Home > Consumer Reviews > Slacker G2 4 GB 25-Station Personal Radio Player

I bought one of the first generation Slacker Radios, and while it is very cool, the form factor (similar in size to an iphone) was a little too big for the gym or even walking around. The G2 is a perfect size, while still maintaining a readable screen.

In case you are new to the Slacker concept, you create your own custom radio stations by selecting artists, and Slacker provides music from those and other similar performers. You can also select from the many Slacker stations. While listening to a station, you can push a "favorite" or "ban" button so that Slacker learns your preferences.

The best part of the Slacker player is the Wi-Fi feature. Before going to bed, I plug in my Slacker Radio to charge along with my other stuff. I hit the connect button, and I'm done. The Slacker radio makes a Wi-Fi connection, and refreshes all the radio stations with new music. Everyday I start out with a newly loaded mp3 player, incrementally better suited to my musical tastes due to the use of the favorite and ban buttons. If you subscribe to the premium service, hitting the favorite button also saves a copy of the song to the player.

Obviously you can "refresh" any mp3 player through the use of playlists, but I never have that kind of time. All my other players are basically static, loaded with the music I first downloaded to them. And unlike downloading music you have selected to an mp3 player, with the Slacker you are exposed to music that you may not know or did not think to download.

For me, with no time or desire to plug my player into a computer and juggle songs in and out, the Slacker is the perfect player.

I listen to Slacker ([...]) for free at work all day long, and over time, created 'radio' stations that I enjoy just about every single song on. So, when I received the Slacker Portable for my birthday, I was in heaven! It took one click on [...] to port my stations onto the portable, and now I can listen to my great music anywhere, anytime!

Here are a few great things about it:
1) You don't need a wireless connection or any kind of subscription for the basic music service
2) You can put your own MP3's on it, so you don't need this AND an iPod or other MP3 player
3) Very nice, lightweight, easy-to-use device with a big color screen and fantastic sound quality. (Note that it even comes with customizeable ear buds to fit your ears!)

Slacker doesn't have a video programming available currently, but hopefully that's coming soon.

Overall, really fun and useful product that delivers music right to you without your having to upload, buy, or rip your CD's to.

This is what Apple should have done. I found that after spending hours putting music on my ipod and then thousands of dollars in downloads I get bored with my music. The Slacker Radio service is a no brainer. You simply search for artists or songs you like and Slacker creates playlists for you and they constantly update each time you charge the player or come into a wireless network. Now don't get confused. This device does not stream or need reception like a XM or Sirius player. It downloads thousands of songs onto this player and groups them into these stations. The stations were created by me or selected from a list of genre stations that Slacker supplies. Which BTW are really good. I was amazed. I got the first generation Slacker player which functionally did things really well. I actually still use it but have it as a dedicated home device plugged into my home stereo. But this new G2 player is a home run. It's small and easy to use. I listen to Electronica and Indie quite a bit but it's amazing all new bands this service has introduced me to. Plus... I love Bossanova, Jazz, Ska and other genres but I don't know the artist well... Slacker has basically allowed me to create stations based off a couple artist and they sound great. Really cool! Anyone with a ipod that has found their music getting stale should ditch it and get this device.

The Slacker G2 is simply awesome-a polar shift for mobile music you carry in your pocket and the service is free.

For starters...the Slacker network is a free streaming music service on your computer. They're very similar to the better known Pandora online music site. It possess a huge music library and dozens of preformatted 'station' of random, non-repeating songs in every conceivable style.If your tastes are even more eclectic, you can easily design your own personal 'station'. You can program and 'teach' the station what you like by using the 'like' and 'ban' buttons. You can even go so far as specifying you want deep cuts or just the hits.

What the G2 is,is a hand held mobile player and receiver. You select the channels you want from the Slacker network. Using a usb cable or Wifi, Slacker quickly downloads huge amounts of music-hours of music in justa few minutes. All for free! Everytime you are close to a Wifi hotspot you can hit the 'connect' button on the G2 and all your channels will be automatically 'refreshed' with new music-for free. To pay for this the website shows ads and the G2 occasionally plays an ad. The G2 lets you have up to 25 stations of different music. Just like the website you can adjust the music stream to your liking using the 'like' or 'ban' buttons. You can even 'skip' over songs you don't want to hear. The music is random and non-repeating-unless you id some songs as 'favorities'-then they are played more in the mix.

The LCD displays 1st class images of the album or artist or relative information. The battery life is about 7-11 hours depending on how long you leave the LCD lit up and how high you run the volume.

You have the option to upgrade the free service to a paid premium service. With that you can request specific songs, create an on demand 'favorites' library, no ads, and other features.

All and all the service is awesome, the G2 is awesome. It's my new favorite toy.

PS. In the spirit of full disclosure it should be known that the usb refresh feature will not work on all computers.The IP address of the G2 is 192.168.0.1 , a very popular address for routers,modems, and some programs.So it is possible that there may be a conflict between the G2 and your devices. I understand that Macs could have a problem with the usb refresh feature also.If all else fails you just use Wifi to refresh-no big deal.There are fixes and work-arounds for this, check the Slacker website forums to find out more.

I have been using this for two weeks now and I have to give Slacker a "B" grade for providing a new way of getting fresh music on a regular basis. Slacker is an mp3 player that automatically downloads thousands of songs over wi-fi from the Slacker service. You can create up to 25 "stations" and the station's playlists are refined according to your decisions to keep or ban a song (via built-in push buttons). There is no fee but you can't rewind or repeat a song. If you decide to upgrade (for 7.50$) a month, you can save songs. The pros: cd quality sound (yes). Portability, ease of use, album cover art and artist biographies. You can play the music away from the hotspot once you load up.
Cons: A large (two million songs) but quirky and uneven library of music (many major artists are missing and the ones that aren't (Stones, Beatles, Elvis) are represented by their lesser efforts. The Classical station is filled exclusively with third and fourth rate orchestras. My vocal standards station seems to be repeatedly filling itself with old Julie London recordings and very little Tony Bennett or Sinatra or Ella. I've heard one Beatles song in two weeks of listening to the sixties station. My "Ambient" station keeps downloading songs with heavy percussion. There is an awful lot of junk to wade through here. You'll be using those "skip" and "ban" buttons, trust me. Initial download is a bear. If the Slacker radio is new, you need 3-4 hours in a hotspot to load it up. After the initial download, you only need 5- 15 minutes at each refresh since the radio only replaces songs you have listened to. No news. No talk. No weather or sports. The screen scratches easily (I'm getting a shield on mine). Cost - this costs as much as an ipod touch!
The Slacker experience is somewhere between and mp3 player and a wi-fi radio. I have definitely enjoyed it and use it every day. But I'm keeping my XM radio for consistently better music, news, talk, traffic, and weather. If you love music, this will be a plus in your life but you are unlikely to make this your only music source.