The future of mp3 players? Slacker!
 

I've just finished playing with the new Slacker G2 portable radio.

Screw the iPod, THIS is the future of portable music. I can dump all my CD's and I no longer need the 23000 songs I had collected over the past years. $7.50 a month is all it takes to get all the music I want on my player.

www.slacker.com

a coworker swears by pandora on his iphone. personally i'm just anxiously awaiting the new archos 7 to be in stores so i can test it out. having converted all my cds to mp3s (over a 1000) and now converting all my dvds to 320 and 640 formats, i'm hoping to have one device that has all of it. :D

plus i love touchscreens.

^^^^^

I like Archos devices, but they are plagued by horrible customer support, a horrible user interface and horrible policies regarding plugins and updates.

I wish someone would just buy Archos (preferably a big player), so they can fix the company.

Doesn't pandora already do something like this? How is this different from a XM/Sirius portable radio (aside from the offline option)? Not sure why this would succeed mp3 players; I can't pick a specific artist, have to wait for a song to be played before I can save it, and half the music I listen to will probably never be licensed by these guys.

1) You can't take Pandora with you an a plane, can you? Pandora on the iPod has to be streamed. Slacker pre-loads all the stations you want onto your device.
2) It differs from XM/Sirius because you can skip tracks, ban tracks or save tracks.
3) You CAN pick a specific artists, or even a specific song, and you can add it to your library.
4) They have 2 million tracks licensed, but it is always possibly that they don't have something.

I agree with the CS, and user interface, and update policy, but I dissagree with the Plug in policy. Like it or not companies have to pay royalties to include things like the 5.1 AC-3, etc. By not offering it on the base model they can drastically reduce the price of the base hardware and let people choose if they want those features. Look at the price of the units before the "plugins", $400+. Now you can get a base Archos 605 4gb flash for less then $200.

Plenty of devices manage to include those plugins for free (just look at the $99 Creative Zen player), I also really doubt they are charging the fee they have to pay the license holder, $20 for an H.264 plugin, $20 for the MPEG2 plugin, $30 for the Opera browser (on the Gen.5). When I purchased my 605, I had to spend close to $125 just to get 2 plugins, a browser and a charger (yeah, another pet peeve of mine is that they no longer include even the most basic dongle/charger).

What's the advantage of the Slacker over some subscription service like Rhapsody that lets you transfer tracks to a compatible device of your choosing?

I've used Rhapsody in the past, and to me, the advantage is the way Slacker builds channels for you. On my player, I have a mix of some of the Slacker channels (like 80's, 90's, hits etc...) and some custom channels I built myself based on artists I like. Plus, if I am not mistaken, the $7.50/month for Slacker premium is cheaper than Rhapsody.

Plus, I'm just not a fan of the whole way Rhapsody does business, including the amount of spam they send me.

the LAST thing I need is another device...heck i even sold my ipod nano.

that being said, props to Scott for pointing this out ^

I DO like listening to the radio station on my computer

I think this is a very cool gadget and am very interested in it. I have a Ford Fusion with the Microsoft SYNC system and was thinking about getting a second IPOD to leave in the car so I'll have my music with me all of the time. For those unfamiliar with SYNC, I can hook the IPOD up to the car via USB and control the IPOD through the cars radio controls. Is it possible to do the same thing with Slacker?

RCA just announced a Wi-Fi enabled bedroom alarm clock with built in Slacker support :D

Another gadget for my must have list :D

Bumping....
currently at WOOT for $44.99 Amazon says they have it for $189.00

It was a woot-off. It is gone.