Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:

Last week's column examined some of the new capabilities of the Sansa Connect, a portable digital audio player designed for an always-connected world. Unfortunately, we don't live in one. Adding inactivity to injury, this is especially true in locations where many people exercise accompanied to music, airplanes (hey, it's hard to return those seats to their upright positions), the New York City subway system, and the streets of cities other than Mountain View, CA. Indeed, most WiFi-friendly environments are also laptop-friendly and thus support access to not only Yahoo Music and its competitors, but high-quality free internet radio from last.fm, Slacker, and others.

To compensate, SanDisk and Zing have one-upped the portable satellite radios that must also deal with blackouts. Rather than simply simply allowing real-time recording of a radio station, the Connect can transfer a song or the song's album to the player if it is available on Yahoo! Music Unlimited. It can even generate an offline playlist on the device -- something similar in spirit to a feature I've long wanted on the iPod and other players, which is to be able to "switch gears" while listening in shuffle mode to play more tracks from just that artist, the rest of the album, or other songs like the one I've heard.

And while the Connect's implementation may fall short of the strong computer or community-generated music exploration features offered by Pandora, Goombah, iJiggy, La La, Last.fm, Amazon or others, it makes for an enjoyable self-led path to discovering new music. Skeptics could counter that this is not so functionally different from browsing a subscription music service on your PC and then transferring to your portable player, but music discovery is that odd leisure activity that requires work. Enabling it to occur untethered is a positive step.

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:

When Microsoft released the first Zune late last year, the company sought to highlight its main differentiator, limited sharing of music tracks to other Zunes. The viral effect of music sharing would be hard to build, though, starting from scratch in such competitive market with a $250 device. As I wrote shortly after the Zune's debut, "the place to encourage music sharing should be in software or on web sites that can easily reach millions overnight, as Napster and Rhapsody have done."

Others expressed frustration that Microsoft wasn't using the Zune's WiFi capabilities for more pedestrian tasks such as wireless syncing or wireless access of Zune Marketplace's catalog via subscription. These limitations overshadowed discussion of the value of WiFi in a digital audio player.

But not for long. Just a few months later at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, SanDisk announced the Sansa Connect, its recently shipped tripartite collaboration among the number two player in the US market, Yahoo!, and a startup called Zing that provides software and services focusing on "always connected mobile entertainment." Like other Sansas, it's based on SanDisk's foundation in flash memory (4GB) and can accommodate more with a memory card (MicroSD -- sold separately). But there's more to the player than WiFi and flash memory.

While most of the Sansa Connect coverage has treated the little fellow fairly well up until this point, we knew it was only a matter of time before someone got their hands dirty and cracked it open. Sure enough, the unashamed folks at AnythingButiPod had no qualms peeling back the plastic and taking a look inside, as SanDisk's portable WiFi audio player was carefully returned to a state it once found itself in on the manufacturing line. So for those of you whose eyes light up at the mere sight of PCB, click on through for a few more snaps, and then hit the read link when you're ready for more.

Ever since MusicGremlin and Microsoft released their respective innovative-but-flawed wireless DAPs, we've been jonesing for someone to get direct-to-device downloading right, and while SanDisk seems to have taken a step in the right direction with its tempting 4GB Connect, early reviews prove that we still have a ways to go before these offerings fully cater to consumer demands. On the plus side, everyone seems to be lovin' the Connect's design, controls, and GUI -- unlike the Sansa e200 series, the scroll wheel and buttons seem to be solidly-built and well-placed -- along with the ability to listen to Internet radio (just Yahoo LAUNCHcast, though) and browse one's entire Flickr collection; also getting pretty high marks were the sound quality, microSD slot, and tinny-but-handy mono speaker. However, not all is well in Sansaland, with the Connect's downloading abilities severely hampered by the limited choices available from Yahoo Music Unlimited to Go (the only service that this will work with sans PC), not to mention the fact that Mac users are once again left out in the cold. SanDisk claims that it may provide firmware updates that allow such things as a critical search function and connections to paid hotspots, but certain downsides -- like the measly 6 hour / 12 hour WiFi on / off battery life and inability to share tracks with friends (only track names, which you could just as easily tell someone) -- will probably only be addressed with new hardware or not at all. Bottom line: if you can deal with a limited selection of tracks, anemic battery life, and no FM radio, the Connect certainly sounds like a winner -- and if you wait a while longer, version two will probably be even better.

Read - New York Times ("Half-baked") [Via Wi-Fi Net News]
Read - CNET (8 out of 10, Excellent)
Read - Laptop (3.5 out of 5 stars)

Finally, some answers! Yes, Sony is killing the 20GB PS3. Yes, Xbox 360 will get a QWERTY keyboard device. Yes, Leopard is actually delayed. Yes, Palm is developing its own mobile Linux OS. And yes, we're definitely still holding the 2006 Engadget Awards. All this and more on Engadget Podcast 106, enjoy!

