tesla33 wrote: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!

Ok, one question answered, by reading the specs at the site. This is the G-1. So it's definitely a tradeoff, and it would be nice to see a hard guarantee that they will continue to support this model! And we still need to know if this comes with the wall adapter, or if you have to recharge via USB (or, hopefully, any other USB wall power supply)...

tesla33 wrote:Ok, one question answered, by reading the specs at the site. This is the G-1. So it's definitely a tradeoff, and it would be nice to see a hard guarantee that they will continue to support this model! And we still need to know if this comes with the wall adapter, or if you have to recharge via USB (or, hopefully, any other USB wall power supply)...

Sorry to triple-post, but I haven't seen this info here, so I'm sharing: you can get the G-2 model for $200 in various places, or the upgraded version of this G-1 model for $110 (at Amazon, IIRC). So you can get the much better version of the Slacker player for 4X as much $$, a version of *this* player with twice the storage, 25 stations instead of 15, and the same, er, "issues" as this one for twice the money, or this one for $55 (or $63 with the extended warranty, which would probably be well worth it for battery replacement IF we knew they weren't going to stop supporting this one) here and now. My own decision will be whether to buy this one now, here, or wait and see if the G-2 drops in price after Xmas...

Can I pick up Radio Caroline on this unit?

How is reception. Will it work in my car?

Thanx, Dave West

http://WWW.ValveJr.COM
http://WWW.WestLabs.COM

Dave@ValveJr.COM
Dave@WestLabs.COM

I think I'll stick with my beloved Sirius Satellite Radio!!

DaveWest wrote:Can I pick up Radio Caroline on this unit?

How is reception. Will it work in my car?

Thanx, Dave West

http://WWW.ValveJr.COM
http://WWW.WestLabs.COM

Dave@ValveJr.COM
Dave@WestLabs.COM

It doesn't pick up broadcast radio at all. It loads itself with the kind of music you select, from its own internet "radio" station, either at home from your PC or when you pass through a free wireless area like a coffee shop or internet cafe. You can play it in your car with either an FM transmitter (poor sound quality, though) or a cassette player adapter.

Gah, why does this thing have to be so large?! It's bigger than my Zune 80, and is only 2 gig.

Massive screen but no video support.

The radio stations seem pretty awesome, have been listening for the past few hours. Might get this just to have a secondary player, or to gift if I don't like it, but gah! so big!

I actually bought one of these when it was first released. Concept is great! However, I have had nothing but problems with my unit and I paid $200 for mine. I could never get the Wi-Fi part to work and the boot times are less than desirable. I have had to contact their tech support countless times and have spent hours trying to get this thing to work (you have to "refresh" this unit once a month for copyright reasons). When it does work... it is awesome! Maybe mine was a dud? Again, the concept is awesome and for only $50.... not bad. For people that hate having to pick and choose their MP3's this is the best ( I know... I bought my husband a MP3 player and it sat for 2 years until I loaded it with music for him.

Purchased the 8GB version of this a few weeks back for one of the kids.

Wally World has this unit (2GB) at stupidly expensive prices so you can expect what I paid for the 8GB version.

The kid loves slacker, the player does an awsome job for what it is, as with others, if you could upgrade the storage (SD would be nice) then I'd be getting 2of these for the other two boys.

(Might check te bank balance later & get them anyways).

All in all, best product on w00t! I have seen for a few weeks... thats to say product & price wise.

For people (such as my eldest boy) who like listening to internet radio & don't care that much for sifting through tons of MP3s this is ideal.

The album art, track info etc that you get 'on-screen' is detailed enough.

Sound is not too shabby either, upgraded the headphones for the unit (the std ones are OK, but the boy felt they were a bit uncomfortable for him, YMMV).

When paying through his sound system (direct input) it's nice & rich, a well rounded sound unlike my standalone Roku player (sound bridge) but then I have one of the first roku's that came out...

