[quote postid="2790033" user="tuamigo"]This will work ANYWHERE you have internet access available.

Not true. I am in South Korea now and get this message:

We're Sorry
Slacker Personal Radio
is not available in your area.
Unfortunately, Slacker Personal Radio is currently only available in the United States. While we are working to extend our licenses to other parts of the world, at this time we can only play music to our listeners within the United States.

If you are getting this message and are in the United States, please use the feedback form to tell us where you are located and the name of your ISP.

mdunn35 wrote:Will this work with a Mac?

Woot didn't provide info on that - although they should have. Check out Specifications at
http://www.digitalfotoclub.com/sc/from-froogle.asp?id=964742913&rf=froogle&dfdate=11_24_2008

Can't use MAC OS for personal content transfer, which vacuums big time. I PASS...

>If you're in an office building and the wi-fi is password protected it won't update.

Not true. From the G1 manual:

"WEP and WPA network keys are security PIN codes found on many personal and business networks. See your network administrator or booklet for information on where to find your network key. If you need to enter a key, you will be prompted to do so when you select the network. You will be presented with a text-entry window."

Plus you can use USB...

Does this do news/talk like NPR?

Personalized Radio
With the Slacker Portable, the world's first-ever personal radio player, you can now take your favorite music with you. Choose from more than 100 expertly programmed radio stations, or custom-build your own using the vast Slacker artist network. The more you listen, the better Slacker gets at automatically delivering the music you want to hear.
Effortless
Create your own unique radio experience with Slacker Personal Radio. You know what you like--Slacker knows how to deliver it. Slacker's Internet radio offering is built on the expertise of DJs from all over the country, and just by listening, you make Slacker even smarter at delivering more music that you love.

Music Discovery
Perfect your listening experience using Slacker's exclusive personalization tools. With the buttons, tell Slacker Radio which songs are your favorites--and which ones you never want to hear again. Fine-tune any station--get more hits, or request older artists over new, for instance. Album reviews and artist bios come with every song and are delivered right to your Slacker Portable. View them on the 4-inch color LCD.

Advanced Radio Clocks
Slacker DJs operate using a proven method of picking and mixing songs to deliver excellent musical variety that complements your tastes. This patent-pending DJ technology is embedded in the Slacker Portable to create the very best radio stations. The more you listen, the better it performs to deliver new music you'll love.Slacker Basic Radio: Free

Take the world's first-ever personal radio player with you for nonstop, customized music wherever you go. On the Slacker Portable, store thousands of songs for repeated listening, or connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot to get new music instantly. With hours of battery life, the Slacker Portable is built to go where you go.

To offer your favorite music for free, the Slacker Basic Radio service might play one to two ads an hour. That's significantly fewer ads than traditional radio, so you can relax and easily enjoy your favorite music.

Plus, it's all completely legal. Slacker has unique licensing agreements with thousands of record labels to give you free access to a variety of music. By working directly with the record labels, Slacker gets the latest content to ensure your radio stations always stay current.

Upgrade to Slacker Premium
If you want even more out of the service, pay just $7.50 per month for Slacker Premium, which puts you in control. What's the difference between Slacker Basic and Slacker Premium? First, Premium subscribers can avoid the ads that played in the Basic service. So, it's an ad-free listening experience.
Next, Premium subscribers have access to Slacker Request Song, which lets you add your favorite artists' songs to your station. Then, use Slacker's fine-tuning controls to indicate how often those requested songs should play.

Third, Premium subscribers have no limits on the number of songs they skip, letting listeners create the exact music experience they want. (Basic listeners are limited to six skips per hour, per station.)

And fourth, as a Premium subscriber, you can save your favorite songs with the touch of a button. Saved songs are added to your library so that you can listen to them any time. You also can save your favorites to your PC using the Slacker Software Player. It's the ultimate personal radio experience.

Slacker Premium Radio at a glance:
Just $7.50 per month
No advertisements
Request songs
Unlimited skipping of songs
Save favorites
Slacker Radio: It's Everywhere
With the Slacker Portable, get free and easy access to millions of songs from thousands of artists wherever you are. All of the music you love is automatically delivered to your Slacker Portable for free at any Wi-Fi hotspot or through your PC via USB.
Pocket DJ

The same personalized listening experience you love on Slacker.com is available wherever you go on the Slacker Portable. Slacker DJs hand pick songs for your player, and you can use the buttons on the Slacker Portable to further customize your stations. The more you listen, the better the music gets.

The Slacker Portable gives you uninterrupted access to your music wherever you are. Thousands of songs are stored on the Slacker Portable to fill up all of your personalized radio stations. That means you can listen to your stations, even if you are nowhere near a Wi-Fi connection.

