Review submitted by M. JEFFREY MCMAHON
Author’s Rating:
Half the price of my Tivoli Songbook, the PR-D5 has superior AM/FM reception, dual stereo speakers, and easy-to-use ergonomics, making it even better than the Sangean single-speaker Sonido. As a bedside radio, it has even better FM reception than my Sangean WR-2 but it lacks the WR-2’s depth and heaviness, qualities I like in a bedside radio. For a lighter, portable radio with no remote, go for the PR-D5. If you want more luxury in your radio (remote, numerical volume indicator, heavier feel) and don’t mind a slight compromise in FM reception, you might want to check out the Sangean WR-2, which is compatible with an upgraded FM antenna attachment.

One question many will have is why the PR-D5 goes for about 15 dollars less than the Sonido. The answer most likely is that the 2.5-inch stereo speakers on the PR-D5 don’t have the richness nor the depth of the Sonido’s 3-inch monoaural speaker.

Update: Ironically, I don’t like listening to talk radio on dual speakers. This is not a technological issue, but psychological. The voices don’t seem as focused as they do on the Sangean WR-2’s monoaural speaker. So if you’re a heavy AM talk radio listener, you might want to opt for the WR-2.

Second Update: To really test the FM on the PR-D5, I tried to pull in the weak college station 88.9. The PR-D5 pulled in the station with clarity, even better than my Eton S350. The verdict: My PR-D5 is my best performing AM/FM radio, even better than the Eton/Grundig S350. That says quite a lot. Even more astounding, the PR-D5 is 15 dollars cheaper.

Third Update: I brought my PR-D5 to my work office and like all the digital radios I’ve tried it suffered compromised reception. I succeeded more with my Tivoli Model Three (same as the Model One with the additional clock). So for your office, if it’s full of computer interference, you might want to go with an upscale analog radio like the aforementioned Tivoli Model One or Three.

Review submitted by Mike Walsh
Author’s Rating:
The PR-D5 upgrades Sangean’s well-reviewed Sonido radio with a second speaker, the 200mm internal AM antenna from their CCRadio, a well designed side-mounted tuning knob, and a few other touches.

The iPod-generation look of the new radio doesn’t appeal to me, but that’s a matter of taste, so you can judge that one for yourself. The pushbuttons unfortunately seem to be the same pressure-sensitive foil type used on the Sonido and CCradio, which tend to stand up poorly to prolonged use, but at least the addition of the new tuning knob means you’ll use the pushbuttons less, so perhaps that’s not a major issue.

I find the dual speakers odd, but the audio is loud and clear, especially in FM stereo mode. Mono FM mode really cleans up the weaker signals. I have not found the dual speakers to be a problem on AM voice, as Jeff McMahon writes. The AUX input is a nice feature given how many MP3 players and other such gadgets people use now. The backlight goes on for a few seconds if you touch any non-analog control – very practical. There’s no real handle, just a slender ridge along the top back of the radio for your fingertips to precariously claw at, so don’t try picking this thing up with wet hands.

What really distinguishes this unit, however, is it’s performance as a receiver. This degree of FM sensitivity and selectivity would be outstanding on any portable, but at this price I suspect it may be a first. Really strong AM receivers are rarer still, despite all the hype that gets thrown around, but the PR-D5 is up there with the best of them. When I ordered it I hoped that it might at best match my aging CCRadio on AM reception, and have indeed found them too close to call – with the newer radio at half the price of the older.

I am giving the PR-D5 fours stars because I find the design quirky, and am concerned mostly with AM voice programming. If you are primarily interested in FM stereo, this design makes more sense. On a strictly value-for-dollar basis, it’s a strong five stars either way.

Hope that helps you decide.