Through the car stereo, same quality as his sound system in his room, nice rich sounds, as good as you can get from an MP3 via an FM transmitter to car audio.

Our only concern is that it's a bit too slim for a 4 inch screen, I get worried that the thing is going to snap or spider the screen, in adult hands this would be less of a concern, but for a kid who throws his slacker player in his book bag, throws the player about as if it were made of pig iron... well, you can understand my concerns.

Long & the short of it:

Great player

Slacker has some cool music stations & you can 'customize' your own station in a matter of speaking.

Good info on tracks

Sound is super for what it is.

$197.88 at wal-mart right now for this unit...

The G1 (what's on sale on Woot) versus the newer G2: http://www.digitalradiocentral.com/pandora-slacker-aol-radio-shoutcast/1571-slacker-g1-v-g2.html

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

The hack is well known. Spend $200 and get the 8gb version. Then pretend you had bought the 2gb version and hacked it to 8gb.

TorchwoodLabs wrote:Purchased the 8GB version of this a few weeks back for one of the kids.

Wally World has this unit (2GB) at stupidly expensive prices so you can expect what I paid for the 8GB version.

The kid loves slacker, the player does an awsome job for what it is, as with others, if you could upgrade the storage (SD would be nice) then I'd be getting 2of these for the other two boys.

(Might check te bank balance later & get them anyways).

All in all, best product on w00t! I have seen for a few weeks... thats to say product & price wise.

For people (such as my eldest boy) who like listening to internet radio & don't care that much for sifting through tons of MP3s this is ideal.

The album art, track info etc that you get 'on-screen' is detailed enough.

Sound is not too shabby either, upgraded the headphones for the unit (the std ones are OK, but the boy felt they were a bit uncomfortable for him, YMMV).

When paying through his sound system (direct input) it's nice & rich, a well rounded sound unlike my standalone Roku player (sound bridge) but then I have one of the first roku's that came out...

Through the car stereo, same quality as his sound system in his room, nice rich sounds, as good as you can get from an MP3 via an FM transmitter to car audio.

Our only concern is that it's a bit too slim for a 4 inch screen, I get worried that the thing is going to snap or spider the screen, in adult hands this would be less of a concern, but for a kid who throws his slacker player in his book bag, throws the player about as if it were made of pig iron... well, you can understand my concerns.

Long & the short of it:

Great player

Slacker has some cool music stations & you can 'customize' your own station in a matter of speaking.

Good info on tracks

Sound is super for what it is.

$197.88 at wal-mart right now for this unit...

You're providing a review for the G2, NOT the G1 (which is on sale today).

budfrog32 wrote:Will this work through my car stereo?

woowoodengy wrote:only if your car has Wi-Fi l o l thats why its called a Wi-Fi radio LMAO

Why would you answer something that you don't know the correct answer to, then make fun of the person who asked a good question. You reveal two things, that you are mean and that you are ignorant.

While you need an Internet connection to update the music on the Slacker, you don't need an Internet connection to play the music.

It works fine in cars. You can use a cassette adapter, an FM transmitter, or a 3.5 mm cable if your stereo has an AUX input.

And by the way, woowoodengy, your car doesn't need WiFi for you to get WiFi access, it only needs to be in range of a WiFi access point. Still laughing?

cst0002 wrote:You're providing a review for the G2, NOT the G1 (which is on sale today).

No, if you go to wally world's website and do a search for slacker, you can clearly see they are selling the g1. I just checked and can confirm they are selling the g1 and not the g2. So his review is for the g1. I just took the plunge and bought one. The funny thing is I was going to check out and buy the g2 today and I happened to look at todays woot and what do you know, they had the g1. So this will allow me to get my wet feet and see if I want to upgrade to the g2 in the close future.

- Garrett

tdexter wrote:I think I'll stick with my beloved Sirius Satellite Radio!!

With it's stock price hovering around .20 cents, who knows how long Sirius/XM is going to last.

