Milipitas, Calif. — The first four 1,000-song SlotRadio music cards, designed for playback on select SanDisk MP3 players, became available through SanDisk Web site www.slotradio.org and will be available soon in RadioShack stores nationwide, SanDisk announced.
The preloaded MicroSD cards are targeted to time-pressed consumers who lack the time or patience to
download individual songs or rip CDs. Each $39.99-suggested card contains songs in one of the following genres: rock, country, oldies and hip hop/R&B. The cards contain music from “several” but not all of the major music companies, SanDisk told TWICE.
“This is the fastest, easiest and most affordable way for consumers to enjoy the music they love,” said Noam Kedem, SanDisk’s product management VP.
The songs are playable only on SanDisk’s new SlotRadio music-only player and on SanDisk Sansa Fuze players after downloading a firmware update. Fuzes offer audio/video playback in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB versions at suggested retails of $79.99 to $129. The Sansa SlotRadio player, available on the SlotRadio Web site, retails for a suggested $99.99 with a bundled 1,000-song card featuring multiple music genres organized into genre-themed playlists. The die-cast aluminum SlotRadio player features a 1.5-inch OLED screen for viewing artist and song information as well as an FM radio and integrated belt clip.
RadioShack is among the retailers selling Sansa Fuzes, and the chain soon will also sell the new SlotRadio player, SanDisk said.
Songs on SlotRadio cards are locked to the cards and can’t be copied, and as the SlotRadio name implies, the songs can’t be “rewound” or their order rearranged by end users. Nonetheless, users can skip songs and navigate between factory-set playlists, the company said. On the rock card, for example, songs are organized into playlists by decade, theme and mood.
The Billboard Rock card includes classic, hard and modern rock hits from such artists as Bon Jovi, Coldplay, Fall Out Boy, Santana, System of a Down and The Who. The Billboard Country card features songs from country music legends and current artists, including Johnny Cash, George Strait, Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban and Hank Williams Jr. The Billboard Oldies features playlists ballad, pop, R&B, Motor City and rock playlists and includes songs from the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and The Temptations. The Billboard Hip Hop/R&B card includes Akon, Snoop Dogg, Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson and TLC.
Last year in a separate but related development, SanDisk teamed with the four largest music companies to launch 1GB MicroSD cards with preloaded songs at a suggested $14.99. The cards, called SlotMusic cards, are sold with unrestricted MP3-format music playable on any MP3 player, including cellphones.