Review submitted by Ethan
Author’s Rating:
I purchased this radio on Amazon and received it today. I am sorely disappointed. Many of the reviews I read online noted the radio’s great AM/FM reception quality, which is the main reason I sprung for this model. However, to my surprise, even in the broadcast-rich region I live in, I received only 5 FM stations clearly. For fun I even checked a map to see where they came from, and they’re all within 10-15 miles of my home. I cannot receive the NPR news station that has a transmitter 6 miles away. By comparison, I receive about 20 FM stations very very clearly on my car radio even when it’s parked right outside my house where I’ve been trying the Sangean. To add insult to injury, the little radio that came inside of my Microsoft Zune MP3 player gets the same stations as the Sangean clearly, and without any antenna! Perhaps mine is faulty, but either way it’s getting returned.

Review submitted by W. A. Hill
Author’s Rating:
As it is with many products these days, a bit more time taken in design and more attention to detail in the execution would have made this a 5-star product. First, just how portable is a unit this large (and heavy, with the 6 C batteries installed) without a shoulder strap? They do give you a grip rail on the back so you won’t drop it carrying it from room to room, but it’s not satisfactory for say, a camping or hiking trip. And speaking of batteries, Sangean did not put a foam pad on the inside of the battery hatch lid to help prevent the batteries from shifting around. That lack is not hard to rectify, but it did detract from my score for this unit. This just in: I wondered if there was any protection for the memory, etc. when it is time to change the batteries, so today (8/26/07) I ran some tests to find out. I pulled a battery for various periods up to one minute – the presets and other memories remained intact and the clock held too. A REAL MANUAL would tell you exactly how much time you have to putz around and get the new batteries in. It would also tell you that you MUST install batteries for the memories to be maintained for lengthy periods.

. As with the RCR-22 which I also reviewed today, the “manual” leaves much to be desired. For the units shipped to North America, Sangean could leave out all the languages except for English, Spanish and French, and use the freed-up pages for more thorough information. Simple things for the non-technical folks like whether you plug the AC adapter into the radio and then into the AC outlet or vice-versa would be useful (the first method is correct for nearly all AC adapters). And for the more technically literate buyer, what happens when you plug in the AC adapter? Does it disconnect the batteries entirely or just protect them with a diode? Apparently the batteries are protected by a diode as nothing happens (the radio keeps on playing and the clock tells the time) when you plug the AC adapter into the radio while the adapter is not plugged into an AC outlet. At least make complete info available from the web site, but noooo… My first Sangean, the ATS-803, AM/FM/Shortwave receiver came with a REAL MANUAL, but then it cost more than twice as much too. Unfortunately some sleazy barstid [sic] stole it from me.

. The controls are very easy to use and the reception is excellent (as noted by Universal Radio on their web site). As with many other Sangean models, the AM tuner and antenna system is not simply an afterthought. The speakers give a very good sound for their size and there is a headphone jack for those who want even better sound quality. I tried a pair of self-powered speakers (such as used with computers, etc.) with it to great effect. As Letterman is fond of saying: You can “blow the roof off the joint!”

. I listen to AM radio a lot, so I’ve looked more closely at that aspect of the PR-D5. This past evening I listened to WSB in Atlanta very clearly (I’m in a deep valley in the Finger Lakes of NY). I recall picking up Charlotte, N.C. and New Orleans too. The length of this unit (10-3/4″) means you will need a good sized, free area on your night stand or table to rotate it for best reception and perhaps a way to elevate it too. Though a couple of my nearby AM stations are working on their transmitters/towers, I am still able to receive them at their current low power outputs.

. The other functions of clock, alarm, timers, etc. work as described, and since this unit lacks a direct-entry number pad, the presets are a necessity. I set them to my regulars and fortunately their frequencies are scattered pretty well across the band (from 570 to 1390) so they can serve as starting points for tuning other frequencies. I’d prefer that the available 10 presets could be used for either AM or FM band stations, but the five I have for AM are just adequate for my needs.

. A thorough manual would have gotten the PR-D5 a 9 point or 4.5 star rating from me. One can’t ask for more pure radio performance from a unit in this price range. I don’t think that anyone would be really disappointed with this radio. .bh.