Refresh on the Go
The Slacker Portable automatically can add new music at hundreds of thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots across the country. Each time you connect, songs that were hand-picked by Slacker DJs are added to your device. Plus, you can add new stations to your Slacker Portable from any PC or Mac with an Internet connection.

Built in MP3 Player
Already have your own personal music library? The Slacker Portable features a built-in MP3 player. You can store up to 500 MB of MP3s on the 2 GB/15-station Slacker Portable, 1.5 GB of MP3s on the 4 GB/25-station Slacker Portable, or 4 GB of MP3s on the 8 GB/40-station Slacker Portable. Then, listen whenever and wherever you want.
On-the-Go Playlists

Create personalized playlists with your MP3s using the intuitive controls on the Slacker Portable. Enjoy the favorites you own in any order you want. As a Slacker Premium Radio subscriber, you can mix your MP3s with saved radio tracks to fashion playlists absolutely unique to you.

Software Player
Play your own personal collection of MP3s on the your portable with Slacker Software Player. Simply plug your portable into your PC to transfer songs and refresh your radio stations. Also, such enhanced features as high-resolution, full-screen album art and a variety of visualizations track to the music on the portable's 4-inch color LCD.

What's in the Box
Slacker 2 GB Portable Radio with 15 Stations (Black), USB cable, power supply, earphones


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a good vyber monday deal woot! I wish I had the $ right now I really like these and have been eyeing them for a few months now. I dont think I would ever use it much though. I dont believe in Ipods, or sansas, or zunes. Im a DJ and I play music from the laptop everynight at my gigs. Usually by the time im done listening to music 6 hours a night 5 days a week im somewhat tired of hearing certain songs, and the music is so loud, I am musically satisfied.

This looks like a good idea, but I would be concerned about Slacker's ability to last through this recession. If they didn't lock out 1.5gb of space, then you could take the plunge and still have a 2 gb mp3 player.. i'm not going to chance it for a 500mb player.

I use my iPhone and Pandora or AOL Radio. I can stream through WiFi at high fidelity and even over EDGE for lower quality or talk radio. When there's no connection, I've got 8gb of music in the iPod. Sure it costs me $60/mo for that, but it's also a heck of a lot more useful overall.
While the iPhone is not exactly the same, it's also my telephone, email device, facebook updater, and calendar. And the camera isn't too bad either.

Camino1 wrote:Does this do news/talk like NPR?

Click and Clack!
Or even better some ole school Art Bell? Maybe some clips from Dave Ramsey.
That might could convince me to pull the trigger.

Then again speakin' of Art Bell, maybe its just another form of mind control. The man is tryin' to control my thoughts. Or maybe its them you know the green guys

anyway I checked the site, looks like no talk at this time.

Well, I've gotten over my fear of admitting I like smooth jazz/elevator music/weather channel music - yet its not very popular and difficult to remember the names of the artists when I catch it around in stores/on TV. This device sounds like it will help me widen my music range in areas I feel I've hit a brick wall - yet I can do it on the go and while at work.

Same goes for my love of some forms of less popular electronica. It seems the player on the website covers a pretty fair range.

I stayed up past my bed time here to think on this. The unit sounds far from perfect, but at this price it looks like its the best time to jump on and give this a shot. I work at a incoming call center though, so I wonder if I'll be able to really enjoy listening to this while working.

Also - they have a locked Wi-Fi at work. I assume the router needs to be wide open for you to update your music automatically right? I read the alternative is just plugging in USB but I don't think plugging anything into the USB ports on the PC's at work is allowed. May think I'm trying to install some type of virus into the intranet. Hah... I do have a wi-fi at home though, so I shouldn't have any issues updating the music selection on a day to day basis.

-Niric

Really tempted to get this, but I think I'll try the service out for awhile first.
The G2 is $199 on the Slacker website, BTW.

I've ALWAYS trusted reviews from The-Gadgeteer.com and I know they reviewed this earlier this year. Here's the review:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/review/slacker_portable_radio

Summary:
Pros:

* Easy to use
* Updates via WiFi or USB
* Can create your own custom stations
* Can save songs into your library - Premium service

Cons:

* Mac users can't copy their own music to the player
* Songs sometimes stutter at the beginning


They liked it - at the $250 msrp

so i'm guessing every song u saved, u can just play at any time?

Earl Wajdyk wrote:Will This work with a Mac?????????????????????

Earl, this review from July suggests that there are at least some limitations...
http://the-gadgeteer.com/review/slacker_portable_radio

HA i thought this was supposed to find me new music. Second song on the trance station played for me is from an album I got heck musta been like over 7 years ago. Is there no new trance?

