Slacker Radio

[Scott Greczkowski]

After XM and Sirius merged many of their channels together, I was happy about some of the changes, yet unhappy about some of the other changes.

A number of XM and Sirius subscribers mentioned that they canceled there service and have moved to Slacker radio. I was curious about Slacker to I went to their website at slacker.com and was almost instantly hooked!

Slacker has a bunch of pre programmed stations for many genres. Listening to many I was amazed at the quality and depth, but slacker goes further and lets you select and create your own stations.

I created my own 70's station with the artists I like, and did the same thing with the 80's plus I also created my own Jeff Foxworthy channel which features all of the Blue Collar Comedy guys.

I was glue to my computer for hours on end sometimes hearing song I frogto about from my favorite artists, plus all the big hits as well.

Two weeks ago WOOT had the Generation 1 Slacker player on sale for $50, I ordered two of them. One for me and another for a gift.

Over the weekend I introduced my father to Slacker.COM as he is a music nut. He was impressed they had the Beatles and then said I am thinking of a song and I havent heard this song in about 10 years do you think Slacker has it. I asked him the bands name in the search box and clicked play first song out of the gate was the song my father was looking for. He was hooked.

We go over my dads every night for dinner and everytime I have been over hes had the computer on listening to Slacker. He is a slacker nut now. (Can you guess who is getting the second Slacker Player?

Anyways my Slacker players arrive tonight, and I couldnt wait to open it up. It came in a nice box and was packaged well. I plugged in the headphones and powered up the unit to find it already preloaded with music out of the box (and the battery was charged) How cool is that!

I listened as I setup the Slacker software (which you dont actually need, you can do everything via Slacker.COM.

I quickly went to the site and selected a few of their pre made channels and selected my own custom made channels then went to the player and set it to connect to my wifi network. In just a few seconds it was updating my player and downloading music from the Slacker network.

It took about 15 - 20 minutes to download all the channels I selected, and I have been listening to it for close to 3 hours and am amazed not only with thesound quality but amount of music downloaded in that short time. I have been listening to my Classic Rock Channel that I created and havent heard a repeat in 3 hours.

I also havent heard a commercial in the entire time except for one "Your listening to Slacker Radio" bumper.

I am amazed and in love.

Anyone else out there with a Slacker radio?

 

[yourbeliefs]

I'm happy with my Sirius & BOXM package.

 

[ripnbigc]

I listen to it all the time when I'm on my computer, it's great. I haven't tried the portable unit, I've never seen it that cheap.

 

[snathanb]

Slacker radio on WOOT right now (during woot off)

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I picked up two more.

That was a great deal!

 

[ripnbigc]

Of course I missed it!

 

[mike123abc]

I picked up a slacker radio, and it is great. It definitely satisfies my need for music when traveling on the road. I go the free route, 2 commercials every hour does not bother me.

 

[JonE]

I've been playing around with the online service and it's nice. Created a 'Fungus' like channel since XM removed Punk from the lineup for AC/DC radio. I want to see the G2 in person before I decide to buy, or I may decide to wait for the iPhone app (which could be a LONG wait ).

 

[mike123abc]

Slacker just added a second premium service. They now have 2 price points, 3.99 or 7.50/month paid annually (or free if you go with commercials). The 3.99 one does not allow you to save songs, but allows unlimited skips and no commercials. A sort of compromise.

 

[JayStil]

Scott, for that price I'm guessing your radios from Woot were the 2GB versions? If so do you find that's been enough storage? Doesn't seem like it, but most things I've read say that you need to recharge the battery anyway, so your "stations" refresh at that time too.

I picked one up last night for under $50 - I guess I'll find out myself soon. Just wondering how it's been working out for you now that you've been using it for a few weeks.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes I got the 2GB version. Which holds up to 15 channels and love it.

My father has one as well and he uses it everynight and falls asleep with it. He LOVES it.

I gave away 4 Slacker radios as gifts this year and everyone loves it.

The new $3.99 plan is also very popular as well.

 

[snathanb]

Using Skyfire, I can listen on my HTC Touch Pro, via either 3G or Wifi

 

[Paul Wozniak]

You may want to check out Pandora radio. Sounds pretty similar to Slacker, but you it's free on your computer, and you don't need any additional hardware. I've "programmed' about 5 different radio stations for myself to suit my many moods, and tastes. Really worth a look.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Slacker is also free on your computer and you can program your own stations, but its advantage is you can take it with you on its own player (if you want to buy one)

The music selection is deeper on Slacker over Pandora.

But with that sad both are free and give you loads of musical entertainment.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I'm going to look into Slacker, you are right about Pandora being a little limited. Thanks Scott.

 

[mike123abc]

I am a big slacker fan now, it is a great alternative to satellite radio. I missed XM in my new car, but not any more. Instead of paying $200 to get satellite radio installed in the new car, I just use the slacker radio ($200 also) but can take it back and forth in both cars.

The playlist is very deep on slacker. I hear a lot of songs I have not heard in a long time.

 

[BruceE]

I have had Slacker radio for about a year now. It is a great service with great support team if you have a problem. I had Sirius but have dropped the service.

Thanks.
BruceE

 

[Wdam33]

Slacker is now available for Blackberry devices. It can stream via your cell phone provider (EDGE, 3G, or EV-DO). You can also load it up just like the Slacker Personal Player if you have a media card installed (highly recommended). I put in an 8GB card and I am able to store about 50 stations (100 songs per station).

Its interesting how they made it work. When the application downloads to your phone, it installs the sync program on the media card. When you log in into the program, you can stream music or set a number of channels to cache.

In order to cache up, you simply connect it to your home computer and enable disk mode on the BB. Navigate via "my computer" to the removable drive (the BB) and click on the sync program. It takes about the same time to sync up as the personal player. If your BB has Wi-Fi built in, you can use that instead to sync up.

It works for all Blackberry devices (except the Storm) running BB OS 4.3 or higher, though version 4.5 is recommended. Some have been running it on the storm, but there are some bugs.

I'm running it on a Curve 8330 (CDMA) with BB OS 4.3 (my provider has not released their version of 4.5 yet). No problems here and there is hardly any drain on the battery.

Slacker Personal Radio - Slacker Radio on Blackberry Mobile Devices

-Mark

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Slacker is now available for iPhones as well!

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=298307011&mt=8

Downloading now!

 

[VinceT3]

I'm surprised they don't have a windows mobile version?