription services seem to use the identical Microsoft DRM and are compatible with the same players.
posted by selfnoise at 8:01 PM on September 10, 2005

Selfnoise, I'm not sure that's the case. At least in my trials, there was one iRiver player I tried and one Samsung I tried that would work with Rhapsody but not with Napster. I don't know whether that was _meant_ to be the case, but that's what I found in practice.
posted by skylar at 6:43 AM on September 11, 2005

I have used the iRiver H10 20GB version with Rhapsody to Go for the past few months.

The only serious problem I've ecountered is that the DRM licenses for the "To Go" encrypted WMA files are recognized as valid for only for 2 to 4 days after synching, not the 30 days they are supposed to be valid. This would be a major problem if I took a lot of long trips away from the computer with which I synch; as it is, the few times I travel for longer than my DRM lasts, I just switch to playing the unencrypted MP3s I've synched from my hard drive.
posted by MattD at 7:59 AM on September 11, 2005