Customer Reviews

ibiza Rhapsody H1A030S 30 GB Wi-Fi/MP3 Player by Haier (Silver)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

As were many others, I was reluctant to purchase an MP3 player from a company that normally manufactures microwave ovens, dehumidifiers, and other home appliances. I watched reviews and comments about the ibiza for a month before jumping in. I've owned several hard drive MP3 players in the last year, culminating in an Archos 504 WiFi that was working pretty well for me until Urge and Rhapsody merged, and I lost a compatible subscription based music service.

The Haier Ibiza is the first player I've owned that hits every major requirement I have. Subscription based music with a broad, deep catalog, unprotected music, unrestricted WiFi, bluetooth, a reasonable, quick, well designed UI, etc.

Additionally, the development team at VariaMobile, the folks who are developing the software for this device have taken a very open, community driven approach to making this device better.

Downside? There are no accessories yet, (specifically a docking station). The player cannot be used while connected USB to your computer, (my previous Archos models would prompt, asking if it should connect, or simply charge).

Haier and Varia have put together a potent combination of features that more than justify the price, (some have complained it is too expensive). Anyone looking for a player that does music, subscriptions, and pod-casts will not be disappointed. I haven't even dug into the video features yet.

I'm almost 70 years old and wanted an I-Pod or something similar to listen mostly to podcasts and secondarily to music and FM radio. I've never owned an I-Pod before so don't have a great basis to compare with. But I do love the Ibiza Rhapsody. I didn't care for the provided earbuds because after a while they hurt my ears. But I found a nice headset from Wal-Mart for $7 that's just perfect because the "buds" don't stick inside the ear but rest on the outside (they're secured by an ear loop). The quality of the music is astonishing to me. Fats Domino never sounded better (told you I was 69!). I was mostly super pleased at the wide variety of podcasts that were available and that I could load onto the Rhapsody with just a click--and no PC needed. I like downloading all that are of potential interest to me and then deleting them after I've listened to them. One last, big point for me. I got the Ibiza for Christmas and four days later it stopped working. Amazon shipped me a new one even before they had the "broken" one picked up from me. I didn't have to do anything and had a replacement within a few days. The "new" one has worked perfectly. And with this kind of service available from Amazon, why would you ever order an Ibiza anywhere else? Hope my experience helps you make a decision. I'm thrilled!

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.

This is an outstanding player that does it all. With a great screen and features. the wireless connect to Rhapsody is amazing, it updates player and renews licenses with out connecting to your PC. The ease of use and touch pad makes it easy to scroll.

They way the Album art appears in dual background is really cool. Soubd quality is outstanding, earbuds come with 3 different sizes so they are very comfortable.

Puts the iPod to shame.

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.

nice, nice nice device with mad wifi capabilities. Seems a little slow and not huge battery life, adequate at best. What sets this apart from other MPs is its Rhapsody integration, and ability to sync locally-owned music to device using WMP 11 so quickly! One thing: where is equalizer!?!

Pretty cool overall. No regrets on the purchase. I love Rhapsody, and this devices knows it inside and out. Audio isn't perfect, but I 99% goodness and 1% popping and occasional burps I can live with.

Your Tags: mp3, ibiza, rhapsody, wmp11, wifi

I really wanted to like the Haier Ibiza. Great to have a non-iPod device, the screen is great, easy drag and drop from Windows Media Player, and the Rhapsody connection works and is quite fun. The menus were straightforward and 30GB is plenty big for my music and photos (I could care less about video on any handheld device). Unfortunately, the touchpad is sloppy. Dragging to get the selection is fine, but too often if you do anything but a perfect strike to enter the selection, the pad interprets it as a drag and you end up selecting something else. While that was mildly irritating, the dealkiller for me was that my particular unit had a very poor connection in the audio jack. After trying several different cables, I found myself constantly turning and reseating the jack to maintain a proper connection. For a portable device that is going to move anyway, this is just unacceptable. I don't know if this is a common problem, or I just got unlucky with my unit. With regrets, I returned mine. That said, I hope Haier stays in the business because I think they have some good ideas.

Short version: If you are a Rhapsody subscriber, or are willing to become one, and want to wirelessly access the millions of songs available via Rhapsody, then the Ibiza is an *excellent* choice. If that's not true, then you can probably get more for your money elsewhere.

Long version: If you have access to a wireless network and are a Rhapsody subscriber then the Ibiza allows you to browse their large collection of music and download selected songs or albums directly to the player without needing a PC. You can also directly stream Rhapsody 'channels' (sort of like custom radio stations that you can influence by rating songs/artists/albums, or design around your favorite artists) and also directly subscribe to and download podcasts as well. The player also has a built-in FM radio (if you're using wired headphones). Rating songs, artists, and albums (either via Rhapsody's software or web site, or directly on the player) will allow the Rhapsody service to provide you with better recommendations as well as a 'My Rhapsody Channel' that will adapt to your ratings.

