When I sat down to write this review, I wanted to come up with some witty title that described how I feel about the Sansa slotMusic Player. I tried, but I just kept coming back to one thought: As a portable music player, it’s pretty great, but as a portable player as cool as it is for only twenty bucks, this thing rocks.
The design
When I saw the slotMusic Player on the Sansa web site, it looked like a light-weight plastic and I was a little worried that it would feel that way, too. When I opened it up, though, it was a pleasant surprise. In the package was the player, some ear bud headphones, a single AAA battery to power it, and little booklet to help you use it. The booklet is a unique way to help people use the device and is a lot more inviting than the typical black and white all text instruction manual. Instead of lots of boring reading, you get seven cards bound together, each containing a mini quick guide.
The player, itself is small (1.45″ x 2.84″ x .6″) and weighs 1.7 ounces, so it’s a great size and weight for a portable player. It’s also very curvy and looks smooth. All this beauty comes at a price, however. The one thing I noticed right away when I started it playing music was that it doesn’t have a clip. Without any kind of belt or shirt clip, I ended up just throwing it in my back pocket, but a clip could have been very handy. I also would have loved to see a small digital display, but I don’t expect that to come bundled with the low price. If I had to pay another dollar for the clip, it would be worth it, though. The player uses a microSD card for storage, so you can have 512MB for a few dollars or as much as 8GB for about $38. I love a device I can upgrade, but I also love a device that comes with a standard power source. The face that it uses a single AAA battery means I can just buy a pair of rechargable batteries and swap them out as needed after about 15 hours of playback without worrying about having to buy an expensive proprietary battery. Next to the standard headphone jack are the volume + and – buttons and the play/pause, forward and back buttons are on the side, accompanied by a little blue LED.
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Use your own music
One of the cool things about this is that you can just buy an album already loaded onto a slotMusic card for about $15, you can make your own mix, or both. Sansa was cool enough to send along the Weezer Red Album for me to test with, and I was able to add in some of my own MP3s. The album came with a little USB microSD card reader. I just slipped the card in, dragged some tracks over right from iTunes, and put the card back into the player. OK.. Truthfully, I had to convert the tracks to MP3 in iTunes first, but as long as you have MP3 or DRM-free WMA tracks, you can just drag them into the My Music folder on the slotMusic card and you’re ready to rock. The album also came with a little plastic protective case, and an insert booklet. Not bad for a digital album, but I think they’ll do much better if they make the digital version cheaper than the CD.
Playing music on the go
Navigating through and listening to the music on a slotMusic player is pretty simple. To get started, in needs power. With a little pressure, I slid off the outer shell of the player, inserted the battery, and slide the shell back on. To turn it on, just press the play button for a second and it’ll start playing right away. Everything else is intuitive. For example, if you press the forward or back buttons, it’ll go forward a track or to the beginning of the current track. Press the back button twice quickly to go back a track and hold the forward or back buttons to skip forward or back a little in the current track. Pressing the play/pause button will pause or unpause the playing and holding it for a second will turn the player off. You can use the included headphones or any other headphones with a standard plug. Better still, you can plug the player directly into the Aux port in a newer car to play music through your car’s system. That’ll require a basic cable you have to buy on your own from just about any electronics retailer.
The final thoughts
Sansa is making some good moves in a tough music player market. I initially drooled a bit over the Fuze, but I’m glad Sansa sent this player my way so I could really get an educated opinion of it. Having one in my hand sold me on it a lot more than seeing it online, and now that I’m sold I’m convinced that it’s the best $20 music player that I’ve had the fortune of playing with. The albums are a harder sell, but if you’re looking for a birthday gift for someone, find the right album and pair it with this player for a gift I’m sure they’ll like or just pick one up yourself.
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