The Sansa Rhapsody Comes With Music Inside -- Like It or Not
What if you bought a portable music player and found that it was already loaded with hundreds of songs selected by an online digital music service? You might be delighted to be getting all this content with no effort, or you might be annoyed that a huge portion of your new player's storage capacity has been taken up with music you may not want.
That's the issue with the Sansa Rhapsody, the latest portable music player to challenge Apple's iPod hegemony. This is the first player to be specifically designed to work with RealNetworks' Rhapsody music-subscription service, and it's no mere iPod clone. The player, made by SanDisk, is designed to show off the Rhapsody music-rental model, which is about music discovery rather than individual song or album purchases.
Sansa Rhapsody
Like other subscription services, Rhapsody charges a monthly fee for unlimited access to millions of songs. You don't actually own these songs, and any music you've rented and downloaded from Rhapsody becomes unplayable if you stop paying the monthly fee, which is $14.99 a month if you want to hear the music on both a PC and on a portable device.
But Real believes that for people who love to try new artists or hear "channels" of music, this is better than buying individual songs and albums that never expire, which is Apple's model. It stresses quantity and variety, and for the new Sansa Rhapsody player, it drives this message home by filling the devices with music. You can play this music free for up to two months before you have to buy a subscription.
Microsoft's forthcoming Zune player will also come loaded with a small sampling of music, but the Sansa Rhapsody goes much further. On the base, 2-gigabyte model, fully half of the storage capacity is taken up with preloaded music. On the higher-capacity models, which feature up to 8 gigabytes of total storage, 2 gigabytes is taken up with preloaded music.
The Rhapsody service itself also has been overhauled, with a new, cleaner interface. Best Buy stores will be launching a store-branded version of Rhapsody and sell the new player.
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RealNetworks Chairman and CEO Rob Glaser describes the company's new Sansa Rhapsody MP3 player, in partnership with BestBuy and SanDisk, as "interactive radio meets the MP3 player."I've been testing a Sansa Rhapsody player for the past week or so. I've compared the player with Apple's midrange iPod Nano, the closest iPod model in size and capacity. The base-model, 2-gigabyte Rhapsody player I tested is a bit cheaper: $140 versus $150 for the 2-gigabyte Nano.
The Sansa Rhapsody isn't really new hardware. It's a variation of existing SanDisk players, and is formally called the e200R series. But this isn't just a marketing gimmick. Unlike previous players that worked with Rhapsody, which relied on Microsoft software, this uses Real's own music formats and copy-protection software and is more tightly tied to the service. The player can be switched into Microsoft mode for use with Microsoft files.
Personally, I found the preloaded music more of a hassle than a boon. It included both canned playlists and channels -- preprogrammed radio stations. They featured numerous artists and genres I didn't like, or actually hated, and I was forced to delete most of them and replace them with music I wanted to hear.
Before I could do this, however, I was amazed to find that Rhapsody wanted to keep adding its own choices to my player. The minute I plugged it into my PC, the service began downloading 73 songs of its own choosing to the Sansa, to "refresh" the choices that came on the device. Real says it plans to change this behavior to ask users first whether they want such a refresh.
The player itself is small, black and good looking. It has two big advantages over the iPod Nano. First, it has a larger screen, allowing for a better display of album art and text. Second, it has a replaceable battery.
But in most other respects, the Sansa Rhapsody is inferior to the iPod Nano. It is bulkier -- more than twice as thick and almost twice as heavy as the Nano. It doesn't have a feature for playing audiobooks or podcasts, and its battery life is lower than the Nano's. I also found transferring music to the player from Rhapsody to be slower than on the iPod, despite Real's claims to the contrary. And when I added my own tracks to the Sansa, it failed in many cases to display the album art.
Also, after the initial 60 days, you must plug the player into your computer and synchronize with the Rhapsody service at least once a month to verify that your subscription is paid up. Otherwise, all the songs on the device become unplayable. (Rhapsody also sells nonexpiring tracks a la carte, like Apple, but that's not its main business.)
The player does a good job of displaying photos and videos, but getting them onto the device was more of a hassle than on the iPod. You need separate software, and that software was confusing to use.
For people who don't want to choose their own music, or who value discovering new artists over hearing familiar ones, the Sansa Rhapsody may be just the ticket. For those who place a higher value on personal choice, the iPod is better.
