I'm a huge consumer of digital music in its many forms. My messenger bag always has at least one MP3 player. In my house I've got satellite radios scattered around, Internet radios in a couple rooms, the 40 music channels I get through my TV provider and music servers delivering tunes from a variety of sources. Oh yes, CDs too.
Mostly though, I find myself listening to Internet radio services Slacker and Pandora because they give me access to thousands of songs I like without costing me a dime. I like Slacker in particular because it lets you create your own stations and even pick the songs that will be played on them. It's a bit like the all-you-can eat subscriptions from Napster and Rhapsody, but free.
But what happens when you turn off the computer. The Slacker G2 portable player allows you to take your favorite Slacker stations with you wherever you go. It's got a built-in Wi-Fi radio that will sync with your Slacker account and download playlists for up to 25 music channels (about 2,500 songs on the 4GB version) which can be played an infinite number of times and then refreshed next time you’re in a hot spot. You can also put your own MP3s on the G2, but that subtracts from the memory available for the Slacker tunes.
Setting up the G2 takes only about 10 minutes. After you've set up your Slacker account, go into the connect menu of the G2 and set it to search for your network. After entering your password info the connection goes quickly. You then go back to the Slacker Web site and enter a device ID number. Then it's just a matter of picking the channels you want synchronized with the G2 (you can select from your custom channels or the 100 or so genre channels). The first time I sync'd up the process took more than an hour, but subsequent connections went much faster.
Navigating a full G2 may feel a bit clunky for iPod users, but you get accustomed to the interface very quickly. On the right of the unit is a scroll wheel similar to those on some Blackberry phones. Press the wheel in to make a selection. Under the wheel is a Home button, which takes you to the main screen where you can select your station, access your track library and the player settings to connect to a network.