Review submitted by C. R. Shay
Author’s Rating:
This is amazing. At night I can get AM radio stations that I never knew existed. It has great features as well, like the “humane alarm” (it’s wonderful), station seek, AUX input, and others. Oh, and the FM sounds better than one might expect due to the twin speakers. It’s a really good looking radio too. I know it’s geeky, but I use this to pick up very distant AM talk shows at night; it does that very, very well.

I use this every night and I am SO very please I choose this model. I honestly give this radio five stars! I am VERY pleased with this. Actually, it’s one of my favorite possessions…..

It’s also fair to note that I’ve never owned the CC Radio or the Superradio. I hope this helps and I wish you fun with whichever you purchase.

Review submitted by N. Thorne
Author’s Rating:
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3PJB2AXD5E7GH Check this video out if you want a real life review of this product. I will show you what it looks like, the quality of the product, and my personal review of Coby CX-90.

Review submitted by B. Metchnikoff
Author’s Rating:
i needed an AM radio to listen to while at the office and my first choice was the popular SONY ICF-S10MK2 which is a popular purchase here on Amazon.com… that radio was old, clunky, had a huge antennae, poor AM reception, a manual tuner dial so if you touched it you’d lose your station, and had a mono headphone jack so you could only hear sound out of one side (i verified this with 3 different sets of headphones).

the Coby DX-90 on the other hand was $2.00 more, is smaller, sleek, completely digital (no knobs or dials), has a stereo headphone jack (again verified this with 3 sets of headphones), comes with earbuds (that are not very good, but at least they tried), has an internal antennae, and has awesome AM reception.

get this radio, it’s more than worth the money, don’t get suckered into buying the Sony brand name like I did, you’ll regret it.

Review submitted by Drive-In-Freak
Author’s Rating:
I wasn’t expecting much from a radio that’s sold for such a low price, but I was pleasantly surprised.

VERY good reception on both the AM and FM band…above average to say the least. I’d even go so far as to say it’s comparable (almost as sensitive and selective) to the (well known to long distance radio enthusiasts)Sangean DT200VX AM/FM/TV Portable Pocket-Size Radio at about 1/4 the price.

It’s only drawback in that regard is it’s lack of a FM mono/stereo switch for fringe aria reception…a small flaw worth overlooking.

It’s audio is a bit better than you may expect in this price range(when using a decent set of headphones, of course), but it’s nothing to write home about…I’ll just call it “sufficient” (i.e. not unpleasant or harsh at all). It also has enough output power to drive a set of larger headphones without any problem as well as flat out rock a set of sensitive buds. Of course the earbuds that come with it are awful..but that’s to be expected

All in all I’d say it’s a great radio and worth every dime if not twice as much. A real bargain that performs quite well. Don’t let the price or the brand name fool ya as it’s nothing short of outstanding….especially for it’s price class.

Review submitted by Ronaldo Puertesfeldo
Author’s Rating:
This is a very good little radio in every way EXCEPT: it eats batteries at an alarming rate. LISTEN-UP HERE, I’m trying to help you… if you put new batteries in… use it for a few hours…put it down for a few days…the batteries can be very low…or dead. Yes, its true…. trust me on this… switched “off” this radio is still eating the batteries! I had to remove the batteries every day to get reasonable battery-life…HOWEVER… when you change the batteries… the memory settings erase!…so, you have to re-enter it all every time you change batteries…and… as I mentioned “this thing is hungry for batteries…like no other I’ve ever seen”. Also…the lowest volume level is very loud ! really… WAY TOO LOUD ! at the very first level(BLASTING for my earbuds).

Memory-scan function only goes from low to high…When you go thru the pre-set stations of the memory you must scroll thru all memory settings to get back to a station you just passed. You could ’scan’ back….. “scan-function” goes bowth ways (up or down frequency). If you want to switch back & forth between 2 stations… it is not possible w/ the ‘memory-scan’ function…you must ’scan’ back to the other station…. or scroll thru all other memory settings to get back. OR you could enter only those 2 stations into the memory settings(impractical but possible).

