Slacker Player Gets Glowing Review
Ever since we heard about the Slacker Portable we were a little excited, but the object of our portable streaming radio affection has just come up for its first review seating. According to the fine fellows at Wired, it is slacking its way into their hearts as we write this very article.
Among the things they liked about the player included the supported artworks, band biographies, ability to store Wi-Fi keys and the option to have access to a free, or paid, enhanced music services. The Slacker Portable also auto refreshed channels when it detected a trusted network, as well as automatically refreshing while recharging.
What didn't go down so well was the buggy touch sensitive strip; the jog dial was far better, and was used instead. The free mode meant only 6 songs could be skipped per hour. as well as the terrible obligation to listen to adverts during your music time. As the stations are cached for the times you are out of range of a wireless network, there is little room left on the player for your own tunes. (Either 500MB, 1.5GB or 4GB, depending on the capacity of the player chosen.) Content cannot be downloaded from a Mac, and the 10-hour battery life was not great.
The folks at Wired easily looked past the Slacker Portable's shortcomings, and we think we might follow suit. Now, why is our review unit taking so long to get here? Damn slacking postal service. (Sorry.) Check out the full review, as well as some unboxing pics by hitting the link. [Wired]
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I'm going to stick with my iPod and Pandora using Pandora Jam. Refresh just about every day, take at least one of my Pandora stations with me and stick with just one small device instead of what looks to be something with some heft to it.
sayonaraML
The idea is great-but the price? I can't justify spending $200(for the 12 channel unit!) This is a radio/mp3 player. I'll stick to my Zune and MotoQ! :)
happyone910
8GB is far from enough.
danielraymond
Until wifi hotspots are everywhere to be found, what's the point of a portable device like this (vs. my laptop) for streaming audio?
I just don't get it. Seems silly.
darex
Ok lets put this to rest before it gets out of control. IM sorry. I will never do it again.
zixpk.com
@Buford T. Justice: no kidding. this guy is GD annoying. not enough that his *name* is a link... and not enough to just have the link in his profile like everyone else... oh no... that is beneath him. he needs to append this crap link to the end of every single comment he makes.
non-relevant personal site promotion "signatures" should be a ban-worthy offense.
if you want to promote your site soooo bad ... buy some advertising space.
x23
@zixpk.com: anyone at giz please delete this troll and his bs blog shilling
Buford T. Justice
@rockosolido: Sorry about this off topic post Gizmodo.
Rockosolido give us a break will you. We are only 15 years old, sorry that were not full pledged professionals. We are not trying to be like Gizmodo. We like gizmodo too much and we think that they are doing an awesome job. Our blog [www.zixpk.com] is mainly a hobby of ours.
zixpk.com
@ocdude: yah, I was kinda hoping for the option for a slacker like me, who doesn't want to mess with all that. I'll give apple a couple years, and they'll make something simple.
djdare
@djdare: You could get one of those nokia internet tablet things, install SSH on it, tunnel to your mt-daapd server and use a program called canola to do such a thing.
Believe me, it's a pain in the ass, and I could never get it to work completely, but it's theoretically possible to do.
ocdude
I've been interested in this since it was first launched, but I'm still going to need real world reviews from other consumers before I make the consideration in buying one for myself. Listening to their online radio is impressive because I always find new songs I've never heard before and artists that no one ever plays.
gokor
Meh, I don't wanna have to listen through crap, I want to choose every song. You know what would be cool? If i could use a player like this with wifi to get to my music server at home. That way I could always have all of my music, and not have to carry my 40 gb iPod that doesn't even hold everything on it.
djdare
How can such a big beautiful screen not play one drop of video? It is 2008. The concept is cool and I have been listening to Slacker radio stations to see if they are worth a damn. Yes they are but the lack of playing vids is a no sale.
goodbeershow
Once it's fully explained, it seems like a pretty neat gadget. Two problems, though.
1 - It has to be fully explained. Imagine the conversations at Best Buy as confused parents listen to the sales guy try and explain that it's sort of like a radio, only you need wi-fi; kind of like an iPod, but you don't put your own music on it; the radio stations change to suit your taste, as long as you "heart" and "ban" things; you have to pay a monthly fee or else you can only skip 6 songs in an hour if you don't like them; and you the price of each model depends on "station capacity."
Gizmodo readers might not be confused, but mall shoppers definitely will be.
2 - Anyone else who makes a wi-fi player or phone could start a competing service practically overnight. Apple, Microsoft, Sandisk, Helio, HTC, Nokia... any of them could team up with Last.fm, Pandora, iMeem, or many others, and turn Slacker's entire business model into just another feature on their own device.
permissionmag
@Pope John Peeps II: Yes, and what a wonderful blog it is. Why, I thoroughly enjoy reading articles with less thought put into them covering subjects several days after they've been beaten to death by every other blog out there.
rockosolido
anyone use last.fm on their iPhones??
banmojo
I use last.fm frequently. Has no ads, I can usually get to any song I'm interested in within 1 to 3 songs, often immediately, contains awesome bios on all the bands/people, and claims to 'learn' what type of songs to play for you, although I think they should really work on improving the self learning algorhythm (if you pick 'rap' it'll keep playing within the 'rap' genre, even though there are 'rap' songs, and then there are 'rap' songs, you dig? Would be really spectacular if it would recognize (by background rhythm, pitch range, or tags imbedded within the songs) the difference between 'fun to listen to' hip hop rap, vs 'angry rap' vs 'moronic rap' etc etc.)
banmojo
My Sansa Connect doesn't store songs from the wifi radio services (but if I paid I could tag them to download later I think...I don't pay for music services) - but I can skip as many songs as I want and get something like 20 stations (of which I only really listen to a couple anyway).
It also *seems* smaller than the slacker player - which means it fits into my pocket easier - I agree wi-fi is great on an mp3 player - but this doesn't seem fantastic (unless it does video better than the connect - which is pretty much non-existent).
Ph30nix
@Crazysamz: I forgot to mention the 8GB... But even that isn't enough, they need a HDD version.
Crazysamz
It's a good concept, but the way they implemented it doesn't seem to make sense to me... I mean 4GB? C'mon! They could do a better job at this thing... Oh yeah, they're slackers, hence the name...
Crazysamz
@zixpk.com: WOW. Only 14 words and you managed to plug your blog TWICE.
Colour me impressed. You, sir, are a maverick of self-promotion.
Pope John Peeps II
I mean come on would you really want to carry this or your iPod.
[www.zixpk.com]
zixpk.com
I think i'm liking this thing. And if you look at other online radio services, you can't skip more than a couple of songs and also have to listen to ads to get it. Standard fare. I like it.
Rob C