Picking up the torch of wireless connectivity that Microsoft has dropped (so far) with the Zune, sandisk announced at CES that they'd be launching a new member of their Sansa MP3 player line - the Sansa Connect. What's so big about the Connect? It does something no other player out there does - it connects to open WiFi networks so you can listen to Internet Radio streams and download music via the Plays for Sure standard. Different sources (the Miami Sun Herald and the Sansa website) mention video and photo display capabilities, so I'm not sure how much media you can play on this thing, although with a 2.2 inch screen video certainly seems like a good possibility.

The Sansa Connect will hit the market with a 4 GB capacity, but it also sports a mini SD slot which gives it (at this time) a theoretical capacity of 8 GB (at an extra $100), for a grand total of $350 for the device. Not bad, but I'm curious to see how good the other WiFi MP3 player announced at CES, the one made by Haier, is in comparison.

Via The Sun Herald