Slacker Mobile Prototypes Buggy, But Cool

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]