Our Digital Music

The new Sansa slotMusic Player from SanDisk is a great, easy to use MP3 player. It features the great new Micro SD technology, allowing you to purchase entire albums and listen to them using these tiny memory cards. They are easily inserted into the player, though they do require delicate handling. The Micro SD cards are also multi-compatible, allowing you to listen to your favourite songs interchangeably between cell-phones, iPods and other MP3 players. This is a great new feature that will especially suite people who like to share or loan their MP3 players – simply keep the disks and your music is safe.

My first impression of the slotMusic Player was its sturdiness. Just by handling it you know that it could withstand a few unexpected drops. There is no screen so nothing fragile will scratch. What’s great too is that the player has a removable case that can be interchanged/replaced when fashion dictates or if it gets damaged.

It’s sturdiness however, comes with a nominal price, weight. The player is on the heavy side (2 ounces) when compared to other MP3 players in its category. To give it credit, allot of the weight comes from the AAA replaceable battery. This is fine for someone like me who would gladly sacrifice weight for the ability to simply change the battery when needed. It’s far easier to carry around rechargeable AAA batteries than those expensive charging accessories.

One of the most exciting things I noticed about the slotMusic Player is that it conserves energy without sacrificing power. This is a very powerful player! The sound quality is excellent! – the sound is crisp and clear at any volume level. During testing, I tried to crank it up to its highest possible volume but had to stop short for fear of blasting out my eardrums. The base tone on the slotMusic Player is also a great plus.

Another thing I noticed was that the slotMusic Player did not respond well to my MP3 file drag–drop method of loading the MicroSD’s memory. There was a twelve second delay between songs. However, the slotMusic Player was not designed for these music hacking methods. When I used the Windows Media Player to Sync the files it worked seamlessly. Though I have not tried, I know that the slotMusic Player was also optimized to function properly using Apple and Linux software.

The slotMusic Player with microSD might be the perfect option for allot of users however, there are a few downsides. The player has no belt clip or hook or loop or anything that can secure the player easily. It will thus require the use of a compatible harness or case. The slotMusic Player also has no internal memory, so nothing can be saved on the player itself. All files have to be kept on these tiny disks that can be easily misplaced. Currently, the microSD’s hold 1GB of memory (which I think is allot considering its size!) so you may need to carry around a few of these disks to have all of your music handy. -Correction, they now have microSD disks from SanDisk that can hold 16GB of memory!

Perhaps its best feature is its ability to pause and resume from where you left off no matter how long you let the player stand idle. This is a great feature for people who like to listen to podcasts on their players, as you can pause and resume easily and worry free. The slotMusic Player simply hibernates when left on pause, using up no extra power. In all, I really liked the SanDisk Sansa slotMusic Player, its basic yet sleek design and price will make this a practical choice for many searching for simplicity and quality.

The sansa slotMusic player and microSD albums will soon be sold at Best Buys and Walmart. Expect prices of about $19.99 for the player and $14.99 for the microSD albums.

or just follow the link to purchase the sansa slotMusic player online.

SanDisk’s Sansa web site/home page address: www.sansa.com
slotMusic.org’s online: www.slotmusic.org

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