Sansa slotRadio Review

In the world of digital MP3 players, not many will argue the iPod as being the undisputed champion–and that’s why San Disk is trying a different approach with it’s new slotRadio Player ($99).

The slotRadio is different in that it comes with a card that is pre-loaded with 1,000 Billboard hits. Pause and take that in for a second and let me repeat. It comes pre-loaded with 1,000 songs. A little different huh? The downside is that someone chooses the music for you, but the upside is that you don’t have to download all that music in the first place (which for some is a huge pain). It’s very much like listening to Internet radio (without commercials), but with less customization.

If you tend to like popular Top 40’s type music, then for $99, the slotRadio player provides solid value. And if you had purchased all of the tracks individually on iTunes, that amounts to $1,000 of music.

Things we liked:

• It’s a time saver since there is no need to download any music or subscribe to any music sites. You don’t even need a computer.
• The pre-loaded music is actually pretty good. That is of course if you already like Billboard Top 40 music. You can get additional slotRadio cards pre-loaded with 1,000 more songs from many popular artists in specific genres including Rock, Country, Oldies and Hip Hop/R&B. The one we demo’d came with a mix card which had nice variety of artists and songs (albums go for $14.99 or additional 1,000 song cards are $49.99).
• No frills and easy-to-use. Took it out of the box and began playing music right away.
• Solid battery with 13 hours of playback.  We got about 12 hours 30 mins on the model we tested.
• Comes with a FM radio (score!).

Things we didn’t like:

• You can’t rewind songs.
• Black and white display didn’t add much value, but at $99 even having a display is nice so we’re not complaining too much.
• Because there is no internal memory, you can’t add songs from your PC, but you can get around that by loading the songs onto another microSD card.

The slotRadio is no iPod, but then again, it’s not trying to be. It makes a great gift for the busy person who doesn’t have time to download, doesn’t already have a large digital music library, but still wants a no-frills MP3 player to get their Taylor Swift or Foo Fighters on every once in a while. We were a bit skeptical at first with the pre-loaded music, but there’s just something about not having to fuss/manage with music files that makes this player a winner in our book.

You can buy the slotRadio directly from their website now and it will be in Radio Shacks nationwide soon.