1. Brian.'s Avatar
    Are there any major differences between the 2??

    I have Slacker now and I don't see any other "free" music app being better.
    03-19-09 02:37 AM
  2. rockigirl's Avatar
    03-19-09 03:08 AM
  3. groggycorpse's Avatar
    I had slacker. Pandora is MUCH better!!!! No commercials that I have run into. And you get 6 skips per hour. You set up your own stations by related artist. Awsome app!!!

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    03-19-09 07:01 AM
  4. Slate004's Avatar
    6skips an hour per station!!!!! Pandora is the best by far
    03-19-09 10:32 AM
  5. papped's Avatar
    Pandora audio quality sucks, which is a dealbreaker. No caching also.
    03-19-09 10:49 AM
  6. hbelkin's Avatar
    Slacker also has 5 or 6 skips per station per hour. And Slacker has station caching on BB, which I believe Pandora does not.
    This allows loading a few stations which can then be listened to without online coverage. Two advantages: No troubles with providers complaining about excessive streaming use, and ability to listen anywhere (elevators, basements, etc.)
    03-19-09 11:31 AM
  7. acowart's Avatar
    I had slacker. Pandora is MUCH better!!!! No commercials that I have run into. And you get 6 skips per hour. You set up your own stations by related artist. Awsome app!!!

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    While there are no audio ads, their image ads were more intrusive than I expected.

    During my last 2-minute session, I received 3 image ads on my screen (One during loading, one right after the first song showed, and another right after I clicked the thumbs down on the first song).
    03-19-09 12:03 PM
  8. papped's Avatar
    Pandora seems to repeat songs A LOT too if you thumbs up them...

    I played maybe 20 songs or so and heard 4+ repeats... The faster buffering on Pandora is nice, but:
    1 - It's faster because the quality is noticeably lower.
    2 - Not much of an issue with Slacker caching anyways.

    I have a somewhat more indepth comparison of the two on my site at the bottom of the page.
    Last edited by papped; 03-19-09 at 12:27 PM.
    03-19-09 12:23 PM
  9. biggdogg40509's Avatar
    6skips an hour per station!!!!! Pandora is the best by far
    i concur....this is why i ditched slacker now that pandora is here.
    i don't have constant buffering any more.
    03-19-09 02:34 PM
  10. papped's Avatar
    Use the Slacker caching. Buffering isn't an issue and it uses less battery than Pandora =P
    03-19-09 02:40 PM
  11. Not_Your_Princess420's Avatar
    With Slacker my phone would stop....loooooooad.....play for a minute...stop....looooooooad....play for a minute....and I was always listening to the comedy station so it wasn't very funny when it did that. I deleted it after an hour. But Pandora rocks!! Even those stupid ads don't bug me cuz I'm not looking at my acreen anyways.
    03-20-09 02:39 PM
  12. papped's Avatar
    With Slacker my phone would stop....loooooooad.....play for a minute...stop....looooooooad....play for a minute....and I was always listening to the comedy station so it wasn't very funny when it did that. I deleted it after an hour. But Pandora rocks!! Even those stupid ads don't bug me cuz I'm not looking at my acreen anyways.
    Again, use the caching... Sounds like almost nobody is....
    03-20-09 02:55 PM
  13. baseballkyle's Avatar
    Cached station or no cached station, Pandora does NOT hog the device while in use like Slacker does. It slows down the Bold significantly. Pandora is lightweight. I agree the audio quality needs to be improved. But Pandora also has, for me anyways, years of thumbs up/down data which really has my music honed in on my favorites and similar styles. Having a slick online counterpart and being on multiple platforms makes it much better overall IMHO.
    03-20-09 03:12 PM
  14. mookish's Avatar
    For me slacker loads pretty quickly between songs, I listen to the comedy station all night and while driving and sometimes the transition is seamless. Sound is very loud too, I can hear clearly with the phone in my lap and all the road noise. I even listen in the shower, sound quality is good at max volume.

    Never even noticed a slowdown with other processes.
    03-20-09 03:51 PM
  15. EvolutionCSR's Avatar
    +1 for slacker. I never had any problems with slacker loading times on Bold or 8900. Also as stated above the caching feature is awesome. Not saying pandora is bad but IMO it's slacker all the way.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    03-21-09 01:57 AM
  16. bloodbath's Avatar
    I've used Slacker and although it's nice, it seemed to slow my phone down. Songs would also stop, play, then stop, start playing again, etc throughout the song. This became very annoyng after a short time. When it did play a song most of the way through, the sound quality wasn't bad. I never used the cache feature so I can't comment on it.

    I have not seen a slow-down problem with Pandora. Music quality might have been slightly worse (I couldn't tell (honestly), but not to the point of it being unenjoyable. The visual ads versus the audio commercials (Slacker) was better for me since I don't look at my phone that much while it's playing. I will admit though, even the Slacker audio commercials don't bother me all that much.

    For me, Pandora works better. However Slacker is awesome too. I'm debating on whether to keep them both and just use one or the other depending on what I want to hear (more personalized stations of Pandora or Preset genres of Slacker).
    03-21-09 10:16 AM
  17. rasp's Avatar
    I tried slacker... tons of pauses like everyone else. I'm not really sure why I'd want to cache streaming net radio... I though the whole point was so that I could, you know, stream. *shrug*

    audio quality is sufficient enough for me with pandora, and I don't notice the ads on screen since I'm not looking at the screen when listening.
    03-21-09 10:25 AM
  18. Crackberrykills's Avatar
    I prefer Pandora, but the audio quality leaves a lot to be desired. It, Pandora, sounds much better on the puter.
    03-21-09 10:28 AM
  19. Trayler's Avatar
    I've tried both and I prefer Pandora,it's faster and although I like the fact that you can cache with Slacker,I feel the size of the app is a turn off.Can't say I've noticed much of a difference in audio quality.
    03-21-09 02:06 PM
  20. scrappyhare's Avatar
    Does either app have a classical music station?
    03-22-09 01:13 AM
  21. PTOWNSMOSTWANTED_723's Avatar
    PANDORA is nice. Slacker not so much.
    03-23-09 05:10 PM
  22. RACEFACE's Avatar
    Does either app have a classical music station?
    Yes.....Slacker has 3 Classical Music Stations
    03-23-09 09:37 PM
  23. jhilker's Avatar
    I used Pandora a bunch before I had my BlackBerry, but have gotten used to working with Slacker. It has support for Bluetooth devices, and saves battery use through caching. I'll continue to watch Pandora, but I'm sticking with Slacker until I see more improvements.
    03-23-09 10:06 PM
  24. dcjr99's Avatar
    Hey guys I love slacker on my bold, have not cared for the Pandora but, certainly did give it a shot. Just +1 slacker for now..

    DANIEL
    03-23-09 10:58 PM
  25. BBGirl88's Avatar
    I've used both and for me Pandora wins hands down. I think the sound quality is just as good as slacker and I don't have to deal with random commercials on my "commercial free" radio using Pandora. If there are ads on the screen I wouldn't know cuz the only time I look at it is to skip a song.
    I love the personalized stations along with the quick mix feature it reminds me of shuffling through my playlists except I get some new stuff thrown in every now and again.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    03-24-09 12:53 AM
58 123
LINK TO POST COPIED TO CLIPBOARD