Short Version: SanDisk’s slotRadio player provides good value as it pertains to content, with the $99 kit featuring 1,000 popular music tracks and an attractive hardware player. The “radio” portion of the slotRadio name should be given close attention — you can skip tracks but you can’t go backwards, and everything’s played in random order, just like conventional radio.
Long Version: If you read CrunchGear regularly, you’re probably savvy enough to know how to load songs on an MP3 player. If that’s the case, the slotRadio player isn’t for you — unless you’re open to the idea of a portable device with a ton of music on it that you didn’t download yourself and can’t access track by track.
I can’t stress enough that the slotRadio player is NOT an MP3 player. It looks like an MP3 player, it feels like an MP3 player, and it works like an MP3 player, but it’s somehow not an MP3 player. I spent the first ten minutes going “What the f@%k was SanDisk thinking?” before realizing that I needed to look at the concept from a lay person’s point of view, not the point of view of a handsome technology blogger.
So here’s the deal: you pay $99 and you get the cracker-sized slotRadio player and a microSD card filled with 1,000 popular songs from Billboard’s music charts. The player has an On/FM/Off switch, volume up and down buttons, a combination next track/play/pause button, and two buttons for toggling back and forth between playlists. The hardware looks and feels pretty nice. The brushed aluminum body is solid and there’s a sturdy belt clip on the back side. The 1.5-inch OLED screen is greyscale but is super readable and there are cool little animations depending upon which playlist you’ve selected.
Think of the playlists as “stations” — there’s Rock, Country, R&B/Hip Hop, Contemporary, Alternative, Workout, and Chill — with all 1,000 songs appearing on one or more of the playlists. The player itself has no on-board storage, so you can either buy preloaded cards from SanDisk or you can load your own tunes on a blank microSD card.
You start playing a particular playlist and if you don’t like the song you’re listening to, you can skip it. If you move to the another playlist, whichever song you’re currently listening to will pick up where it left off when you select the playlist again. You can not, however, go back to a previous song no matter which playlist you’ve selected. Similar to how the real-life radio works, things just move forward and in real time. The only difference is that you can skip tracks you don’t like. It’s very similar to online streaming audio services like Slacker or Pandora, except that you get unlimited skips.
This, in my opinion, is the biggest strike against the slotRadio idea. It’s simple to a fault. The two big left and right buttons on the face of the device are used to navigate between the seven playlists when they should be used to toggle back and forth between songs. Instead, the small-ish play/pause button on the right side of the device is used to skip tracks. Even the noobiest of noobs will wonder why they can’t go back to the song they just accidentally skipped over. If there’s a second iteration of the player, SanDisk should seriously consider letting people go back to recently-skipped tracks.
Once I got the hang of this newfangled concept, I immediately thought, “Oh boy, I’m gonna dump these 1,000 songs on my computer.” No, no, no I’m not. The microSD card that comes with the slotRadio player is locked down tighter than Peter Ha’s bicycle and the music on that particular card can only be played on the slotRadio player. I’m sure that was a concession by SanDisk in exchange for being able to sell 1,000 songs for under $100 when the regular bill would be ten times that amount. If you want to keep these songs, you’ll have to record them in real time — hey, just like how regular radio works! — until someone figures out how to crack the card. To SanDisk’s credit, other microSD albums and compilations that it’s selling are DRM-free and can be copied willy-nilly.
All that aside, what you end up getting is a setup that’s good for a) people who don’t care/can’t/are too lazy to download a bunch of stuff and transfer it to a regular player, b) an okay impulse buy at an airport, and c) something to hook up to your stereo if you’re having a party and want to make sure that there’s music to suit anyone’s tastes. I’d consider myself a fairly picky music snob and there are enough tracks on this microSD card to keep me happy and listening for quite some time. There’s plenty of crap, to be sure, but it’s not all crap.
Battery life is rated at around 13 hours, which is accurate (I left the thing playing from 9PM to about 10:15 AM) and the kit includes earbuds, a gel skin case, and a USB cable that plugs into an included AC adapter. The player has no menu; there’s no shuffle or repeat settings, no equalizer, none of that stuff. The audio quality is okay but not great. You get a more-than-capable FM tuner, as well, and you can easily add station presets.
