A portable digital music system was unveiled by SanDisk on Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The new Sansa MP3 music player – to compete with Apple’s iPod – is based on memory cards preloaded with songs, and is a companion line of slotRadio music cards.

Comprising a decent-looking player, which is square and with a thickness of a deck of cards, the Sansa music system is just perfect for the laid-back music lover.

Priced at $99, the Sansa slotRadio comes packaged with a slotRadio card, which is preloaded with 1,000 songs specially selected from the Billboard charts, and professionally set into an assortment of genre-themed play lists.

Commenting on the wide range of music made available on the new device, SanDisk’s senior vice president and general manager, Daniel Schreiber, said: “One thousand handpicked songs in your pocket, with zero downloads, makes enjoying digital music easier than ever. Never before has music been this accessible.”

SanDisk is hopeful that with slotRadio it would be able to entice those users who are particularly uneasy with loading an iPod with songs downloaded over the Internet, or ripping songs from a disc.

At present, the songs on the preloaded cards are a combination of contemporary and classic tunes. Users desiring new songs can purchase them through SanDisk’s slotMusic memory cards. The new music format was introduced three months back and has been embraced by the four leading music companies - Sony BMG, EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music - plus other main retail outlets.