Digital Home Thoughts: SanDisk Releases $20 Sansa slotMusic Player

"SanDisk on Wednesday unveiled the Sansa slotMusic Player, its new MP3 player for listening to music on the go. According to the company, the plug & play, portable music player was specially designed for use with the new slotMusic cards available today in the United States. The company rolled out both a Sansa-branded player and new personalized, branded slotMusic players for popular artists such as Robin Thicke and ABBA -- both of which are shipping to U.S. stores today, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart and are expected to be available from retailers in Europe and other regions of the world in 2009."

Well, it looks like slotMusic wasn't just empty industry hype - we posted on it back in September, but I wasn't sure if this was really going to happen or if it was one of those "let's make this public and watch the reaction" scenarios. SanDisk has released the Sansa slotMusic player, and it will sell for a mere $19.99. For that price, you get the Sansa slotMusic Player, slotMusic player shell, earbuds, an AAA Battery, and a Quick Start Guide. That's right, SanDisk is pulling us back into the world of disposable batteries - a very curious move considering the "Go Green" mantra that many people are now chanting. They even tout this as a feature, stating "Free yourself from the hassle of charging". The single AAA battery will apparently give you 15 hours of playback, which is impressive, but who wants to have the hassle of manging a collection of rechargeable AAA batteries? File support for the player is MP3, OGG, FLAC, WMA without DRM.

I'm more positive about slotMusic as a whole than I am this SanDisk player. Do people really want a cheap, low-end player like this? Is listening to your new album on slotMusic worth buying a special player just to do so? I kind of doubt it, but I guess we'll see. What's your take on this new player from SanDisk?