The new SanDisk slotMusic card format delivers music "albums" on microSD cards, ready to play on billions of mobile phones with microSD slots, and also free of copy protection so they can be transferred to PCs and other devices (see previous posts).
The slotMusic format is a nice way of delivering no-fuss digital music, but putting only one album with 10 or so songs on a microSD card is a huge waste of space in an era of multi-gigabyte cards. And carrying around music on the tiny cards and swapping them on the go could be something of a pain.
Instead, the SanDisk slotRadio card format, announced at CES in January 2009, fills a card with a thousand songs, professionally selected and pre-organized into genres and themes. The idea is to present a lean-back "radio-like" experience -- you just select the type of music that you're interested in hearing, and the playlist is ready to go.
SanDisk is releasing the SanDisk Sansa slotRadio Player in early 2009 to play this new format for $99.99, including a 1,000-song card. The slotRadio mix card will have around 10 genres (rock, contemporary, country), so you can choose the style of music to fit your mood and then just enjoy. Additional cards will be available for $39.99, with all 1,000 songs selected for a specific genre or theme.
Unfortunately, unlike the slotMusic format, the slotRadio cards will be copy protected (with SanDisk TrustedFlash). The format initially will only be playable in the Sansa slotRadio Player and the Sansa Fuse player, and not on the the older View and Clip models.
SanDisk also is working with mobile phone vendors to support the slotRadio format in new models -- both the DRM and the slotRadio interface to access the music.
See my Portable Media Players Gallery for more on the Sansa slotMusic and slotRadio players, and other music and video players
See full article -- SanDisk slotMusic - A New Music Format