Slacker, a new startup led by a team of veterans in the digital music arena, aims to offer what it considers a new level of “personal radio” by combining elements of Internet radio, portable music and satellite distribution, while letting users choose the tunes, genres or artists they want.

Here’s how it works: users who log on to Slacker can begin listening to music from more than 10,000 stations that are built around specific artists and preprogrammed genres. Users also can create their own stations by indicating what types of songs they want and letting the Slacker “DJ”  a mostly automated system based on complicated algorithms fill out the station program with more content.

Customization adjustments to stations include choosing “more popular” versus “more eclectic,” or newer versus older music. Users can click on a button to ban a certain song. Clicking on a “heart” button will mark the track as a favorite and cause the song to be played more often on that station. Users also will be able to e-mail their friends with their favorite stations.

After the Slacker players become available, users will be able to have their personal radio stations delivered to the portable devices. Slacker says it will push radio tracks to the portable players or car kits, on which they’ll be stored for playback. The gadgets will not have to be connected to a wireless network for playback. They’ll refresh the music data whenever the devices detect a Wi-Fi or satellite connection.

Last month, Slacker already landed deals with major music companies like EMI Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, to make their music available on its yet-to-be-launched Slacker Personal Radio portable digital player. It already has a deal with Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

Like its rivals Pandora and last.fm, Slacker’s radio services Slacker lets users personalize what they hear based on their tastes. But the founders aim to go one step further by letting them take favorite stations on the road via a Wi-Fi-enabled digital music player.

The Slacker Personal Radio Player, which is about the size of a deck of cards, sports a 4-inch color screen and can also store and play back digital music and videos that a user owns.

Early prototypes of the player look promising, some insiders say. But, the question is, will everyday consumers get it? Only time will tell. Stay tuned.