Coming across the Sandisk range at Stufflive we couldn’t see much new on display but we did manage to get a couple of words with them about its upcoming Slot Music player.
Whilst the existing Sansa MP3 players have been around for a while they have now undergone a cosmetic makeover making them look more sleek in a bid to win market share for the California based company from the ever-dominating Apple.
Given that the changes to the Sandisk range are only superficial there isn’t a whole lot more to tell you about them that you wont already know. The range is comprised of the View, Fuze and the Clip each one being roughly a direct competitor for Apple’s range - Clip vs Shuffle, the Fuze vs Nano and View vs Touch. So far – nothing we didn’t already know.
Gaj-IT.com got to talking about future plans for the market with the Sandisk rep and he pulled a little display-less MP3 player out of his pocket and said "think of it like a Walkman".
Looking set to launch in Q1 2009, this player has no screen and no internal memory and as a result will come to market somewhere around the £15 mark and will become a part of the existing Sansa branded range
The key idea behind this is that it’s based on the new Slot Music content delivery concept i.e. SD cards pre-loaded with music MP3s. Apparently it will be comparable to purchasing a normal CD in terms of cost and as the cover on the player is removable (and interchangeable) it seems that new covers with album art will be available with the Slot Music purchases, though i’m not sure if it will be separately or bundled. At launch you should be able to pick up a player and a pre-loaded SD card (with extra cover!) for around £20.
We’ll sit on the fence for now; On one hand, a simple, cheap display-less device with an SD slot could be just what you are looking for but on the other we’re not sure we’d be interested in carrying extra covers everywhere changing them every time the album changed. And if it will cost the same as a CD why wouldn’t I just buy a CD and put the MP3s on one of my existing MP3 enabled devices? Time will tell whether this will be the Blu Ray or HDDVD of the MP3 player market.
Look for the Sandisk player to hit shops in Feb/Mar of next year, from £15.
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Thanks to Paddy O’Hara for the pics at the show.
Let us know what you think of the Slot Music concept in the box below.
2 thoughts on “Stufflive: Hands on look at the upcoming Sansa Slot Music Player”
These are great prices from Sansa- you do of course get what you pay for, but there’s definitely a market out there that are going to lap these up.
Although I am always a big fan of trying out new things I’m just not sure if these will catch on, especially with the extra cover business!
I mean, why would I need another extra thing to carry around in my handbag when I could opt for a more expensive but less faffy MP3 which could do a better job of fulfilling my needs?