In an attempt to up its competitive ante against Apple’s iPod , SanDisk Corp. today unveiled a new Sansa MP3 music player as a companion to the company’s line of slotRadio music cards, which come preloaded with music.
For $99, SanDisk’s Sansa slotRadio comes bundled with a slotRadio card preloaded with 1,000 songs handpicked from the Billboard charts, and professionally arranged into a variety of genre-themed playlists.
“slotRadio’s unprecedented simplicity will have even the most time-pressed music fans enjoying a huge range of music in no time,” Daniel Schreiber, senior vice president and general manager at SanDisk said. “One thousand handpicked songs in your pocket with zero downloads makes enjoying digital music easier than ever. Never before has music been this accessible.”
SanDisk is positioning its new music player, unveiled in time for the Consumer Electronics Show, as an easier way to enjoy music than devices that require software and file downloads, along with various accessories such as cables.
The player’s cards feature a variety of playlists from Billboard’s charts, including rock, contemporary and country, organized into themes such as “chillout,” or “workout.” The songs cannot be removed from the card or copied.
“Solutions like slotRadio that offer competitively priced, straightforward new ways to acquire and interact with music will play a key role in driving demand among new and existing digital music device and service users as those markets continue to evolve,” said Susan Kevorkian, program director for Consumer Markets at IDC.
The player is made of die-cast aluminum and has a 1.5-in. OLED screen for viewing artist and song information, an FM radio and a belt clip. Additional 1,000 song, genre-specific and themed slotRadio cards will be sold separately at $39.99.
