Not all of the Slacker Portable Player's memory is available for transferring your own music-most of it is dedicated to Slacker stations (that is the point, after all). To that end, Slacker provides a contextual soft key that shows up in the playback area to let you reverse through songs. However, you can see how this absence might cause a problem while listening to library tracks. You'll notice that there's no reverse or rewind function, because you can't go backward through a radio station. A home/back key, scroll/select wheel, power/hold switch, and track skip and pause buttons round out the controls on the right edge. The top of the player houses the headphone port and dedicated volume buttons, which aren't in the most ergonomic position because of the size and shape of the device-plan to do some finger stretching to adjust the levels. Just above these are the Ban and Heart buttons, which are used for marking unwanted songs and favorites on the fly. On the left side are the two syncing/charging ports: a standard mini USB for a computer connection and a proprietary port for use with the impending car cradle and other accessories. The Slacker Portable Player's various controls line the edges of the device. Check out our slide show for interface details. However, the interface is straightforward and easy to navigate with the tactile controls. Plus, we often touched it accidentally, which caused various undesirable results (changing stations in the middle of a favorite song). We prefer to leave this feature off as its lack of "swipe" operation-whereby you drag your finger to scroll-makes it less handy. Instead, Slacker includes an optional touch strip along the left edge of the screen. The ample screen is great for displaying album art and other information, though it's a bit counterintuitive that it's not a touch screen, as the large size definitely gives the impression that it would be. It's a hefty (4.2 inches by 2.7 inches by 0.7 inch) device with a face-dominating, 4-inch color LCD (480x272 pixel resolution). The design of the Slacker Portable Player hasn't changed much from the initial beta unit the company had on hand for SXSW 2007.
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