SonicStage's interface is decent, although library navigation involves a bit of a learning curve. You'll see a lot of placeholders marked "Coming soon," as with the two Radiohead covers pictured here.
The service is definitely a work in progress. Once you have installed SonicStage and Connect, you can click either desktop icon to open SonicStage. If you don't, the app's default places your tunes in an obscure subdirectory. A word of advice: During installation, make sure that you specify a directory for storing music. The program works with Windows 98 SE and later (no Mac support) and is easy to install we particularly liked that you don't have to give up your e-mail or other personal info until it's time to shell out. To browse Sony Connect for tracks, you can either visit the Web-based store or download and install SonicStage, Sony's free jukebox software for managing playlists and burning CDs. While we are happy that the company's three divisions-consumer electronics, computer hardware, and the music label-are finally playing nice with one another (for more on this subject, see this MP3 Insider column), we couldn't find much reason to choose Connect over the many other competing services.
This means you can play them on only Sony's CLIE handhelds, the Sony Network Walkman NW-H1, and the company's Hi MD line (review coming soon) and on up to three PCs running SonicStage.
The store, which is accessible through a Web-based browser (such as Internet Explorer) or as part of Sony's SonicStage jukebox software, offers tunes encoded in the company's proprietary 132Kbps ATRAC3 format. A year after Apple came out with its iTunes Music Store, Sony has entered the music download fray with its own 99-cent-per-track service called Connect.
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