Slacker Personal Radio comes to Android

This has been a pretty big week for Android fans. Verizon Wireless became the third US operator to hop on board the Android bandwagon, and did so with not one, but two different Android devices.

The Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris are bother very impressive phones. Of course, a good smartphone becomes a great smartphone when developers create high quality applications for the platform.

One of those apps to be released this week is the Slacker Personal Radio player. It appeared in the Android market on Thursday, and is free of charge.

Using the app is free as well - though if you want to remove ads and add the ability to skip more than 6 tracks an hour, you'll want to consider upgrading to Slacker Radio Plus (starting at just $3.99/month).

The app mimics the Slacker browser interface nicely, and you get the same favorite/block controls that give you full control over your music preferences.

I found the time to load tracks a bit on the long side, even when on 3G, and unlike on the Blackberry Slacker version, no tracks are cached to the memory card, so you will always need to be in range of WiFi or a cell signal to use Slacker. And, unlike on the iPhone, Slacker runs nicely in the background, and even shows your current track in the Android dropdown notification bar.

Filed under: Gadling Gear Review