SanDisk’s Sansa slotRadio digital music player, unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, will ship starting March. 31.
The company is betting on the idea that consumers want to carry music cards, instead of depending on digital downloads.
The new Sansa music players come with a slotRadio card, a memory card that is preloaded with 1,000 songs from the Billboard charts and playlists featuring a variety of genres. The players have a 1.5-inch OLED screen and FM radio.
SanDisk believes slotMusic cards and a player combination offers consumers a plug and play model. Instead of connecting their music players to their computers and downloading files to it, the slotRadio cards come preloaded with music. It’s not for the tech savvy but for the Janes and Joes who just want to plug in a card, pick a genre and listen to music, says a company spokesperson.
The new players will be first available online on the SanDisk.com website and in stores shortly after that.
SanDisk’s latest product hasn’t met with many positive comments. The idea has been criticized by bloggers for the restrictions the cards impose on consumers. The slotMusic cards are tied to a player, and listeners cannot choose the order in which the songs will be played.
As more consumers give up CDs and move towards digital music, there is also the question of whether the market really wants to take a step back towards physical media, this time in the form of memory cards filled with music.
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