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Lightning Review: Slacker G2 Portable Radio
Posted by Benny Goldman at 2:25 PM on September 16, 2008
The Gadget: Slacker G2, a slimmer, updated version of the original Slacker portable internet radio player.
The Price: US$200 for 25-station 4GB, and US$250 for the 40-station 8GB unit. The free service is ad-supported and allows six skips per hour, while the premium service costs about US$10/month and is ad-free, offers unlimited skips and the ability to save songs to the device.
The Verdict: The Slacker G2 looks a million times better than its first-gen sibling. The older player was bigger and thicker than a deck of cards, with poorly placed buttons and a capacitive touch strip that felt somewhat cheap. The G2 trims the fat from the device, leaving a screen just big enough to show album art, and controls that are far more intuitive than its predecessor. The 2.4" display is clear, text is very readable, menus are simple and it's about as tall and thick as an iPod dock (but much lighter), a good size for the hand.
For this portable Pandora-style player to succeed, it needs two things. The first thing is, it needs a great selection of songs, tailored to the user's tastes. In this respect, it's awesome—even pre-programmed stations (think satellite radio rather than Pandora) have a wide ranging and thoughtful collection of artists, and stick mostly to singles or fan favourites so you don't get many strange deep cuts. Custom built stations (which you have to create in the web player) are even better. In both cases, you can favourite or ban song suggestions that you don't like, but if you design a station with more than 200 songs, you won't get any outside suggestions (though you probably no longer count as a true "slacker").
The other thing the G2 absolutely needs is a solid connection for refreshing stations. Sadly, this is where it falls short. A full refresh took almost two hours; stations took at least 10 or 15 minutes apiece to download. Adding a custom station for the first time took forever, and so did refreshing stations that I listened to often, favoriting and banning many songs. You can't refresh one station at a time—only all stations at once—and you can't create stations directly on the device either. I'd love to see these two things in a firmware update. Slacker may have shown us its more viable future in smartphone software with its recent BlackBerry announcement. Still, with some software tweaks and better networking, the company could make the G2 a decent alternative for those who fear convergence. [Slacker]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Daren
Posted 2:51 PM 16/9/08
Reviewer: Did you ban or heart a lot of stations? Have a new account? If so, that could explain the time involve as it was basicly download all new music....
Daren
wetworker
Posted 2:43 PM 16/9/08
@Darkest Daze:
I have them all on my zune.
wetworker
rsg2003
Posted 2:40 PM 16/9/08
Props for the BDP album cover... I miss real hip hop
rsg2003
wetworker
Posted 2:36 PM 16/9/08
One of the best albums every made. ...slacker is not bad.
wetworker
Darkest Daze
Posted 2:35 PM 16/9/08
BDP! Am I dating myself by actually knowing who they are?
Reminds me, I need to find my KRS-One CD's.
Darkest Daze
Adrian Covert
Posted 3:15 PM 16/9/08
@Darkest Daze: I think knowing BDP is a prerequisite for calling yourself a fan of hip hop.
Adrian Covert
snubz
Posted 3:57 PM 16/9/08
The Gen 1 Slacker was a lesson in getting screwed as an early adopter, at least for me. The thing was amazingly buggy, and I still can't run the desktop software (necessary for transferring my own songs to the device) without it crashing hard. The also neglect to tell you that the licensing for the portable is different than for the web player (or desktop). Therefore, your stations on the web player might have all your favorite songs, and then when you add that station to your web player, you find the selection lackluster, and you end up listening to the same selections over and over. Hopefully they've improved all this, but still, I definitely wish I waited until this matured a bit before jumping in.
snubz
DustyButt
Posted 9:01 PM 16/9/08
@rsg2003: Ditto. I quit listening avidly many many moons ago. I really appreciate that nod Benny!
DustyButt
xcharliemx
Posted 9:26 PM 16/9/08
I used to LOVE this tape back when I was 12
xcharliemx
strider_mt2k
Posted 10:01 PM 16/9/08
Sorry: player. -not a radio.
strider_mt2k
strider_mt2k
Posted 10:00 PM 16/9/08
Slacker is okay.
I used to like it a lot more before I discovered last.fm, which streams nicely to my internet tablet using the Vagalume Client.
I listen to Sirius in the car and at work, so a device like this wouldn't be a good match for me, although I can see it being spot on for some folks if they have it all working properly.
Clunky ops is what seems to hurt these radios.
The service itself ain't too bad.
strider_mt2k
jp182
Posted 10:43 PM 16/9/08
@Darkest Daze: no you're not dating yourself; just showing that you have good taste.
jp182
Y2KGTP
Posted 10:18 PM 16/9/08
Yet another device you pay for, and have to deal with ads on? No Thanks...
Y2KGTP
cobaltage
Posted 12:47 AM 17/9/08
I don't see this taking off. Slacker is trying to take the satellite radio model, add some features from LastFM, and invert it. For satellite, you have the best signal outside; for Slacker, you have wifi signal. In either case, you have a storage option for times when you anticipate not having network access.
The problem is that the Slacker's hardware is completely supplanted by smart phone technology. If they don't pump out multiple mobile software players (WM, iPhone OS, et al.), they're pretty much dead, IMO.
cobaltage
tekjock
Posted 3:30 AM 17/9/08
HELLZ YEA ... BDP, and that album was the best one
I love slacker.com radio, I dont have the player .. .and dont you need a WiFi connection for this to work, I know it can save music, but to stream, I beleve you need WiFi
tekjock
BlackLodge
Posted 3:29 AM 17/9/08
First off, nice BDP photo. That's awesome. Can anyone really say they are happy with the sound quality or music selection of XM or Sirius? Those services are always the worst part of my rental car experiences. I have been listening to Slacker on and off for some time now and I have been very happy with the service. The reviews I've read of this player all say that the sound quality is great and I am already a huge fan of the music selection. I want to see more reviews, but it looks like this thing could be really good.
BlackLodge
numlok
Posted 3:57 AM 17/9/08
Nice review, although I did notice one glaring issue:
You should have started with, "Let me begin".
;)
numlok
BlackLodge
Posted 8:02 AM 17/9/08
@tekjock: Like the first Slacker Portable, this player doesn't ever stream music. It loads a ton of music ahead of time and plays from that. Anytime it hits a wi-fi spot, it refreshes the music for future listening.
BlackLodge