You may have read my recent review of the iriver clix gen 2 flash player. Less than two months after its release, iriver is offering an update, the clix Rhapsody, designed specifically to work with the Rhapsody music subscription service. Many of the features are the same as those of the iriver clix gen 2, so I will focus here on this clix's new Rhapsody features.

The clix Rhapsody can be distinguished in stores by its box, which has the Rhapsody logo sitting in the upper right corner. In early July, current clix owners will be able to upgrade the firmware through the iriver Web site to optimize their player for Rhapsody—there is no extra cost, and the new player costs the same as the older, non-Rhapsody version. Prospective clix buyers who want nothing to do with Rhapsody can still buy the non-Rhapsody player.

This means, if you already have a Rhapsody To Go account ($14.99/month) you can do a variety of cool things with your clix—but you'll need the "To Go" subscription to make your songs portable. (If you don't have it, you'll get a 30-day trial membership with the player.)

Just connect to your PC via the supplied USB cable and open Rhapsody, and your new clix, with its Rhapsody-themed background graphics, will jump into action. When your clix Rhapsody appears in the devices menu, it will automatically sync with your channels, loading your player with about two or three hours of selections from each channel. If you hear a song you like on your player, you can rate it, move it to your library, or even purchase it—all on your clix. The player will keep track of your ratings and purchases, and the next time you connect the clix to your PC, it will buy songs, add your ratings, update your library, and refresh your channel selections. When a Rhapsody channel track is playing, the screen shows you what track will play next. As with most things Rhapsody, you can skip forward but not backward (and eventually, you end up at the beginning of the finite song list).

Oddly, if you power the player down and then up again, you'll get a message that says, "Your subscription tracks have expired." You need to connect to Rhapsody to retrieve them again—but the channels still work fine.

As innovative as the clix Rhapsody is, I've seen this kind of music service integration before. The Sansa Connect arguably makes better use of Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go by connecting wirelessly and downloading on the spot. The upcoming Slacker will be taking the portable, wirelessly loadable subscription service-based player to new levels later this summer.

For now, however, iriver has transformed a device that was already great and made it even better—much better—for Rhapsody subscribers. That's enough to boost this particular version of the second-generation clix up a notch in our ratings. Now if only iriver could make this thing work wirelessly, then its wonderful design and interface would simply destroy the competition.

iriver offers a one-year warranty on the clix. For product support, go to iriveramerica.com.

Compare the MP3 players mentioned above side by side.