Slacker Portable Music Player Unboxed

Laptop got their hands on one of those Slacker Portable units today which can stream music from the Slacker service in a sort of hybrid subscription/internet radio model. It's a big honkin' player, that's for sure, but I'm curious to see what Jeffrey Wilson's long term impressions are.

Slacker Portable works in conjunction with music site Slacker to let you take your customized Internet radio stations with you on the road–for free. Well, the music is free. The player starts at $199 for 15 stations, and the 25-station and 40-station models costs $249 and $299 respectively. The Basic Radio plan limits you to six song skips per hour and involves a limited number of ads, but if you sign up for Premium Radio ($7.50 per month if you sign up for one year) you get unlimited song skips, no ads, and the ability to save songs to the device while you’re listening.

The Great Unboxing: Hands On With Slacker Portable [LaptopMag.com]

[#1 posted by Doomstalk, February 1, 2008 12:21 PM]

I'd prefer to see a mobile version of pandora.com

[#2 posted by goodbeershow, February 1, 2008 1:18 PM]

How can such a big beauty of a screen not play a drop of video? Service is interesting though.

[#3 posted by HarshLanguage, February 2, 2008 5:07 AM]

That's an expensive piece of hardware considering how lame the free and paid subscription options are. That business model seems rather unattractive from a consumer's point of view. Counting "song skips" and watching ads (unless I pay even more money!) on a limited number of channels certainly isn't an inducement to stop using a old fashioned portable radio, mp3 player, or even a portable satellite radio device with a subscription.

[#4 posted by RyanH, February 2, 2008 9:28 AM]

I have trouble seeing why someone would buy this instead of either an iPod or portable satellite radio. It looks like a solution to a problem that the suppliers are having (how to make money off of free music) and not a problem that the consumers are having. If it is going to be add supported, the least they could do is give away the hardware. Of course, to do that, it would need to be much less expensive hardware. A big screen? really?

[#5 posted by Fnarf, February 2, 2008 10:53 AM]

Wow, you can view album covers on this thing? I'd pay thousands.

[#6 posted by dogmatique, February 2, 2008 5:26 PM]

As soon as they start talking about shit like station levels and skip counts, you know it is DOOMED.

And rightly so. FFS Are these people insane? You just know it's NEVER going to work. Jesus.