The Sansa Connect combines its WiFi capabilities with a Yahoo partnership to develop a powerful new capability: It constantly presents you with new music and artists selected because they match your previous tastes.

New music – It’s a beautiful thing

As I write this, my Sansa Connect is connected to Yahoo’s Unlimited Music to Go service through my home’s wireless Internet connection. It supposedly offers me over 2 million songs, organized in online “radio stations” that play commercial free music.

As I uncovered the themes and genres it was easy to group them in a separate “Favorite Stations” folder for quick connection -- and return repeately to the subcultures I enjoyed.

I can listen to themes that are designed for the work environment, kids, or party situations. There are 15 Country stations, 47 Rock, 31 Urban and so on.

Before I give you more technical details, let me repeat the part that is the most fun:

I can (on a whim) switch to a music style that I’d never usually listen to, and catch some quick tune-exposure. I can listen to favorite styles (reggae, classic country, gospel, hip-hop and so on) but I won’t just hear artists that I already know about. New ones get thrown my way.

iPods don’t have wireless. The Zune has WiFi, but that won't salvage the notorious Zune disaster.

For me, the Sansa Connect is a hit, not because of what it has, but because of what it does: It’s been dragging me out of my musical ruts and plunging me into new musical experiences.

(I’m listening to K.D. Lang doing Western Swing at the moment.)

And there is a number of related features I like, all organized through a build-in service called Zing:

• When I like a song, I can have its title forwarded to my friends via Yahoo Instant Messenger (or sent straight to their Sansa Connect if they have one.)

• If I like a song, I can have the whole album downloaded (at no extra cost beyond my regular $144 annual payment for the Yahoo service – which I keep telling myself is just the cost of one CD a month).

• If I like a song, I can request a song mix of similar songs – and it appears downloaded inside my music library.

(I’m listening to Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra at the moment – what a rev-up!)

If I don't like a song streaming from Launchcast, I can just fast-forward to another. (What old-school FM radio station allows us to do that?)

Ok, Now for the Familiar Feature Discussion

There are a lot of details you want when you are about to plunk down around $250 for a device like this. And there are a lot of features you want to explore when you buy one.

That’s what our whole site is about.

But for now here are few basics:

I have one or two design grievances which I will eventually share on our site's forum. But they are really fairly petty.

Setting them aside, the Sansa Connect is, as you can see, beautiful. It has a rounded shape, like a small cell phone, that allows it to sit comfortably in your hand.

(Listening to Baaba Maal – if you don’t know, you’re missing out.)

I particularly like the shiny obsidian black on the front, and a matt ebony black on the back – made in a plastic so scratch-proof that you supposedly may not want or need a protective cover. (I’m skeptical, but don't know because I keep my gadgets protected!)

It has a 2.2” 65K-color display. The screen is sharp and clear. The navigational system that is clear and intuitive – even if sometimes it seems to hesitate suddenly for now reason. Is that because of the animation built into the navigation? I don’t know, but I do know the icons look slick to me.

It has 4 gigabytes of flash-based memory, with additional storage offered by its expansion slot for tiny MicroSD cards. An additional 4 GB card can cost you $1000, but it doubles your player library to about 2,000 songs. The Connect handles either MP3 and WMA formats, and can hold and play them mixed in its library.

A few clicks you can be looking online at Flickr’s most interesting pictures or your own little slideshow from the micro memory card (while the music still continues to stream in the background.) Even on the tiny screen the pix are crisp. But, for me at least, that isn’t some great draw… it’s all about the music. (I’m listening to Carrie Underwood key-scratch some cheating boyfriend’s four-wheel drive.)

Some drawbacks

Walking out of my house, to the neighborhood store, the internet radio suddenly gives out half-way down the block. The Connect then works fine as a routine MP3 player for the songs I transfer from my computer’s music library. But if you live in a world without WiFi hotspots (at work, home, airport and café) – then this device is not nearly so special. This is not a gadget that’ll display its best charms on a horse trail in the high Rockies. But then again, a little two-legged “war-driving” experimentation around my neighborhood, and I may find hotspots to use, at least along my way to the store.

The Sansa Connect doesn’t have a replaceable battery like SanDisk build into some of their Sansa series. Still, battery life seems fine. Running around for over 8 hours listening still left plenty of battery life on tap. But that was without WiFi. Keeping the WiFi turned all will naturally cut that battery life in half. So listening to Yahoo Music at home means plugging in the USB connection at least occasionally for some recharging.

Also when you are listening you can’t search for a song on Yahoo. If it is in the pre-selected stream you could find it – but it is pretty “needle in haystack” unlikely. And I suspect there is quite a bit of backdoor commercial influence involved in picking which songs are included on which lists.

(Why, oh why, did Weird Al Yankovic’s song “White and Nerdy” show up on a mix supposedly patterned on Pink’s “U and Ur Hand”? Now that’s suspicious.)

And the whole set up is very anchored in Yahoo’s services. You can theoretically) connect to other services – but everything is set up for Yahoo-land. I hear that the internet-downloaded tracks eventually stop playing if you cut off your Yahoo subscription. And (not surprisingly) the small print of that built-in dependency is hard to fine.

I’m in love with that ease and Yahoo integration, so it is not a big drawback. But still….

That’s it for now. There is a lot more to say, of course. As you can see, I’m pretty enthusiastic about this Sansa Connect. Or, to be precise, I’m enthusiastic about all the new music it has thrown my way. And, for now, that’s what matters.