Slacker 90260005 (8 GB) MP3 Player
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- Number of Songs: 2000
- Usage: Music
- Interface: USB
- Screen Size: 4 inch
- Main Storage Type: Built-in Memory
- Storage Capacity: 8 GB
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Slacker is a personal DJ and saves you time and money.
Pros
Slacker eliminates the worst aspect of mp3 players, the time you waste loading them up.
Cons
Somewhat large. You do not own or select the music, they do. No Sumi Jo.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
It is like having a personal DJ creating playlists and downloading the music for you. It really does save you a lot of time.
Review of the Slacker music free service: I have not used the pay premium service they have, only the free service. You can just go to Slacker.com to use it if you want. The reason to choose Slacker over other music services is ripping all the music in your CD collection is very time consuming. Even going through catalogs of on line music to select what you want to download is time consuming. Then once you have a heap of mp3s organizing and maintaining it is also time consuming. Creating play lists is another time waster. Like a hiring a DJ, Slacker chooses the music for you, you just pick a themed station like one of the Blues themed stations and they send music to your computer. If you do not like the stations Slacker has set up you can also type in a song tittle or an artist and they will create a play list based on that. They also let you customize your stations by hitting a love or a hate button when a song is playing, I personally do not do that much. I realize there are people who enjoy actively discovering new music, Slacker is for people who want to be sent music they like with the minimum effort on their part.
As an example I am not especially interested in Goth culture, but had no problem googling Goth music, getting a few artists names, plugging them into Slacker and satisfying my curiosity. Slacker did not provide a Goth station, but I was able to quickly create one. When I lost interest, I switched to different Slacker stations and without any cost in time or money. Their World Music station is excellent and for me an American interesting, I never would have heard Algerian, US country music inspired, singer Souad Massi.
Digital rights management DRM is the worst aspect of traditional MP3 players. I have never seen good implementation where DRM protected and non protected files are mixed. Slacker gets around this by basically creating a segregated area on their player that is 100% theirs, you cannot get at or copy anything in that area. This is the right way to do it as the music gets DRM protection but the user is not annoyed by their own music not working on the player. I think this should be the standard way it is handled.
As to their music collection it is fairly extensive, they have artists from a long long time ago like Cow Cow Davenport (1910-1930). Oddly last I checked they lacked opera, I had had to buy some Sumi Jo CDs.
The down side to this is if you want to play a particular song or repeate a song you cannot, unless you pay for the premium service.
It is sort of like they provide an automated DJ to select and play music for you.
If you are intrigued you can hear everything that is available on Slacker.com on your computer for free (with ads) just go to their web site. That is the easiest way to see of Slacker is for you. If the ads bother you there is a premium pay service too.
Review of the 8gb player:The player is designed to interface with the Slacker.com music service. On Vista64 you plug the player into your PC with a USB cable and edit which stations you want on the Slacker MP3 player. Then via WiFi Slacker.com downloads a collection of music. Once you have done this, as long as you are happy with your station selection, you never have to connect to a computer again, just place the MP3 player near a wifi point and it updates with new music automatically. You can change from one station without connecting to a computer. I thought the download speed was reasonable, and is very fast if the MP3 player is located near the Wifi router. You specify a Wifi password without connecting to a computer using the MP3 player's scroll wheel, so you can use it on the road. In XP updates through a USB cable are possible too. Like a radio you can select the station and then the MP3 player plays the songs Slacker selected for you one after the other. You cannot go back, or hear a song over, but you can skip a song, and you can label a song as liked or hated by hitting one of two buttons. it all mirrors the Slacker.com service that you can use for free on your computer.
I like this system as I do not want to spend time organizing a music collection. Slacker acts as a personal DJ maintaining my mp3 player for me, based on my instructions. My biggest complaint is under Vista64 it does not update over USB, but I guess with Windows 7 this will not be a problem by 2010. I think their tech support is very good, if you have a problem their on line chat and email support is very responsive, not to mention they host an on line forum.