Review submitted by Marina S. Cheney
Author’s Rating:
I was looking just for a little am/fm radio (the size of a small mp3 player, BUT a RADIO not a mp3 player) to take with me when I jog… I like listening to talk radio which is why I wanted both AM and FM. I don’t know why more companies DON’T make both AM and FM – after an exhaustive search on the internet it looks like only a few companies even bother with AM anymore… I bought this little radio not sure what to expect, since the reviews other people were leaving were lukewarm to warm at best… I have no idea why. My radio works great, reception is great, it’s plenty loud even on the first volume level, perhaps it’s not symphony quality – but even when I tune in a rock channel it comes through loud and clear, certainly the same quality as my car factory stereo…. It did take me a few minutes to figure out how it works (it’s pretty simple really) and how to set all the channels… I have already gone out running with it and I have absolutely no complaints. It performs better than I had expected (of course I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect but for the price I decided to take a gamble)… If you’re looking for what I was, then this is the radio for you!

Review submitted by Jason M. Page
Author’s Rating:
I am a long time owner of Squeezebox products and was pretty excited to find out about the little table top Squeezebox Radio model. I picked one up and thought I would share my thoughts.

The first thing you notice is how much heft this little player has. It is really well built and the fit and finish is superb. It has plenty of weight and solid rubber feet so that it won’t skid around on your night stand or table top. The screen looks great and all of the buttons have a nice solid tactile feel. Compared to many other cheap wireless network streaming radios, this device feels an entire order of magnitude better in its construction quality. The only disappointment here is the lack of back lit buttons, for using the radio in low lighting. It’s also worth noting that the entire radio has a high gloss finish that will be a magnet for fingerprints. Looks great though!

The biggest challenge for most consumers with this device will be the initial set up. You need to create an account at [...] in order to set up your new Squeezebox Radio. The device uses this connection to play free internet music services as well as download software updates, etc, to the Radio. I already had a Squeezebox account so this was not a huge challenge for me, but it might be for some people who might be confused that they need to set up an account before they can use the device. There is an option to set up the account from the device itself. Don’t do this (it is slow and tedious)! Go to the website and set it up in a few seconds and then just type your login and password on the device.

Other than the laborious task of entering my full email and password for [...] the rest of the setup is very easy. The Squeezebox Radio supports push to connect wi-fi set up which is common on many newer model wireless routers. It’s similar to programming a garage door opener. Simply point the Squeezebox Radio at your wireless network and for 120 seconds it will try to connect with the push to connect functionality. Then just push the connect button on your router and it’s automagically all set up.

Once set up the Radio will update its firmware and reboot, a process that takes a few extra minutes. After that you are good to go.

In addition to the many built in free online services, you can also play your own music through the Squeezebox Server application. I run the Squeezebox Server application on my HP EX495 Windows Home Server but you can also run Squeezebox Server on any Mac, Windows PC or even Linux box (there are even installable distributions for many Network Attached Storage units). This allows the Squeezebox Radio (and any other Squeeze players) to access all of the music on my home network. It’s absolutely wonderful to be able to take the little table top radio anywhere in the home and listen to your entire music collection.

Sound quality is very good, easily enough to fill a small to medium sized room. It gets quite loud with little to no distortion and the controls are easy to use to change tracks, change volume, etc. Wireless strength is superb. I get a full signal anywhere within about 40 feet of my router, and the radio works anywhere on my suburban property with no audio hiccups or dropouts.

In addition to the intuitive controls such as “home”, “play”, “stop”, “back”, etc, the unit also features six programmable “preset” buttons similar to what you have on a car radio. Setting these up is a bit more of a challenge than you would expect. You are supposed to be able to hold these down on any song, album, playlist, etc, that is being displayed in the radio menu and have it added as a preset. Unfortunately some items don’t add correctly and must first be programmed as a “favorite”. It turns out that you can only add favorites for some items (such as playlists) from the Squeezebox Server web based menu, which is quite inconvenient. I don’t doubt that Slim Devices (the arm of Logitech that makes these devices) will fix this soon enough.

