Portable player + 1,000 MP3s =$99 slotRadio
August 12, 2009 by Robin Parrish
Filed under Electronics
Who would have thought that you could get an MP3 player along with 1,000 songs for less than $100? SanDisk, inventors of flash storage cards, has released a very affordable new MP3 player that requires no downloads and no computer, storing songs on its proprietary MicroSD cards.
It’s called “slotRadio,” and the technology that makes it work is smartly utilized to create a very attractive package for consumers. The slotRadio player is bundled with a 1,000 song slotRadio Mix card, which plays in your slotRadio player or SanDisk’s Sansa Fuze player. The Mix cards are preloaded with 1,000 full songs from Billboard’s charts, prearranged into genre-themed playlists.
Under other circumstances, 1,000 full-length singles would cost you a dollar a track. That’s $1,000, so getting that many songs along with a mobile device to play them on for less than $100 is an unheard-of deal. Additional slotRadio Mix cards — each with 1,000 preloaded top Billboard songs — are available for just $49.99. The idea is that it’s like having a personalized radio station in your own pocket.
The player is aluminum die-cast, and it comes with a 1.5″ OLED screen that displays artist/song info. The player includes a built-in FM radio and a belt clip.
SanDisk is also marketing its own “slotMusic” cards, which operate under the same technology, but are basically MicroSD cards with a single album preloaded. The remaining space you can use to fill up with your own favorite songs.
If the tech works as well as it claims… Color me impressed. I’m still picking my jaw up off the floor over that price point.
Images: SanDisk.