Another use of the Slacker MP3 player is if you have an amp and speakers and you want to play downloaded music wirelessly. You can just leave your MP3 player connected and let it continuouly download music off your WiFi while you listen. No need to run ugly wires from your computer to the where the speakers are. Or to even have your computer on. Check the price on SoundCast wireless systems and you will see this is a cheap alternative.
The actual MP3 player is a bit large for my taste, I would prefer a small unit with a smaller screen. While it is rechargeable, It does not use normal batteries so I am not sure what happens when the battery wears out. Navigation is simple using a thumb operated scroll wheel on the side. There are very few choices for you to make so the scroll wheel is fine.
As an example I am not especially interested in Goth culture, but had no problem googling Goth music, getting a few artists names, plugging them into Slacker and satisfying my curiosity. Slacker did not provide a Goth station, but I was able to quickly create one. When I lost interest, I switched to different Slacker stations and without any cost in time or money. Their World Music station is excellent and for me an American interesting, I never would have heard Algerian, US country music inspired, singer Souad Massi.
Digital rights management DRM is the worst aspect of traditional MP3 players. I have never seen good implementation where DRM protected and non protected files are mixed. Slacker gets around this by basically creating a segregated area on their player that is 100% theirs, you cannot get at or copy anything in that area. This is the right way to do it as the music gets DRM protection but the user is not annoyed by their own music not working on the player. I think this should be the standard way it is handled.
As to their music collection it is fairly extensive, they have artists from a long long time ago like Cow Cow Davenport (1910-1930). Oddly last I checked they lacked opera, I had had to buy some Sumi Jo CDs.
The down side to this is if you want to play a particular song or repeate a song you cannot, unless you pay for the premium service.
It is sort of like they provide an automated DJ to select and play music for you.
If you are intrigued you can hear everything that is available on Slacker.com on your computer for free (with ads) just go to their web site. That is the easiest way to see of Slacker is for you. If the ads bother you there is a premium pay service too.
Review of the 8gb player:The player is designed to interface with the Slacker.com music service. On Vista64 you plug the player into your PC with a USB cable and edit which stations you want on the Slacker MP3 player. Then via WiFi Slacker.com downloads a collection of music. Once you have done this, as long as you are happy with your station selection, you never have to connect to a computer again, just place the MP3 player near a wifi point and it updates with new music automatically. You can change from one station without connecting to a computer. I thought the download speed was reasonable, and is very fast if the MP3 player is located near the Wifi router. You specify a Wifi password without connecting to a computer using the MP3 player's scroll wheel, so you can use it on the road. In XP updates through a USB cable are possible too. Like a radio you can select the station and then the MP3 player plays the songs Slacker selected for you one after the other. You cannot go back, or hear a song over, but you can skip a song, and you can label a song as liked or hated by hitting one of two buttons. it all mirrors the Slacker.com service that you can use for free on your computer.
I like this system as I do not want to spend time organizing a music collection. Slacker acts as a personal DJ maintaining my mp3 player for me, based on my instructions. My biggest complaint is under Vista64 it does not update over USB, but I guess with Windows 7 this will not be a problem by 2010. I think their tech support is very good, if you have a problem their on line chat and email support is very responsive, not to mention they host an on line forum.
Another use of the Slacker MP3 player is if you have an amp and speakers and you want to play downloaded music wirelessly. You can just leave your MP3 player connected and let it continuouly download music off your WiFi while you listen. No need to run ugly wires from your computer to the where the speakers are. Or to even have your computer on. Check the price on SoundCast wireless systems and you will see this is a cheap alternative.
The actual MP3 player is a bit large for my taste, I would prefer a small unit with a smaller screen. While it is rechargeable, It does not use normal batteries so I am not sure what happens when the battery wears out. Navigation is simple using a thumb operated scroll wheel on the side. There are very few choices for you to make so the scroll wheel is fine.