Other minor glitches include some weird alarm behavior (it will show the time of the alarm when it is going off but strangely won’t show the current time, which is annoying if you have hit the snooze button a few times and need to know what time it is), some auto dimming issues (the auto dimming works great but gets almost TOO dim in a dark room to see the radio) and a few other very minor nits.

Slim Devices have a long history of enhancement and improvement of device firmware, so I would expect a lot of these issues to be worked out in the coming months. Additionally there will soon be a battery pack and small infrared remote for the Squeezebox Radio available as a $[...] add on purchase. Personally I think at $[...] the Radio should include these items, but considering the great sound of the radio, the high quality screen and the superb fit and finish it is justified that this device costs as much as it does.

Also worth noting is that if you have an iPod Touch or iPhone you can get the iPeng application $[...] from the Apple App Store which makes controlling and programming your Squeezebox Radio an absolute breeze. iPeng is really a must have if you have these devices and want a wonderful pocket control that works from anywhere in your home. Beats the pants off of what Sonus has to offer!

//Update 1 (Nov 2nd 2009)

Yesterday my SB Radio lost all of the preset buttons which is most annoying. It also turns out that many of the requests for fixes around the alarms functionality have not been addressed and don’t appear to be scheduled to be addressed in the next release or two of the software. If your primary use will be a night stand alarm clock I would recommend holding off for now until Logitech addresses alarm functionality issues. If the issues are not resolved I will reconsider my four star rating as it should then be a three star product.

//Update 2 (May 13 2010)

Logitech has not only not fixed many of the initial annoyances with the SB Radio, but newer firmware has in fact made the product less stable and reliable. It still does an admirable job of playing your local music library if you run the SB Server on a PC or Mac in your home, but the network streaming functionality seems to be having issues and I’ve found the alarm to be terribly unreliable. I would now under the current circumstances rate this only 3 out of 5 stars. It’s really a shame too, as the “Slim Devices” that originally brought us these problems was very open and communicative about issues and what was being done to fix them. Logitech has little interest in relaying useful information to its beta testers, err, customers and instead gives us the run around with if and when issues will ever be remedied.

Review submitted by William G. Schmidt
Author’s Rating:
I’ve had the Squeezebox Radio for just over a week but that’s long enough to decide what I like and what still needs some work. First, set-up was a snap. The radio found my wireless network instantly and I was able to enter the password and connect quickly. The radio them updated its own software so I was working with the newest release.

What do I like? The radio seems solid. It’s heavy enough that you can press the buttons with the radio on a nightstand and not have it slide. The front is angled back which helps even more. I’d call the sound quality – though not stereo – excellent. There’s no comparison between how this radio sounds and the Sony clock radio I replaced it with. It has a very clear, crisp sound.

What don’t I like? I had the radio only three days when it lost all it’s presets. I re-entered them and all has been well since. This is a well known bug. I am using [...] and NOT using my PC so the problem is likely there. Presets should be stored locally, not on a server. I saved all my presets as favorites so they MIGHT be there the next time this happens (then again, maybe the favorites list will be erased, too). I’d like to see an easier way to set the sleep timer. You have to use the menu and it should be a simple button press. Why not use the power button and cycle through sleep settings? i.e. ON … 45 … 30 … 15 … OFF? There also needs to be a simple way to snooze. Maybe the big button in the middle?

The auto-dimming setting gets awfully dark at night! I should be able to set a minimum brightness level that suits me.

And I’d love to see the apps include weather radar. Yes, this is a radio but it’s got a great color display and being able to watch live weather radar on the screen would be super. A general weather app that makes use of this display would be a plus! Come on Logitech, get with it! This radio has more possibilities than, well, radio!