EcoTony wrote:This looks like a good idea, but I would be concerned about Slacker's ability to last through this recession. If they didn't lock out 1.5gb of space, then you could take the plunge and still have a 2 gb mp3 player.. i'm not going to chance it for a 500mb player.

I'm concerned about this as well - but lets be honest. If you can afford an iPhone, is $50 really going to kill you? I mean you automatically have a $30 per month bill higher required for your cell service. (AKA the required iPhone data feature)

I guess I just decided I was interested in this enough to give it a shot at $50. Then again Electronica & Smooth Jazz is rarely accessible on the radio waves in the central states. So maybe with my odd music taste, it was easier to swallow the possible bad outcome. Also - out of the internet radio stations I'm familiar with, I've never known one to go under. With such a unique gimmick, I'd expect they'll do well enough to keep the wheels turning... Just, maybe not turning real fast. Heh.

-Niric

Do you get unlimited skips unlike the website trial version?

SalsaShark42 wrote:G1. The G2 is a fraction of the size and looks very different.

and also appears to have different licensing agreements with Slacker. Some artists never play on the G1 version.

Curse you Woot! Keeping me up so late listening to the web slaker radio stations. This is awesome! They have all the obscure types of music I like to listen too.

I know I want one, I'm just having trouble deciding if I should get a second to give as a gift.

AVHarris wrote:and also appears to have different licensing agreements with Slacker. Some artists never play on the G1 version.

I agree that this is disconcerting... is there a chance that they could completely cancel the G1 radio service? Or is that impossible?

justin42 wrote:This is a little disconcerting, apparently G1 radios don't receive as many artists as G2 radios due to licensing restrictions (Gotta investigate what evil thing the G1 units can do that G2 must not that's getting the labels all worked up ;) )... and no one is getting a good answer from Slacker as to if they're going to try to rectify this.

http://forums.slacker.com/g1-vs-g2-licensing-t1500.html-sid=47911b90802ae1e3a41ac5639d4c2d3a

Hey,
I was worried about this as well. I found this little tidbit that made me feel a lot better.

"Here are my responses from support:

My question:
Hello. Are you still acquiring licenses for new music for the G1? Are you acquiring licenses for songs for the G2 that you are not acquiring for the G1?

Answer:
Thank you for contacting Slacker Support. We are continuously working on licenses for all aspects of the Slacker Services. This is an ever changing process as we continue to work with the record labels, artists and publishing companies.
Thanks,
Rome E
Slacker Support

That was a little too vague for me.

My follow up question:
Thanks for the reply. Have you acquired licenses for songs for the G2 that you have not gotten for the G1? If so, why?

Answer:
Thank You for contacting Slacker Customer Support,

We do not have different licenses for songs that are on the G2 as with the G1. We have different licenses in the way the songs can save Web Player as compared to the Portable Players.

Best Regards,

Charles B.
Slacker Support"

Hope this helps in your decision. I just bit the bullet. I think it will be worth it, if not just to find some new music. I'll live with the commercials and limited skips.

AVHarris wrote:and also appears to have different licensing agreements with Slacker. Some artists never play on the G1 version.

so wait the G1 won't get new songs that come out from now on?

Oh well. I decided to get it. Hopefully this licensing fiasco isn't too much of a hassle.

mkchoiboy wrote:so wait the G1 won't get new songs that come out from now on?

See the post directly above yours...
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=2790160

I just bit after talking myself out of it and then back into it.

I REALLY liked XM back when it first launched-- then sound quality took a massive hit, and with the channels all going to Sirius stations a couple of weeks ago I am barely listening to it.

In many ways I feel like this unit may be what I have been looking for for years-- I had been thinking of recording XM stations, slicing the songs, and then making custom playlists randomly-- there were ways to do it but fairly complicated so I never got around to it... I figure for $50 it's as cheap as I will ever be able to try Slacker (just have to hope no one got it for me for Christmas although I kind of doubt it given the geek-nature of it) and who knows, I might have just found one of the neatest audio toys to come out in a long time, and if it vacuums, I can probably make my money back selling it.

I'm playing with the G2 and it's a pretty decent device, though the construction looks a little cheap - the plastic jog wheel feels particularly precarious. The software is slow to register when an option is selected, and the player takes a while to connect to refresh stations (which itself can take hours if you haven't refreshed in a while). All that's to say, the (much smaller) G2 has received much better reviews, so don't get your hopes up with the G1, which was universally panned as too bulky and limited when it came out.

Regarding the service itself, I think Pandora does a much better job of picking music you'll like than Slacker, given that Pandora's musicologists actually tag the dozens of attributes in every song - not just automatic categorization by genre or whatever.

The Premium Service actually might be worthwhile:

"Slacker Premium Radio at a glance:
Just $7.50 per month
No advertisements
Request songs
Unlimited skipping of songs
Save favorites".