All in all, it’s an interesting concept that serves to bridge the gap between those who download and those who don’t. The interesting thing to watch will be if there are enough of those who don’t that’ll be willing to dip their feet in the digital music pond without getting overwhelmed. While only being able to skip forward over tracks is this whole idea’s Achilles heel, if SanDisk can sell the overall concept to the masses, it just might catch on.
slotRadio [SanDisk]
better off just getting a Slacker Radio. Ya can get a 8GB G1 for well under $99, and does the “Radio” idea much better. Ya can also add your own music/playlists.
thanks for the review, i was actually planning to buy one, damn. hey, about the slotMusic player? it’s only 20 bux, pretty cheap for a branded mp3 player but is it a good deal??
I had a look at one of these today.
It makes as much sense as a power cord on a brick.
It uses insanely wasteful amounts of cardboard packaging on the micro SD cards, the limitations on playback pay no attention AT ALL to how kids actually listen to music (over and over and over and over the same 12 favorite songs). As an MP3 player it’s useless and over-priced.
I would think that only someone with a severe head injury and money to spend would ever consider this product, and only then if they were goaded into buying it by some sales rep from Sansa.
Save your money.
This thing ACTUALLY DOES play mp3s, you’re free to download any song you want to any microSD card and play it through the player.
Hey Folks,
I’m looking to buy one of these things, So does this all mean you can’t have someone download (Your Music) onto a microSD card and use it along with buying the preloaded ones too??? As I have dial-up ..No high speed…So Help..
Thanks,
Annie
This is the best and most accurate review of the slotRadio that I’ve read so far! Honest and to the point.
It’s not an MP3 player, but it’s handy and portable so I think it’s great for busy moms that don’t want to hassle with cords and computer programs.
Oh, Annie… Yes you can download your own music onto a blank microSD card and put it in the player as well. You can’t use both cards at the same time though. Only one card fits into the player at a time. So you’d have to choose between your own music or the card with the pre-loaded music.
While I agree with most posts about the SlotRadio unit being a “waste of time” compared to other MP3’s, what it DOES afford the SR user is TIME. No need to plug the cords into the computer, sit and surf the internet for songs, download the songs to your computer, then to your other MP3 player. Its nice to just turn it on and play…done!
Not a fan of this product. I understand how it is trying to be such as a radio, but the way the demographic of 13-21 year olds listens to music is a lot of repetition. I do like the station organization but I feel they will be missing out on a lot of sales due to the fact that there is no way to repeat songs.
it would be really cool if it was more like a radio and had a connection to the internet where it downloaded the top 1000 most played songs on us radio everyweek. It would be like having a top 1000 playlist in your pocket.
But then again, i have an iphone with 5 gb of my music so….
I bought a piece of crap mp3 with a card slot and the rock version of the SlotRadio card. I would have never bought it IF ONLY my Zune hadn’t been stolen on a trip to Alaska, and I wasn’t about to have a 12 hour flight back to the east coast. Kept me entertained (sort of) for the flights back, but if you have a computer that you can get to, which I couldn’t, then buy a mp3 that’s decent and load songs you like. I HATED the fact that I would find a song I liked but couldn’t go back to it because the next song was always some kind of hair band crap. Save your money if you can, but if you’re desperate then you can get the setup for around $60 total to keep you from losing your mind.
I love my little/big slot radio,
although it does have its drawbacks, like not being able to go back to a previous song, this thing can recognize up to a 32gb microSD card. I have an 8gb microSD card that
I purchased, and I downloaded top 100’s from 1970 through 1979, plus Abba discography, plus random rock music to work out to, plus a few more to boot and it plays them all, it shows music title, the name of file I have chosen to name each group, and the name of person singing.
So for me, who cares if I skip a song, there’s so many more to choose from. Although that may not be every ones cup of tea, it may be be for others, that’s what makes the world go round.
I love my slot radio.
I bought this off a friend about 3 months ago, and can’t put it down. I have the rock card only, and of the 1000 songs, I like probably 500 of them. If you like a wide, wide variety of music and you’re open to almost anything, this is definitely nice. Helped me remember songs that I hadn’t already had downloaded and it introduced me to artists I’ve heard of but never listened to so much (such as Jeff Buckley and Silverchair). Also, this thing has live and hard to find versions of some songs (ex: on the classic rock playlist there’s a cover of Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” by Charlie Daniels, Ted Nugent, and Molly Hatchet live together, something I’ve never heard before). The only two major drawbacks are the inability to go back if you skip a song (of course) and the fact I can’t get the SD card to play in my phone, meaning I have to carry both of them with me. It’s definitely a good idea that does need some minor tweaking.