OK...I am clueless...you can store some of the songs that you listen to on the radio??? Is that right?

Can you connect to your home broadband

6 skips per hour per station unless you pay a monthly fee. What a piece of carp! My cell phone's XM application is cheaper than that and doesn't skip.

stacyemead wrote:OK...I am clueless...you can store some of the songs that you listen to on the radio??? Is that right?

Yes, but only if you subscribe.

beautyofmachines wrote:6 skips per hour per station unless you pay a monthly fee. What a piece of carp! My cell phone's XM application is cheaper than that and doesn't skip.

You may want to read it again. It *lets you skip* up to six songs per hour *that you don't want to hear*. If you subscribe, you can skip as many as you want per hour.

seagoon wrote:Limiting myself to 15 channels that I have to program? No thanks. My Lilttle Brown Zune (WOOTed for $80) holds 5,000 songs (that I can pause and start later), I can play by the artist, album, genre, year, supershuffle, make my own playlists, load any MP3 I want AND listen to FM radio.

And from what I read on their website, I can store 2G of songs I download from them, not load my own music. Correct me if that's wrong...

Nope, not good WOOT material.

Get a used PocketPC and stream whatever you want.

Can people like you NOT read and understand what the point of this player is? Gahhh...damn idiots.

Anyways, I just signed up for Slacker a few weeks ago and bought the G2. This is the best damn service around for people who don't want to deal with the crappy XM/Sirius merger but still want random music somehow. I've gone through numerous players, have a few hundred gigs of mp3s but I'm sick and tired of loading songs onto my ipod.

The whole point of this service is so that YOU don't load up the songs yourself, but instead, let their service fill up this mp3 player for you. You can load up some songs onto the player itself but the whole point is to have music sent to you based on your tastes, so that you don't have to do anything. Imagine taking Yahoo Launchcast or XM/Sirius on the road with you, but without the limitations of being connected to the internet 24/7 or having a satellite signal.

In for one. Been listening to slacker for months now at the office. ready to take my act on the road. 50 bucks for a completely programmable radio station that has my obscure artists? and room for my kids to program theirs too? no-brainer



Woot rocks!

I signed up for a free subscription at the website, and I'm having an odd problem: with SeaMonkey and FireFox, once it's been playing a while, your on-site station controls freeze. All you can do it adjust the volume or leave the site.

But it was still worth it, to be able to create my own station that will never play Billy Joel. Ever.

killerbee wrote:Can you connect to your home broadband

If it's a broadband internet connection, you can connect either with a USB cable or through your WiFi, if you have that.

The Slacker service is - amazing - . I'm addicted. I got an 8 gig portable, G1, like this one. When it works, it's great, but it doesn't always work. I had quite a time with the power switch on the device, wouldn't always respond.

The G2 is supposed to be much better, you can check them out at any Best Buy. I'd recommend looking at those rather than settling for this.

bigfatbass wrote: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...

Forget Pandora, slacker is the way to go. The XM/Sirius merger has been horrific and there are a lot of people (from the forums) that have switched over to slacker after the merger. Just use the web player for awhile and see how you like it, then imagine taking that wherever you go.

Regarding the 2gb...well, I have the 4GB G2 (25 stations) and I can honestly tell you, that's probably more than what I need. I probably only listen to about 5 stations and that hardly uses up all of the space on the slacker. They also use the same compression as XM (48kbps AAC v2? something like that) but apparently they do better job than XM with it. Either way, it's not going to eat up the space.

Also, I haven't even loaded any music onto this player since I bought it. The service is THAT enjoyable to the point where I don't even care about loading up new music onto my player.

I recently got a Slacker G2 8GB (40 stations.) I ordered one from Amazon at the beginning of October when they were still new and backordered, and finally got mine about a month ago. I was originally going to order one of the first-generation ones, but the G2 is so much of an improvement that I went for one of those instead. The G2 hardware is significantly better: it is smaller and has better battery life. The G1 devices are probably comparable in size to an iPhone, which is large considering the device does nothing other than play audio (no video, phone, or PDA capabilities.) Even though the screen on the G2 is smaller that doesn't matter since you only have to view text and album art (again, no video capabilities.)