You can also save songs to your PC. I assume you would then be able to play that song whenever you want, be able to load it to a more serious MP3 player, etc.

You could easily save far more than $7.50 worth of music every month, if I'm understanding this correctly.

I've been listening on the web for a few hours now... it's pretty good.

speedoo wrote:The Premium Service actually might be worthwhile:

"Slacker Premium Radio at a glance:
Just $7.50 per month
No advertisements
Request songs
Unlimited skipping of songs
Save favorites".

You can also save songs to your PC. I assume you would then be able to play that song whenever you want, be able to load it to a more serious MP3 player, etc.

You could easily save far more than $7.50 worth of music every month, if I'm understanding this correctly.

I've been listening on the web for a few hours now... it's pretty good.

how do u save it? so u can burn it later?

Got one... Cool Beans.

hmmm does anyone know if there will be some future hack for this device? maybe a rockbox.... 4inch lcd rockbox sounds nice.

If they could add NPR, that would be great! I still bought one anyways.

firestix wrote:Click and Clack!
Or even better some ole school Art Bell? Maybe some clips from Dave Ramsey.
That might could convince me to pull the trigger.

Then again speakin' of Art Bell, maybe its just another form of mind control. The man is tryin' to control my thoughts. Or maybe its them you know the green guys

anyway I checked the site, looks like no talk at this time.

Sold me

hagbard wrote:I've ALWAYS trusted reviews from The-Gadgeteer.com and I know they reviewed this earlier this year. Here's the review:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/review/slacker_portable_radio

Summary:
Pros:

* Easy to use
* Updates via WiFi or USB
* Can create your own custom stations
* Can save songs into your library - Premium service

Cons:

* Mac users can't copy their own music to the player
* Songs sometimes stutter at the beginning


They liked it - at the $250 msrp

Good link, thx. I see an AC charger in the photos there, and it's mentioned elsewhere also, yet it doesn't appear in the Woot 'In the Box' list or in Woot's photo detail despite the item being listed as New. What gives here, Woot?

Still, a temping looking toy. Hmmm....

mkchoiboy wrote:how do u save it? so u can burn it later?

"And fourth, as a Premium subscriber, you can save your favorite songs with the touch of a button. Saved songs are added to your library so that you can listen to them any time. You also can save your favorites to your PC using the Slacker Software Player. It's the ultimate personal radio experience."

Presumably, if you have it saved on your PC, dumping it to a CD or MP3 player should be possible.

On edit: based on the Slacker site FAQ, the songs are not actually saved on your hard drive, they are available through your browser from the "Slacker database".

So I was wrong when I said "presumably........".

bucckevin wrote:hmmm does anyone know if there will be some future hack for this device? maybe a rockbox.... 4inch lcd rockbox sounds nice.

What would also be cool is if you could hack the thing to increase the storage.

y2japa wrote:If they could add NPR, that would be great! I still bought one anyways.

Yeah, the hammer is about to drop. Its hitting my tastes pretty well. Even if I found a few artists they are still trying to negotiate in, the "related" artists stations are working pretty well for me. Now the question is one or two? One it is hammer... dropped. The brother can get one for himself if he wants. For all I know he bought into and is happy with satellite.

Now I gotta yank myself off of half.com searching out new to me music. Wrong time of year to be spending too much on myself. This could turn into a bad habit.

With the disastrous changes at XM/Sirius rendering it a shallow playlist hell of babbling celeb DJs and endless YACKING, the slacker is VERY tempting, but 2gig just seems like a tease. I've already canceled 2 of my 3 XM radios, and a $50 slacker seems like the cure for the last straw, but I'm still thinking the best path is an iPhone and 24-7 PANDORA!!!!!

Pandora rules. PERIOD.

But if you can't' Pandora.com, maybe a slacker is the way to go...

They are releasing a car dock/charger in a month!!! Also, the griffin universal roaddock with usb cahrger and fm transmitter was just released, It charges and transmits slacker!!

glinness wrote:Good link, thx. I see an AC charger in the photos there, and it's mentioned elsewhere also, yet it doesn't appear in the Woot 'In the Box' list or in Woot's photo detail despite the item being listed as New. What gives here, Woot?

Still, a temping looking toy. Hmmm....

Yike maybe I need to get one of these solar dobahitcies now.

Wondering if this will make it to my house. I never got the Rhapsody MP3 player. Bad first purchase experience. Hopefully, this will be different. Looks like a great little toy.

OK, this should be obvious, and I see indications, hints, guesses, but...is this Woot offering the G-1 or G-2? Does the A/C charger come with it, or not? These are kind of important questions, Woot!