You know the Apocalypse is near when you read Walt's buddy Katherine Boehret saying this in today's The Mossberg Solution column:

I really liked the Sansa Connect. It forced me to look at my portable player as an evolving, untethered device that introduced me to lots of songs [...] My iPod suddenly seemed old-fashioned.

Sure, she doesn't like the idea of subscriptions, the need for Wi-Fi for some functions or the fact that the Yahoo! Music Store only has two million songs versus five million in iTunes (come on Katie! I mean, how many versions of Elton John's Goodbye England's Rose do you want?) But overall, she seems to really dig the Sansa Connect for design, functionality, the neat Wi-Fi implementation and a good battery life. But maybe there is more than meets the eye in this review, right after the jump.

OK, let's see: Again and again Mossberg has been trashing iPod wannabes like the Zune with quite a bit of reasons.

This comes weeks after other reviews, and so far the most authoritative piece on the Sansa comes from Pogue, who is the only guy who tested it enough to realize, hey, even though there are 2 million songs in the catalog, you're actually limited to far fewer. –Jesus Diaz

An iPod Rival With an Edge [Wall Street Journal Online]

Sansa's chief ingredient: instant real-time flat-fee access to anything in Yahoo's catalog of two million songs. The spontaneity would put the iPod to shame. The song-requesting feature would put satellite radio to shame. And the Wi-Fi freedom would make the Zune crawl back into its hole.

Unfortunately, no matter what SanDisk says, you do not have access to all of Yahoo's two million songs—because the Sansa doesn't offer any way to find them. There's no Search command, no master list of bands or albums—no direct access at all.

In fact, you can download only a tiny fraction of Yahoo's catalogs: just what Yahoo decides to offer you on three sampler platters.

The first sampler is Yahoo's set of 200 Internet radio stations. These are especially cool ones, because (if you're a paid subscriber) you can hit the Skip button to start streaming the next song in the "radio station's" playlist at any time. More amazingly still, when you hear a song you like, you can download it to your player, or even the entire album, with two button taps.

Second, you can get the songs on Yahoo's Most Popular lists in various genres. Finally, you can browse a list of recommendations that Yahoo calculates on the songs you've rated highly using the Sansa's click wheel.

But worse, even of those songs, there are some that are just impossible to download for legal reasons.

Worse, a disappointing percentage of the songs and albums never arrive at all. Whenever you select a song for download, the words "Request Added" appear on the screen; confusingly, the player doesn't begin downloading immediately, but rather adds your requests to a list that's sometimes downloading and sometimes not.

You have to burrow deeply into its menus to find the waiting list. That's also where you find the folder called Unable to Download.

Yahoo explains that many of its songs are internally flagged as "not downloadable" in a complex copy-protection scheme. Fine, but then the Sansa should identify them up front instead of getting your hopes up.

Did we mention it can squirt songs, like a Zune, to other Sansa Connect players? It can. Also, he shakes his head at the Connect's lame propensity to shut down Wi-Fi if batteries drop below 60%, the lack of video capability in this day and age. What do you think you are, Sansa Connect? An iPod nano? A brutal drop-kick on the Connect, from the Pogue-ster.–Brian Lam

A Music Player That Needs Seasoning [NYTimes]

So what did the reviewers think? For this week's Frankenreview, we hit up a TON of sources (ok...10) and grabbed their best quips. Hit the jump to read what Wired, Gadgetaholic, ComputerWorld, LAPTOP, I4U, Yahoo! Tech, Crunchgear, Late to the Party and PCMag had to say about this quasi-wireless MP3 player.

(Only five of our ten use numerical scores, we weren't just being lazy...this time.)

Wired
If the Zune weren't already DOA, Sansa's Connect would totally stomp its ugly brown mug.

CNET
...tunes sounded warm, clean, and encompassing across all genres... Still, I could've done with a bit more kick on the low end.

Gadgetaholic
... the Sansa Connect can display photos. However, this one kicks it up a notch (Emeril must be proud) by allowing the user to browse the photos from their Flickr account. This works flawlessly.

Computerworld
...the first significant rethinking of portable media players — and how we acquire digital media — since Apple Inc.'s introduction of the iPod and the iTunes online media store several years ago.