Later: I’ve had the radio for a month now and am no longer quite so excited. I reduced my initial 4 stars to just 2 stars. This radio is buggy! My initial loss of the presets has now been followed by a loss of the volume control. There was absolutely no way to get it back besides a “factory reset” which removes every setting I so carefully made. You should be able to simply sit down and enjoy a radio, not beta test a product.

I am returning it within Amazon’s 30 day window. I’ve had enough.

Review submitted by G-Radio
Author’s Rating:
When the Boom came out, I wanted to purchase it right away, but the $300 price tag and the inability to truely make it wireless detered me. Now that the Radio is out with a lower price tag, battery capability and a color LCD, I was totally sold. I’ve had the Radio for about a week now, and I simply love it. Even the wife was jamming to it when I got home from work the day after I bought it.

So far I have only had one issue with it…I can not find a setting to set the Album Art size to full screen on the Now Playing screen. It says in the manual that it is under the Screensaver settings, but when I go there it doesn’t exist. I sent an email to Logitech support, but have not heard back from them yet. [Updated] Logitech just released a new software version that will correct this issue.

Another cool feature that I didn’t realize existed, was the ability to control the Radio from the web.

As far as sound quality goes, it is far better than expected. There is virtually no distortion even at maximum volume. I even plugged a set of Computer Speakers into the Headphone Jack and it didn’t make that much of a difference. The Base levels aren’t that deep, but they are there. I can put it in my livingroom and pump it up near max volume and hear it clearly throughout the house.

I haven’t tested the Wireless strength extensively yet, but I was able to hook it up in the garage (1 Floor below and 50 feet from the router) and the signal strength was near full.

Overall, I am very satisfied with my purchase and can’t wait to get the battery pack so I can just carry this thing around anywhere.

Review submitted by A. Dent
Author’s Rating:
The Squeezebox Radio is a first class, excellent Internet radio with clock/alarm functions. With the Flickr app installed, it will display photos stored under user’s Flickr account. Other capabilities which are nice to have but not likely to be widely used include its ability to stream audio from a computer or double up as an iPod speaker.

PACKAGING, CONTENTS

As it’s the case with most Logitech products, the Squeezebox Radio comes inside a box where everything is packed nicely and securely, with enough padding to ensure that rough treatment won’t damage it. All shiny surfaces are protected by plastic film sheets. I experienced no problems or frustrations taking components out of the box.

The box contents include:

- the Radio

- power adapter with the US-standard 110V removable plug

- 3.5mm audio cord for iPod or other MP3 players

- folded poster with setup guide/manual/warranty statement

Logitech’s warranty is for 2 years from date of purchase and they would expect you to have the purchase receipt and to pay for shipping unless local laws prohibit that.

INITIAL SETUP

The physical setup is as easy as attaching the removable plug to the power adapter, plugging the adapter into a power outlet and connecting it to the radio and turning the on the radio. An Ethernet port (cable not included) is available for wired connections. I did not attempt to perform a wired network setup.

Once the radio is on for the first time, a language is selected from those displayed on the screen and then the radio will attempt to find a wireless access point. In my case, it immediately found my Linksys router and connected to it.

The initial setup completed with me creating a Logitech account by providing an email address and a password. At that point it’s possible to listen to the radio.

OPERATION

Radio

—–

Starting with ‘radio’, the array of options is almost overwhelming. The least intimidating way to get to listen to a station is by selecting ‘Internet Radio’. This will open a multi-layered menu with everything from Staff Picks, Local, Music, Sports, Talk, World and Search. If you pick World, the next layer would include Find a City, Featured Cities, National Networks, World Music. Find a City would open a listing of continents. If you pick Antarctica, believe it or not, you can select between All Stations or By Genre. It turns out that the only genre in that continent was Folk and there was actually a Folk station broadcasting off Antarctica. This was just an example to show the breadth and depth of the Internet Radio menu option. Once you like a station, it can be easily assigned to one of the 6 preset buttons that flank the radio’s color display.

