Cardiff Giant11

Wasn't sure whether to put this here or tech talk but since I'm focusing on the music content I thought here was best.

So with my recent dumping of XM I've been exploring alternatives. Thus far I'm liking Last.fm alot. My library sounds a lot like Fred on 44 did. However, there are some gaps. In addition to that I added the data plan to my phone to use it at work and while I do use a few other things on the plan, last.fm is most of it. At 30 bucks a month I wonder if I'd be served just as well by slacker premium radio and ponying up for the portable player. I'm intrigued by Slacker but from what I've observed I'm afraid the playlists are a bit limited and not as deep as I've found last.fm/the "old" XM to be.

Anyone regularly use both services? I've listened to slacker a bit but not enough to make a call on it. I do like the idea of the portable player they offer but 200 bucks is a lot to shell out especially if the content isn't what I'm looking for.

Anyhow would love to hear everyone's thoughts on either or both sites.

heimerSWT

When you say "30 bucks a month" are you talking about the $30 data plan for At&t? If it is the iPhone, the last.fm app is good...but the FlyCast app is great as well (can access Shoutcast).

Cardiff Giant11

Yes 30 bucks if for the dataplan. I don't have an iPhone (Treo 750) so not too many native options out there, but luckily someone figured out a way to get the last.fm stream playing in a regular media player app so that's what I've been using.

GatorDeb

Before you run out adding a dataplan you don't have yet, I got Last.fm on my Palm Centro and it eats batteries like crazy. Doesn't last long at all.

Cardiff Giant11

Yeah I had the data plan already, I found that it ate my battery even while it was on the charger. So I decided I'm going to drop the data plan/last.fm at work and I bought the slacker portable. I setup a custom station with artists from the XM station I liked and it's REALLY good so far. Good depth with hits thrown in, no repeated songs in ~14 hours of listening. A few artists get more plays than others but it's not bad by any means. The portable player is a really cool piece of hardware. I'll still use Last.fm when I'm home doing stuff as it is a great service though but Slacker and the portable is a hard combo to beat.

GatorDeb

After I used Last.fm and I had closed the app, I noticed it took a few cycles for the battery to go back to normal and not discharge rapidly.

GatorDeb

If anyone's interested in this Buy.com has the 8 gig version for $100 after $15 rebate.

Cardiff Giant11

Is it the first gen player or the second (big rectangle is first gen). Reading the slacker forums it sounds like there are some unresolved problems with the first gen player and no further firmware update is expected. that swung me to get the G2 along with the smaller size and improved design.

GatorDeb

The first, but it's $100 for 8 gigs or $200 for 2 gigs, so I figure for someone in the fence they might put up with a few glitches The major thing is that is cuts off the lead into a song sometimes.