Slacker 2 GB Portable Radio with 15 Stations (Black) | List Price: $199.99
Discount Price: $70.99
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Platform: Windows
Brand: Slacker
Binding: Electronics
Features: - 2 GB Slacker Radio and MP3 player with 15-station capacity. Compatible with Windows XP, SP2 and above (does not work with Vista).
- Built-in Wi-Fi auto-refreshes Slacker Radio stations; music plays whether or not connected
- Plays your existing music collection (MP3, WMA, and AAC)
- 4-inch color LCD displays album art, reviews, artist bios and more
- Removable, rechargeable battery
Dont waste you money [Posted on 2008-12-16]
Bought one from Woot, terrible product, spent hours trying to get it to work, customer service requires you to have a Masters in IT, Piece of Junk.
wow!! and it's free!! [Posted on 2008-12-17]
this thing is incredible. i've found so many new artists it's amazing how much i've been missing. everytime someone sees my slacker, and i tell them about it and what it can do, they're out trying to find one. if you love your music but hate to search for it, slacker is for you. i have the G1 against all the reviews from a lot of people, and couldn't be happier!! sure some of the buttons are quirky to find and use, but at 43 i love the huge 4" screen. look, nothings perfect, but the slacker comes as close as you can get. don't even bother getting the paid subscription. there's only two or three commercials at best in an hour and no longer than 10 seconds, most are less than five. if you want to download into your favorites then get an mp3 player. the six skips in an hour is no big deal either, after all it's the music you want to listen to so skipping isn't something you'll do a lot. hope this helps some of you out, slacker really is original and truly awesome.
Good Device [Posted on 2008-12-17]
1. I like old music, so this device is great for that.
2. I had a Nano for a year or two and never even opened it...so I would fall into the category that welcome pre-programmed music. I like Pandora.
Far as getting it to work that was horrendous. Documentation is scant.
Limited service hours. If using USB disconnect your firewall. Then it is a questions of hours to update 90 minutes per station.
I created my own station and have that in first position. (easy to move).
I like the little guy...it is difficult to power off...supposedly only 1 second,..hold down longer to start/reboot.
I did turn the turn strip off...and just hit "Home" to back out.
If your car is older than 2007 may not have an aux jack. I bought a Belkin cassette adapter (so so) and a homedics MP3 cushion (much better sound). With either of these you still need an mp3 charger...for the device.
That being said, I can think of great uses, car, boat, pool, workout room...and even my easy chair.
Woot sent me a replacement unit I thought this was broke..and may keep it, so I have two units...and two program regimes.
I tried to buy a 8MB unit of Amazon..but it was broken (seller noticed before shipped). He suggested 25 channels and 4 MG would be plenty.
You can change out the radio stations.
The unit did find my wireless...but I never entered in correct password...to update that way. It is clunky updating...I stopped and restarted it...really no way to tell if it is still going...(there is a globe if connected and a status bar, but it seems when it is finished with a station, it may hang...). Could be Comcast.
Far as downloads of own music...mine are wrong format.
Best advice is to enjoy the pre-programmed out of the box.
When you have time and patience, add more channels...keep to a minimum for updating and put your favorite channels up top so they can be loaded first...stop if needed.
create a personal radio station [Posted on 2008-12-22]
I've had my Slacker player for about a month now and use it almost every day. It's a great device if you like listening to music and don't want to buy (or steal) thousands of dollars worth of MP3's. Even if you do own a huge MP3 library, Slacker is still interesting if you don't want to have to constantly manage the content of your iPod and your playlists.
Slacker sound quality is way better than XM/Sirius or FM radio. I use the free Slacker service and commercials are minimal; maybe once every couple of hours I get a 5 second "this is Slacker radio" announcement.
The pre-programmed Slacker music channels are very good, but the real nice feature is being able to design your own music stream by selecting musicians that you like and asking the player to play only those or (your choice) to discover similar bands. Slacker does not have access to every song ever recorded, but neither does any iPod owner's personal MP3 collection.
Setting up your player does take a bit of work, but it is not rocket science. If you use the wi-fi connection, you do need to know how to set up a wi-fi connection (usually by looking up and entering your MAC address and wi-fi password). You can also download by USB cable, which may be faster. The documentation included in the box is a little sparse, but you can download a more detailed user manual at the [...] web site.
Programming a music stream is as easy or as hard as you want it to be. Easiest is selecting one of the many pre-programmed stream. Second easiest is to select one band by name and asking Slacker to create a stream of similar music. I entered 40 bands and asked Slacker to expand on that by discovering similar music. Then you just connect the Slacker player to your wi-fi and let it download your music. The first download will take a while since it has to download all 8GB. After that, it only downloads enough new music to replace the songs that you have listened to. Do a refresh as often as you want (but 8GB of music should last you for at least several days).
I only have 2 complaints. First the device is kind of big (mostly wide). It does come with a free case, but the case does not have a belt loop. At least the big screen does make it easy to see the album art and read the artist bios and album descriptions. The Slacker G2 devices are smaller, but also much more expensive. Second, the off switch is kind of finicky. Sometimes I have to press it a few times or even try it from different modes to get it to switch off. Other than that, I think the 8GB Slacker for [...] is a great value.
If you're still unsure about Slacker, go to [...] and try the free on-line music player. Create your free own station, and listen to it for a few hours. If you like what you hear and want to listen to it while you are away from the Internet, then this device is for you. When you get the device, you can download the music stream you created on the web site to your Slacker player.
So far it's useless [Posted on 2009-01-03]
I downloaded and installed their software player. Then I connected the device via a USB cable. When I tried to log in, the player says that the sign in failed. If I try to create a new account, it tells me my email address is already taken. I don't have any problem logging in to their service with a web browser. This gives me no way to refresh the device with new songs.
Next Day: The above problem was with a Windows Vista PC, so I tried to install it on another computer running XP. This time I was able to actually sign in from the Player software and even play music when I turned off my firewall. I then made the USB connection, and tried to refresh the device with music, but nothing happens. It just does not work.
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