You still can connect to a PC via the provided USB cable to download your existing music library, or pre-load one or more Rhapsody channels or other songs to listen to for when you do not have an available wireless network.

The Ibiza also features bluetooth capabilities so you can listen to bluetooth headphones to really go wire-free. (You won't be able to listen to the FM radio while using BT, since the Ibiza uses your normal headphone cable as an antenna.)

In the last few months it has been available, regular firmware updates have been provided to fix initial concerns: It now has an Equalizer, occasional menu sluggishness has been reduced when streaming music, quality of sound when listening to bluetooth has improved, and stability is excellent.

The player may not win any style awards, but its interface (both physical and screen UI) is simple and effective. They even offer "airskins" you may download to customize the screen UI, and they're surprisingly good!

The wireless signal strength and battery charge indicators seem to vary a little more than they should, but other than that minor annoyance I haven't had any significant issues with my Ibiza yet. It's worked smoothly, and is an absolute blast to use!

I've always liked subscription services because they let you explore a large variety of music for a single low monthly price. The Ibiza's feature set lets me do so without constantly going back to my PC to sync and get my new music all the time; I can download it on-the-spot to the Ibiza.

If you don't want to subscribe to Rhapsody, then other players will give you more bang-for-your-buck, but if you want to really take advantage of Rhapsody's subscription service, then the Ibiza is a great way to get your money's worth.

After 18 months of struggling to derive value from the device, I give up. I have been through three units, invested 20+ hours with customer service but have not been able to get the device to consistently work.

The features of the device are extremely appealing. I most appreciated the ability to download music from Rhapsody to take it "On the Go" and the storage capacity of the device. Sound quality is great. The User Interface is reasonably good and the battery life satisfying. When it works, it rocks.

I primarily used the device in conjunction with my Rhapsody account. The concept is brilliant. I pay a monthly subscription and am able to enjoy almost any music (pop, rock, jazz, classical, etc) I want. A killer deal and great customer experience. The Ibiza Rhapsody takes the idea "On the Go" which is awesome.

Unfortunately, the product appears to have serious quality problems. These include issues with hardware, software, and Rhapsody software interface.

First unit

Given to me as a gift in early May 2008. When I set the unit up, I followed the instructions to "get an update" through the device wirelessly. The device never worked again. Black screen of death. I called Customer Service and, after about 2 hours of interaction, was told to return the unit to Amazon.

Second Unit

I purchased a new unit after returning the first. It took a few weeks to get it going. Once it was working, it was great. About once a month, the unit would crash for some reason. I would call customer service and find yet a new way to resolve the issue. Each crash was due to some other issue ranging from updates to Rhapsody, a mysterious sequence of key pushes, and two different "reset" techniques.

Third Unit

Towards the end of my first year of ownership, the unit simply crashed. Black screen of death again. I spent four hours one day with customer service. I was told I would receive a call back. No call back. Another two hour call and I received the option to return the device for a refund or receive a replacement. I naively agreed to the replacement.

Three months later, after three check in calls, I learned that the unit was out of stock. I was offered a different colored unit (white) which was fine with me. The third unit never get off the ground. A new Red Screen of death appeared which had four options, all of which generated the same result.

I realized the trap: after lengthy delays on the part of Haier, i was now out of my warranty period. Nice.

My initial Customer Service agent acknowledged the concern and agreed to seek a refund. I was told I would receive a call back. Two weeks later, after no call back, I called again.

This time Customer Service appeared to be run by company called AmTrust, I was told I was now out of the warranty period and could pay for a replacement. I repeatedly asked to speak to a Supervisor. I was hung up on three times. The fourth time, I spoke to an agent who was brutally gruff. After a lengthy conversation, he passed me to a stern supervisor.
I tried reasoning with him and was told, "I will talk to the higher ups at Haier, but they will do nothing for you. You may pay for a replacement."

I have now written to three management team members at Haier and at RealNetworks. Hopefully they will resolve the issue reasonably. I will leave an update in 2 weeks with the outcome and with my recommendation of an alternate product.

UPDATE FROM 1/20/2010: Received full refund from Haier. It took a while, but we were able to resolve this issue.

My wife has had several MP3 players but the difficulty in using the player has kept her from enjoying them. The Ibiza has solved all these problems. No more need to connect via a computer to sync music. With the built in Wifi she can just browse the Rhapsody catalog and download almost any song right to the device. She can also stream a Rhapsody channel and with the push of one button she can download that song to the player to listen to later. This is the easiest to use PMP I've seen yet. Rhapsody subscription music licenses are automatically updated when the device finds a previously used Wifi cnnection and it also updates itself via Wifi when new firmware is available. So simple and effortless. Speaking of easy, setting up the Wifi connection was simple as was pairing the stereo bluetooth headphones. The only drawback to this device is i is slightly bulky (about the size of an IPod classic). If you like Rhapsody this is the best PMP available to date.