SlashGear Japan
Walt Mossberg, the prophet of all other tech journalists, likes the Slacker Mobile, provided they fix all the bugs. For those not in the know, its basically internet radio on the go with the ability to customize and store the streams.
To me, it sounds like Pandora: The Music Genome Project, but on the go. It works off of WiFi and provides a cool interface, a 4” screen to view pictures, stream/album info, and stuff of that nature on. There seems to be plenty of controls on the device which should make it fairly easy to use.
Like I said, Uncle Walt (not Disney) had some issues with the device, issues that likely played a part in its release being delayed until the end of January 08. Here they are in a nice list format: sometimes the players didn’t wake up after going to sleep which required a reboot, the touch strip on the side of the screen was unreliable, one of the two players he received failed on multiple attempts to connect to his account, and finally, the battery life is well below the targeted 12 hours between recharge times. According to Mr. Mossberg, those issues are known by the company, and they intend to have them all fixed by the launch date.
Walt Mossberg on the Slacker Portable (verdict: he’s not not intrigued by it) [via orbitcast]
5 Responses to “Slacker Mobile prototypes buggy, but cool”
Ty December 7, 2007
That seems pretty neat I wouldn’t mind seeing how big it is in actual palm of hand it could be quite neat.
I like the look of it… haha :-)
NeutralTom December 7, 2007
Does it come with the stand? Their website doesn’t show the stand in any of the pictures.
NeutralTy December 7, 2007
If I remember right, I think it does. But would someone confirm if that is true, I cannot remember or find where I read that at, or I thought I read it.
NeutralKara December 8, 2007
Does anyone know if the picture above is the player made for the car that is expected to launch sometime in the spring?
Neutralekucera00 December 14, 2007
the picture posted here was a prototype pic released way back in march, so i’m sure revisions have been made and it’s a good assumption that this might be the prototype car dock and satellite add on. Slacker reported the dock was going to run $199.99 and release the first half of 2008. At that price I would hope we would get a nice dock. But something that makes me wonder about the final release is that Slacker Support said the unit does not support landscape at this time. I know the guys at Slacker Social are working hard to release some NEW information about this device. Check out Slacker Social @ http://www.slackersocial.com for more information.
Neutral