Another way to get music off the Internet is through Apps. These are dowloadable setups that would let your radio channel some services, some of them free. There are 29 such Apps that Logitech allows you to download and use at the time this review was written, not all of them free and not all of them ‘music’. Staying with the music, the easiest way you can get an App to work on your radio is from Logitech’s site you access with your Logitech account – Logitech promises not to Spam you and so far I didn’t get any Spam from them. My favorite FREE music App/service so far is Pandora. It lets me, among other things, create my own ‘radio stations’ by simply entering one or more artists and songs names. Then, Pandora will play music that is compatible with my input. For example, I entered Pink Floyd, the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix for one of my ’stations’ and I get to listen to, besides theses three, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, some Cream.

The Settings menu is equally rich in options. It’s another multi-layered menu tree that controls just about every aspect of your Squeeze and I’m not going to go into details because it may take several pages. The good news is that the options are pretty well organized and it shouldn’t be difficult to customize the aspects of your Squeezebox behavior that you would like to modify. Thankfully, the ‘Restore Factory Defaults’ option exists, buried somewhere, 3 or 4 levels deep under Advanced.

Clock and Alarm

—————

By default, the Squeezebox will display the date and time when turned off. There’s no need to do anything to set date/time since it seems to ‘get’ the correct location for the time zone off your IP address. It’s possible to select a different zone through the Settings menu, of course.

The Alarm function is surprisingly rich. Any number of separate alarms can be set – don’t know if there is a limit. You can set the time, whether it’s a one-time or reoccurring and if it’s a repeat alarm, the day of the week it will play. The volume can be selected and then you can dive into another one of Logitech’s overwhelming menu trees that allows you to sound your alarm from the current playlist or play one of many Musical Sounds, Natural Sounds, or Sound Effects. Not much to complain other than you can’t hear a sample of the sound you selected or maybe I didn’t know how to play it.

Other Internet Apps

——————-

Normally, the Squeezebox will display the logo of the station you are playing or, if you are listening to a service such as Pandora, you will see the album cover the song came from. But if you install the Flickr App, you can display your Flickr pics instead. It’s pretty cool but it wears off quite quickly. The color screen is nice and bright but it’s also small and I get a radio because I want to listen to it, not to stare at a 2-inch screen. Again, it’s nice but I wouldn’t miss this capability if it wasn’t available.

There are other innovative apps that may have some limited use. The Amazon app for example, will allow you to buy your favorite music directly from the Squeezebox (wow!!!). The Facebook app will, according to the Logitech site, allow you to share your favorite music with family and friends, discover new friends with similar music interests or communicate with friends away from your computer. I didn’t try it yet.

More Features

————-

As if this wasn’t enough, the Squeezebox also allows you to stream music off your home computers after you install the Squeezebox Server on it – supports Windows (Vista/XP/2000), Mac, Ubuntu, Linux. Again, a nice thing to have but I simply can’t see why I would want to stream music to a device equipped with a small, mono speaker. I’d rather listen to music off my laptop since it comes out in stereo there. I suspect it works well but I didn’t think it was worth trying.

The Squeezebox also allows to connect and play an iPod or some other MP3 player – cable provided. And, again, it’s good to have this but piping iPod music through a little mono speaker… not worth it.

Finally, you can listen to the Squeezebox with headphones. It’s nice you can but I don’t think too many users would care about this capability.

MY EXPERIENCE

I find the Squeezebox to be an extraordinarily great Internet Radio device. Or rather, an Alarm Clock/Internet Radio. While limited by the small, single speaker to ‘mono’ sound, the quality of the output is quite impressive. I suspect there’s a large cache built in because, when listening to the same Pandora output on my computer and on the Squeeze, the Squeeze came pretty close to crystal-clear while my computer’s output was below par.

It’s impossible to say how many stations can be tuned to but the number should be in the thousands. It’s not always easy to find what you are looking for but quick and dirty searches are possible by simply entering the station’s call letters or you can go geographically by continent/country/city/genre.

