Rhapsody and the Nokia N95 take the crown for best mobile music experience

I have a very small CD music collection, I wouldn't even call it a collection really, and have been relying on unlimited music subscriptions to get content on my mobile gear. I have been pretty happy with Yahoo! Music, except for the fact that I can't listen to it on my MacBook Pro without running a Windows environment. I received a Nokia N800 to test out from the Nokia Nseries Blogger Relations program just over a week ago and as announced by Real on 27 March Rhapsody works with the N800 in streaming mode. I have been testing this out and actually posted a video of it on my Vox blog. I then tried Rhapsody on a Nokia N91 and N95 and at first it did not work. A couple days ago Darla Mack tried it and posted that Rhapsody now works on the N95 so I tried it again and it works like a charm with the N95 and N91. I also found that the Yahoo! Music subscription wasn't consistent in putting album art on my device, but with Rhapsody all the album art synced over. In addition, you can stream your Rhapsody music via a web browser so it works like a charm on a Mac OS X computer too. As a result of this global compatibility, I am switching to Rhapsody for my mobile music needs.

I also have to say that the Nokia N95 has taken the crown away from the N91 as the ultimate mobile music player. The N95, like the N91, has a standard 3.5mm stereo headset jack so I can again use my Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 Pro earphones with the device. In addition, the Nokia N95 has awesome stereo speakers unlike ANY I have heard on a mobile device. I can actually hear music in full stereo (i.e. guitar sounds moving from one speaker to the next) and have been using the device to listen to music on my back patio and in my shed/workout room at 70% to 80% volume levels with no external speakers. The N95 also has the cool two-way slider so sliding into multimedia mode gives you quick access to the music control buttons. I now need to find a good carrying case to take it running with me as I also use the internal GPS to track my workout with the Nokia Sports Tracker software.