Last year, Slacker burst onto the scene with their free radio service. From my brief experience with the service, it provided custom stations with all my favorite artists, and did a nice job of analyzing my music and recommending new artists to me. They eventually released the Slacker Portable radio, that allowed you to listen to all your radio stations on the go, and stream new songs via the built-in WiFi connection. It was an ambitious start for the company headed by former executives of iriver, Rio, and Musicmatch, but it wasn't without its faults. According to Cnet, the Slacker portable was too large, had horrible battery life, and was just too expensive (8GB's for $299). Now Slacker wants to take a second crack at the whole portable thing. They've just announced the Slacker G2, which looks like it improves on the first gen's faults. It has a smaller form-factor, and replaces the sharp edges from the original with a nice rounded contour. Battery life is also improved from 10 to 15 hours.

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Cnet Reviews the Slacker G2

Cnet got their hands on the Slacker G2 and seemed to like it a little more than the first:



The good: The Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player works with Slacker's excellent free music service, and it offers built-in Wi-Fi for grabbing new music on-the-go. It features a compact and sturdy design with a large, bright LCD that displays true full-screen album art.

The bad: The Slacker G2 does not offer extra features such as photo and video support, the controls are not completely intuitive, the volume buttons are not very responsive, and sound quality is not great.

The bottom line: The Slacker G2 is the ultimate lazy person's MP3 player. Paired with the excellent--and free--Slacker music service, it makes new music discovery and enjoyment a nearly effortless process, but control freaks and audiophiles need not apply.

Score: 7.0/10 (original received a 6.0/10)

The Slacker G2 will come with a pair of premium earphones and costs $199 for the 4GB model (25 stations), and $299 for the 8GB (40 stations). That still seems too expensive, considering the lack of video support and the limited storage for your personal music. Ultimately, I think Slacker has carved a niche for themselves, but sadly one that isn't all that desirable.

Slacker G2
Cnet Review