LAPTOP
The Wi-Fi radio's range was adequate but not great. Over-the-air downloads of four-minute Yahoo subscription tracks took anywhere from 40 seconds to three minutes, depending on network variables, but Internet-radio playback was dropout-free...

I4U
The Connect can handle wireless networks that use pre-shared keys for security. What the Sansa Connect can't handle is wireless networks that don't broadcast the SSID.

Yahoo! Tech
Don't think about this like an iPod. It's possible, but not easy, to transfer your existing music on your PC to the Sansa. You need to use Yahoo! Jukebox and connect the Sansa to your PC to move music you already own.

Crunchgear
[Yahoo! Music] tracks are offered only through recommendations and popular music. This encourages you to rate your favorite tracks...but I can see it as being a bummer if you have a song in your head and can't get to it.

Late to the Party
Album art is shown in just about every menu, whether it is for local content, or for streaming radio stations, or for Yahoo Music Unlimited content under the "Get More Music" menu

PCMag
...comes with an AC charger/adapter (our battery rundown test yielded 6 hours and 15 minutes of continuous music playback and WiFi usage, so you'll be using this a lot)...

After checking out all the reviews, the Connect looks fantastic. But my two problems with the experience are huge in my book:
1. No iTunes or Mac Support
2. Yahoo's music service cannot be searched by song – Mark Wilson

Specs:
2.2" LCD screen
4GB of internal memory
WMA and MP3 support
Internet radio
MicroSD support for expansion
Internal speaker
View photos via MicroSD card or via Flickr account
Supports Yahoo! Music Unliminted To Go.

Here's a two-minute unadulterated feed of the newest Sansa doing its thing. Watch me get fingerprints all over the shiny screen as I wake it up, browse through featured tracks, download one, and then play it, all for your viewing pleasure. –Wilson Rothman

SanDisk Sansa Connect [Gizmodo]

First Look: Sansa Connect [Gadget Lab]
SanDisk's Sansa Connect is Here [PC World]

While Laptop Mag, Popular Science, Shiny Shiny, Infosync, Reg Hardware, Maxim, and Pocket Lint have taken lemons and made lemonade, we are taking lemonade and making...super lemonade. Hit the jump to see the absolute cream of the crop products, the one list to catch you up on all the lists: The Best Of, The Best Of CES 2007.

Media Player
LG Super Multi Blue
"We love the quality of Blu-ray, we love the quality of HD DVD, but we don't want to get involved in a format war and back the wrong one. Seems LG doesn't either with the launch of a dual player." (pocketlint)

Portable Media
Sansa Connect
"This WiFi portable audio player provides streaming Internet radio, as well as WiFi content acquisition in one nicely priced package. In other words, any time you find yourself in a WiFi hotspot, you can download new songs." (maxim)
It's just like a Zune, but useful.

Television
Sharp 108" LCD

Computer
OQO Model 02
"Roughly the size of two iPods, the OQO 02 could easily be mistaken for a handheld videogame system or even a slightly oversize Blackberry. But don't let it fool you: It's a fully functional, standalone computer capable of running Windows Vista." (popsci)
And it's a lot nicer than this UMPC.

Phone
LG VX9400
"Though we've seen swivel screen phones abroad...Verizon's V Cast Mobile TV announcement brought forth the first swivel screen for the US...very light, and surprisingly slim, we expected more bulk from the first generation of true mobile TV phones. The screen swivels to landscape mode and clicks nicely into place, and though it isn't very large, we were happy to see video commandeering the entirety of the screen's real estate." (infosyncworld)
No, we weren't tacky enough to say the iPhone.

Robot
iRobot Create
"From the company that brought you the Roomba vacuum cleaner comes a robot designed for students, geeks and other 'bot lovers to create their own programmes. See it in action here fetching beer from the fridge or even being controlled by a hamster. Genius." (reghardware)

iPod Dock
Viewsonic PJ258D
"... sleekly designed and weighs less than four pounds. The docking station connects an iPod video player directly to the projector...also supports other digital media, including S-Video and VGA...has a 1024 x 768 XGA resolution, 2000 lumens of brightness, and a 2000:1 contrast ratio." (LaptopMag)
If you don't think iPod docks deserve their own group, you weren't at the show. And it's among the world's most expensive, ludicrous iPod docks at $999.

What were your favorites? –Mark Wilson