Slacker Radio
Posted on May 24, 2009 by Rob in All, Older, Review
One Comment
I’ve been a fan of streaming radio since the early days of WinAmp and Shoutcast. Now streaming reaches a whole new level with mobile device support. There are a few choices when it comes to streaming on your desktop and phone, but the one that stands above the crowd on BlackBerry is Slacker Radio.
When Slacker was first announced last year, BlackBerry users were chomping at the bit to try out this new addition. After a few delays it was finally released and quickly proved to be worth the wait. Slacker just feels complete. You get a choice of countless stations you can either discover or create. Stations are easily modified to cater to your specific sound. You have the option to add artists, change discovery rates, and more.
Music is streamed in full stereo and sounds amazing on my 8330 BlackBerry Curve.
The big advantage Slacker has over other mobile streaming apps is the ability to cache stations directly to your memory card so you can listen offline and greatly conserve battery life. This is a huge bonus for BlackBerry users (feature not available on iPhone) and gives it a definite edge over the competition.
It’s hard to give a review of Slacker without comparing it to the other giant in the radio world, Pandora. When it comes to mobile streaming, Slacker blows Pandora away. Slacker offer stereo streaming, while Pandora is still mono. Slacker also offers their cache option, while Pandora is lacking in this department. They both offer subscription packages that remove ads and give you a desktop client, but Slacker allows unlimited song skips with their premium service. Pandora still limits to 6 skips per hour, even for premium users.
The feel of Slacker is simple and fast. You have the ability to skip songs, mark as favorite (or disliked), and preview album art, artist bios, and even lyrics. Slacker has the look and style of a full featured desktop app right on your mobile phone.
I found there to be little to no lag when streaming live on Verizon’s 3G network. Skipping songs takes a second or two and I didn’t get any pauses while playing. I’m sure this may vary depending on coverage, but with the cache option you won’t have to worry about leaving your coverage area (well, as long as you’re on a BlackBerry).
I did have a couple major dissapointments with Slacker. There is no Mac support, so if you want to cache stations or use the desktop app, you better find a Windows machine. Pandora has excellent Mac support and I was sad to see Slacker leaving this entire demographic in the dark. I also found song offerings on my stations were not quite as good as with Pandora. Slacker has a much bigger library of music to choose from, but whatever method they use to choose songs is not as effective as Pandora’s Music Genome Project.
All in all, Slacker should be your first choice when it comes to mobile streaming. Even with the free service you get the best experience out there. The yearly subscription is definitely worth it as well as the unlimited skip option is great. Slacker is one of my favorite BlackBerry apps for a reason. Discovering new music has never been easier in the internet age, and now with Slacker on your phone, you have the world to listen to!
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Glenn
25. May, 2009
While it is true that you can’t run the slacker desktop application under OS X, you can still take advantage of the web player. That is how I learned about Slacker and how I listened until I bought my Slacker (G1) Player. I love it.