喜欢预装音乐的播放器吗？
假如你购买了一款便携式音乐播放器，却发现里面已经预装了由某家数字音乐服务商选定的数百首歌曲，这时候你会作何反应呢？你可能会因为毫不费力就得到所有这些内容而感到兴奋不已；你也可能颇为恼火，因为你全新播放器的存储空间被那些你可能完全不想要的歌曲给占用了。
这就是最新一款试图挑战苹果(Apple) iPod主宰地位的便携式音乐播放器Sansa Rhapsody所存在的问题。Sansa Rhapsody是首款专门为兼容RealNetworks的Rhapsody音乐订购服务而设计的播放器，它不是iPod的简单克隆。这款由晨碟公司(SanDisk)制造的音乐播放器旨在展示Rhapsody音乐租赁模式，这种模式支持音乐发现，而不是单曲或专辑的购买。
和其它的订购服务一样，Rhapsody按月向用户收取一定的费用，用户付费后即可无限制地接触到数百万首歌曲。但实际上，你并不拥有这些歌曲。一旦你停止支付月费，你就无法再播放从Rhapsody租赁或者下载的任何音乐。如果你既想在个人电脑、又想在便携式设备上播放音乐，你就需要每个月支付14.99美元。
但RealNetworks认为，对于喜欢接触音乐新人或收听“频道”音乐的人来说，Rhapsody音乐租赁模式要优于购买单曲或专辑后 即可永久性拥有的模式，而后者正是苹果所遵从的。RealNetworks特别强调了其模式涉及的音乐数量和种类，通过预装了大量音乐的新款Sansa Rhapsody播放器，RealNetworks充份传达了这一理念。Sansa Rhapsody播放器的用户可以免费收听这些音乐两个月，然后再决定要不要订购。
微软(MICROSOFT)即将推出的Zune播放器也会预装少量音乐，但Sansa Rhapsody的步伐迈得要大得多。基本款2G型号中，有整整一半的存储空间是预装的音乐。容量更大的型号方面，内存8G的型号有2G为预装音乐所占用。
Rhapsody服务本身也经过了全面调整，新推出的界面更加简洁清晰。Best Buy商店将推出Rhapsody的商店品牌版，并将出售新款Sansa Rhapsody播放器。
过去一周来，我一直在测试Sansa Rhapsody播放器。我已经把它同苹果iPod系列音乐播放器中大小和内存最为接近的iPod Nano进行了比较。我测试的基本款2G Rhapsody播放器稍微便宜一点：每台售价140美元，而2G Nano每台售价150美元。
Sansa Rhapsody其实并不是新的硬件，它是现有SanDisk播放器的变体，官方名称叫做e200R系列。不过，这可不仅仅是一个营销把戏。与之前依赖微软软件才能兼容Rhapsody音乐服务的播放器不同，Sansa Rhapsody使用的是RealNetworks自己的音乐格式和受版权保护的软件，而且与Rhapsody音乐服务的结合更为紧密。Sansa Rhapsody还可以被转化为微软的模式，兼容微软的文件。
就个人而言，我觉得预装的音乐更多意义上是种累赘，而非方便。它包括预先灌制的播放列表和频道──节目预先录制好的广播。其中有许多我并不喜欢、实际上还很讨厌的艺术家和音乐风格，我不得不删除大部份内容，换成我想听的音乐。
不过，我还没来得及这样做，就惊奇地发现Rhapsody想不断将它自己的选择强加到我的播放器上。我刚把播放器连接到电脑上，Rhapsody服务就开始将它选择的73首歌曲下载到Sansa上，“刷新”设备上的选择。RealNetworks表示，公司打算改变这种模式，会先询问用户是否希望做出这样的刷新。
Sansa Rhapsody本身相当小巧，黑色，外形优美。较之iPod Nano，它有两个优点。首先，它的屏幕更大，能更好地显示专辑说明和内容。其次，它的电池可以更换。
不过，在其它大多数方面，Sansa Rhapsody都要比iPod Nano来得逊色。它比较笨重，厚度是Nano的一倍多，重量几乎是Nano的两倍。它没有播放音频书籍或播客(podcast)的功能，其电池使用寿命也比Nano短。我还发现，将音乐从Rhapsody传送到播放器上的速度比iPod慢，尽管RealNetworks声称要更快。而且，在我把自己的声道加入Sansa后，播放器有很多次都无法显示专辑说明。
另外，在最初的60天免费播放期结束后，你必须将播放器连接到电脑上，至少每月一次与Rhapsody服务进行同步处理，以证实你已经付费。否则，播放器上的所有歌曲都将无法播放。（和苹果一样，Rhapsody同时也出售永久性的定制音乐，但那不是它的主要业务。）
Sansa Rhapsody在显示照片和视频方面功能强大，但上传照片和视频的过程比iPod麻烦。你需要另外的软件，可是那种软件用起来非常令人困惑。
对于那些不想自己选择音乐的人，或是希望发现艺术新人、不愿总是听熟悉歌曲的人，Sansa Rhapsody可能正是他们所需要的。对于那些更看中个人意志的人，iPod显然是更好的选择。
Walter S. Mossberg
（编者按：本文作者Walter S. Mossberg是《华尔街日报》科技栏目Personal Technology，Mossberg's Mailbox等栏目的专栏作家。这些栏目主要介绍一些最新的消费类科技产品和解决方案，并解答读者提出的问题。）