Some of the available Apps are fun to use – something like Pandora’s customized radio stations should be close to one’s dream of music listening. Other apps can go in the ‘wow’ category as in “I can’t believe they can do this” but aren’t likely to be used much. The beauty of the Apps concept is that the Squeezebox is infinitely expandable as more Apps doing things we can’t imagine today can be added when available.

What impressed most about the Squeezebox were:

- extraordinary easy and quick setup on a Wi-Fi network

- the sheer volume of Internet radio stations available

- the availability of great Apps such as Pandora

- the Alarm/Clock function

- the color screen that displays interesting information such as album covers or stations logos and the name of the artists playing

- infinite expandability through new Apps

Some of the shortcomings include:

- ONLY 6 preset station buttons

- mono sound

- a simple remote control would make operation easier

- there’s no information in the broadcast quality (kbps) displayed anywhere or rating the station based on the quality of their broadcast

- it’s possible to get lost into some of the enormous menu trees

- completely dependent on Logitech for service – nothing other than maybe streaming music from one’s own computer would work if Logitech went out of business or stopped supporting the Squeezebox.

MY RATING

I really, really love this device and Amazon’s rating for “I love it” is 5 stars. Clearly, it’s not perfect but, for the price, this is close to the best one can get when it comes to the ability to listen to distant radio stations without involving a computer.

All we hear is Radio Ga Ga

Radio Blah Blah

Radio what’s new?

Someone still loves you!

_______________________________________

Note:

Please see the first comment to this review on the ability to expand the sound quality to ’stereo’ and ‘amplified’. I am not likely to try that because I have other options for listening to hi-fi, loud music but it’s nice to know that it can be done.

Review submitted by T. Frisco
Author’s Rating:
Over the years I’ve purchased several streaming music products, each of which had it’s limitations, some were just junk. This gives you good sound, no major setup headaches, and there seem to be a wide array of optional plugins to allow you to customize and build your music sources. Setup was fairly simple although typing in any text whether it’s your login credentials for a music service or your wireless network information is tedious on any device that doesn’t have a keyboard so just deal with it, hopefully you won’t have to enter this information more than once.

First, let me be a bit negative, this thing should really ship with a rechargable battery already installed. It should also ship with a remote control. I called customer support this mornng and I’ve been told that the accessory pack with the battery and remote will not be available until February 2010. It seems like they rushed to get the radio out before Christmas yet these accessories aren’t available yet. When I first read about the radio and its battery backup functionality I’d assumed that the battery was already installed.

Secondly, I attempted several times to set this up using WEP encryption. While a 26 character passcode is a hassle to enter anytime it was a real pain to attempt to enter it four or five times only to be told that the password didn’t work. I’ve entered it into enough other devices in my home (printers, laptops, PSP) that I know the code was correct. I’ve been needing to change over to WPA anyway as it’s more secure, once I changed to WPA and entered the passphrase it connected to the network in just a few seconds.

Now the positives, the audio is above average considering the size of the radio, it found my music collection and scanned all of the titles into it’s library, since it’s just streaming the audio it only took a few minutes to scan about 4000 songs. There are some opportunities with the album art, many tracks just show some arbitrary image of a CD.

As far as the plugins, Pandora works very well. I may even upgrade my pandora account to a paid account since I can skip more than six tracks an hour (once I have a remote anyway). The XMOnline plugin works very well too although it doesn’t seem to update the PAD data with the song names and artist info.

The Mediafly may or may not work, I created an account and linked it and picked a few podcasts out on Mediafly but they never appeared on my radio so it may just be me.

I’d buy this for anyone thinking about getting an XM Boombox or portable radio, just pay XM for an online account and this works as well as a boombox and given that a boombox has to have an antenna near a window all you need with this is access to your wireless network (or wired if you want to run a cable to it from your router).

I’m very happy with this product.