SanDisk Corporation, a company that has grown to become the world's largest supplier of innovative flash memory data storage products, today introduced its Sansa slotRadio player and companion line of slotRadio music cards at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES (News - Alert)) in Las Vegas.

 

Targeted at the casual music consumer, the Sansa slotRadio player is a compact, sleek, portable music device that comes with a slotRadio card preloaded with 1,000 songs from the Billboard charts. A bonus feature is that the songs are all professionally arranged into a variety of playlists based on genre (hip-hop, rock, blues, etc.)

 

"slotRadio's unprecedented simplicity will have even the most time-pressed music fans enjoying a huge range of music in no time," stated Daniel Schreiber, senior vice president and general manager, SanDisk (News - Alert). "1,000 handpicked songs in your pocket with zero downloads makes enjoying digital music easier than ever. Never before has music been this accessible."

 

With this new player, consumers gain a new way to enjoy their music. Portable music devices usually require software installations, after which users have to spend time selecting music and downloading files. Oftentimes they have to deal with slow cable connections and wait for synchronization.

"slotRadio dramatically lowers these barriers, offering a genuine alternative to existing options," said Noam Kedem, vice president of product management, SanDisk. "This makes slotRadio a perfect player for the pressed-for-time mom, the harried traveler, the can't-stop-now fitness fanatic, as well as anyone who just wants to kick back and discover new songs, or re-discover a timeless favorite."

 

The slotRadio comes with a mix card that has 1,000 songs and features a variety of playlists from Billboard's charts, including rock, contemporary, country, and others organized into themes such as "chillout," "workout" and more. Songs, however, cannot be deleted from the card, but users can easily navigate between the playlists, and skip through songs with just the press of a button.

 

"slotRadio offers a uniquely uncomplicated portable digital music experience, combining the music discovery aspects of radio with consumer choice in genre selection," said Susan Kevorkian, program director, Consumer Markets at IDC (News - Alert). "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."

 

The die-cast aluminum music player retails for $99.99 (MSRP) and includes the 1,000 song card. It also features a 1.5" OLED screen so users can see artist and song information, a FM radio and even an integrated belt clip for users to enjoy hands-free listening. Additional 1,000 song, genre-specific and themed slotRadio cards will be sold separately at $39.99 MSRP.

 

Interested consumers should expect to be able to purchase the Sansa slotRadio player online at sansa.com and at more than 4,400 RadioShack stores nationwide in early 2009.

 

The Sansa slotRadio cards are designed to be work with any slotRadio player and will also be compatible with the Sansa Fuze line of MP3 players.

 

The Sansa slotRadio Player extends SanDisk's Sansa audio/video product family, which includes the recently unveiled slotMusic player and cards for music fans, the popular Sansa Fuze and the small Sansa Clip.

Silicon Valley-based SanDisk Corporation, the inventor and world's largest supplier of flash storage cards, is a global leader in flash memory - from research, manufacturing and product design to consumer branding and retail distribution. SanDisk's product portfolio includes flash memory cards for mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders; digital audio/video players; USB flash drives for consumers and the enterprise; embedded memory for mobile devices; and solid state drives for computers.