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Hosts: Peter Rojas and Ryan Block

Producer: Trent Wolbe

Music: Solvent - Instructograph (Ghostly International)

Program:
01:26 - 20GB PlayStation 3, RIP: 2006 - 2007
06:28 - Xbox 360 Spring 2007 Dashboard update
13:07 - How-To: play DivX and Xvid on your Apple TV
17:14 - Apple's Leopard delayed to October, iPhone blamed
24:16 - Apple sells 100 millionth iPod, deems experiment a success
27:45 - Palm prepping its own Linux-based OS
35:46 - Dell Axim, RIP: 2002 - 2007
40:12 - Hands-on with the SanDisk Sansa Connect
46:33 - The Engadget Mobile Interview: Sky Dayton, CEO of Helio
47:55 - The 2006 Engadget Awards - vote!

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LISTEN (OGG)

Contact the podcast: 1-888-ENGADGET, Engadget (Gizmo Project) or podcast at engadget dawt com

At this point, WiFi-equipped DAPs aren't completely novel, but they're still novel enough to command a good deal of attention -- especially when they're coming from companies like Sandisk through collaborations with Zing. In fact, the $249 Sansa Connect bears a truly striking resemblance (both physically and in user experience) to the reference device Zing was showing off last year -- much more so than its distant cousin from the same Zing drafting board, Sirius' Stiletto. Though the Sansa Connect obiviously loses the Stiletto's satellite radio capabilites, it dominates the Stiletto (and the Zune, for that matter) in its effective use of 802.11 airwaves. Why most manufacturers have yet to pick up on the WiFi formula for this class of devices, we don't understand, but hey folks, it's easy: give us streaming, easy PC-free downloading, and firmware updates over the air. We're all awash in hotspots at this point, so let's take full advantage, yeah? The Connect is tied to Yahoo! Music Unlimited for its subscription download model and streaming radio, and we've gotta say, a WiFi DAP really brings the model into its own. It almost trivializes the need for serious storage in the device -- this one makes do with 4GB plus microSD expansion -- because you can get literally any music in Yahoo's catalog whenever you have a data connection handy. All of Yahoo's features carry over, too: ratings can be saved from the Connect, album art is downloaded in real time, and you've even got Messenger on here. All of LAUNCHcast's stations are available to stream, and of course, you can build your own station based on personal tastes. And for users of other services that employ secure WMA, rest easy: you'll be able to pull your songs into Yahoo Music Jukebox (or, if you subscribe to Unlimited, just grab the song again if you're so inclined). We tested this with URGE and it worked like a champ.

You know, a portable WiFi audio player, complete with internet radio streaming and subscription service compatibility, is nothing to be ashamed of, but for some reason SanDisk isn't quite ready to trumpet its Sansa Connect player's availability, even though a few of 'em have already made it onto Circuit City shelves and that retailer's online store. SanDisk also lists the player on its own online store, but has a bogus description for it, along with a "Sold Out" sticker that seems to imply that either SanDisk hasn't stocked the players yet, or it did and we missed it -- we're guessing the former. We've still got a few unanswered questions about this player, but if SanDisk doesn't fess up before too long, we'll have one in hand to give you the skinny either way.

Read - Sansa Connect at Circuit City's store
Read - Sansa Connect at SanDisk's store

We, like everyone, had pretty high hopes for the Zune's "social" capabilities, but three plays in three days isn't really doing it for us. SanDisk's Sansa Connect isn't a Zune replacement, but more akin to the MusicGremlin, albeit with four gigs of flash memory instead of an eight gigabyte microdrive. At $250 plus PlaysForSure comaptible music service, you can get social a bit easier.

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SanDisk was quite a bit more accepting of our touching urges when it came to the Sansa Connect, so we got to spend a little bit of quality time with the unit. The screen was plenty bright, sharp and sizeable considering the form factor, and while the design imparts a bit of a pudgy look to the player, there's really not a lot of bulk here. We're fans of the simplistic interface, but since not a lot of the functionality was in "live" mode, it's hard to tell how effective the unit will actually be at managing all of its wireless sharing and syncing functionality. Pr0n galore after the break.

Finally, another entrant in the WiFi portable audio player space! These are still very early on in implementation, but ever since the MusicGremlin debuted, we've been hungry for more -- and no, the Zune didn't sate that. The new Sansa Connect features streaming internet radio (freaking FINALLY), microSD slot, and a 2.2-inch color display -- but the centerpiece feature here is, of course, the WiFi content acquisition. SanDisk claims the Connect supports "WMA in both unprotected and protected files" and specifically names PlaysForSure (and Vista) support, but also "utilizes an open (non-proprietary) digital rights management system that will allow users to purchase songs or access subscription download services from specific premium internet sites." (Which sites / services those are, we don't yet know, but apparently it's based on ZING.) No word about transferring subscription media to your pals with Connects, but they do make mention of a "community connection" to other players, which sounds a lot like it, and at very least download and purchase content on the player. The 4GB 2.05 x 3.58 x 0.63-inch player will go for $250 when it hits the streets in late March.