The Slacker service is great; you listen to the music you want to hear, period. The portable devices make the service just that: portable. I probably didn't need to get the 40-station device, though, as I don't really listen to that many stations and you can make custom ones anyway. At least the stations are there when I need them, however.

I think that this WOOT, even though it's a first-generation device, is still worth it if you listen to music at all. I paid 5 times as much for my G2, although it has 4 times the capacity as well as longer battery life, all in a smaller package. The 15-station device should be more than enough for most people.

I was excited until I saw the comments pointing out it is NOT a true radio. That is, it does not wirelessly update while I am driving on long trips on the interstate. Thanks, folks!

Looks like you need the premium service at $7.50 per month to be able to save songs from slacker.

Doug0716 wrote:Yes, for the 500 meg of mp3 storage space.

500 Meg?? The Huge letters telling us what the woot is for say 2GB ?? I'm guessing you mean 500 songs ;)

I've wanted one of these, but, I don't really need it. I've got a Zune and a Touch Pro with a 4GB card that I store music on. This is cool though because it can store your Slacker radio stations which is nice!

fiver wrote:Damn. I have a Sirius lifetime sub (SL2) but recently discovered slacker. I have been streaming slacker from my computer at home and absoluetly love it. If I didn't have so much invested in the Sirus sub and all the docs and what not I'd have pulled the trigger on a Slacker G2 long ago.

The only major pitfall to the G1 and the G2 right now is NO car docs. Sucky.

For $50, this is an awesome way to get your feet wet with portable Slacker. I'm going to have to sleep on this.

That's why I have a car stereo with a front aux input jack... so I don't need to wait for mfg's to come out with docks or shell out endless cash on things that are specific to 1 device. =D

Well I'm gettin one. I listenED to Audio Visions on XM for about 3 years now. Wonderful peaceful music 24 hours a day. Didn't know when they were changing to Sirius and one night at 3am my peaceful music changed to Metallica or something like it. When I finally found the Sirius equivalent of my peaceful station I thought it would be ok. Then the damn birds and crickets started up at about 3am again. (3am here must be midnight in California) and every night at about 3am I'm in the middle of the forest. I'm lisintening to slacker now and it is much more like the old XM. So I'm switching. And getting the free stations for now and saving money too. Even if i get the premium later I still save money over XM and Sirius. WOOT! WOOT!

So, Slacker is basically like Pandora then? If so, it would duplicate one of the nicest things about the iTouch (iPhone), which is streaming Pandora wirelessly through your house on your stereo, speaker system, etc. Doesn't say what kind of audio out hookups it has though (besides headphone).

What stations??????????? I would want to pick and choose stations! All hiphop for me!

Aaron118Big wrote:What stations??????????? I would want to pick and choose stations! All hiphop for me!

Go to the website http://www.slacker.com and all will be revealed. And please, add a little jazz.

Invasion of Your Privacy is the Ratt's most kick-ass album, better than Out of the Cellar. You're in Love is also the best Ratt song of all time. Love Ratt, love the item description, love Woot...

RIP Robbin Crosby

this unit sells for $200 on slacker.com! 50 bucks is a great deal no matter how you cut it.

I'm on the fence with this one; can't make up my mind. But thanks to the description, I have “You Should Know By Now” by Ratt stuck in my head. That's all fine & dandy, since it's probably my favorite Ratt song. Long live the 80's...

raquet220 wrote:500 Meg?? The Huge letters telling us what the woot is for say 2GB ?? I'm guessing you mean 500 songs ;)

actually no..... the total space is 2GB (both radio and MP3) with 500 MB allotted for MP3 files \, the rest is dedicated storage for the "radio"

Wouldn't wifi internet radio have more than 15 stations?