Coby IR850 Wireless Internet Radio System (Black)

• Radio stations free from around the world with a Wi-Fi internet connection
• Receives local FM radio broadcasts, enjoy your entire music collection wirelessly from a computer
• High-performance stereo speakers with 30W total output power, twin ports deliver enhanced bass response
• Large easy-to-read display, 10 internet radio & 10 FM radio station preset memory
• Clock with alarm and sleep timers, convenient 3.5mm headphone jack, full function remote control

I bought this radio to replace the IR825 which had good sound but I found it too hard for anyone to operate using just the buttons on top and a 2 line display. This radio also has only buttons on top and no knobs but is easy to use and the big display shows everything you need to see. The buttons are not lighted though and are sometimes difficult to find in the dark. It also has a remote.

I also have 2 other internet radios, an IR808 similar to the Kaito IR-168 and an RCA/AR RIR205 from Audiovox to compare this to. While the RCA uses Vtuner for it's portal and the IR-168 uses IR168's own site this radio uses the Frontier Silicon wifi radio portal but it's list of stations seems to be based on Vtuner. Frontier Silicon, in the U.K., designed the radio's processor module, wrote it's firmware and also provides the website for radio makers and owners to use. When I first opened the box and got the radio out and plugged it in, it connected to wifi and got a station right away which was a surprise since I had a lot of trouble getting the first 2 other radios to work at all. I did have to update my wifi router from an old 802.11B to a D-Link DI624 G model a while back though which is a big part of why it worked right out of the box.

The radio has two fairly large speakers for good sound and is bigger than it looks in the photos so it might not fit on some small shelves or night stands.

The wifi antenna is just a small J shaped etching on one end of the processor board inside the radio but seems to receive OK. It could be replaced with a high gain external antenna for better reception if necessary. The radio was made by Hip Shing Elect. Co., model IR68N or iCanal withoug the iPod dock. They also make Grace radios. Coby doesn't really make anything, they buy items from other manufacturers with the Coby name put on them to resell. I also have a Coby HD AM/FM radio which I like but it's actually a Mondo Revo. One potential drawback to this radio design is that everything is done on the Frontier Silicon web site, even storing Favorites. This means the radio won't work at all if their web site is down. The RCA has a similar design that relies on the RCA/AR web site but some others such as the IR-168 have their own built-in web server that you can browse to with your PC and store Favorite stations directly into the radio's memory.

While other radios tend to have an SD memory slot or USB jack for playing your own music files this radio has neither. They claim it can stream audio from a PC using uPnP with Windows Media Player 11 and the manual even shows how to setup WMP 11 to do streaming, something I've never found explained adequately in other manuals. Other radios such as the IR-168 claim they can do streaming using uPnP too but they don't tell much about how to do it. I was only able to get that to work in Windows 7 though and not in XP Pro. However, most security experts say to never use uPnP at all and to always keep it disabled because it allows hackers access to your files. If you aren't worried about hackers, have Windows 7 or can get XP to stream and have a lot of music, podcasts or audio books on your PC you want to play then this feature would be handy. There is also a way to get iTunes and VLC media player to stream over wifi to the radio that is described in the Reciva Forum but when I tried that my router kept crashing. One advantage this radio has is the ability to receive KFI and other Clear Channel stations that are difficult for other internet radios to get. KFI wouldn't play if I used the radio to go to Region and browse to LA, Calif. then choose the station however. That just produces a Network Error but if you go on the F/S web site and choose the station and add it as a Favorite then it plays but tends to work intermittantly sometimes since the KFI streaming is not always reliable.

The build-in FM tuner is more sensitive than I expected and even has RDS, a feature normally found in car radios, to show the station's call letters and the title and artist of the song that's playing on the screen, something that's not mentioned in the manual or on the web site. There is no connection for an external antenna though, just a piece of wire sticking out the back. The FM tuner doesn't get HD stations but the radio has a feature listed under Internet Radio called HDi (also not mentioned in the manual) that has a list of HD2 channels from various stations around the USA that are on the internet. It doesn't get all of them however.

This radio has one major problem, the LEDs that provide the display backlight tend to burn out early. They aren't too hard to replace if you are handy and like to tinker though.

Pros

1. Six line display is big and easy to see.

2. Has Help built-in but it's not really much use.

3. FM radio plays better than expected and is more sensitive than other radios but the antenna is just a piece of wire hanging out the back.

4. Can receive KFI 640AM but sometimes it works and sometimes you get a network error.

5. Faster than the others to connect to the wifi router and tune in stations.

6. Remembers it's internet settings and it's wifi connection when power is off in spite of not having any backup batteries.

7. Besides internet radio and FM there is also an option to play podcasts and streams from a PC.

8. Good sound from 2 large stereo speakers and 30 Watt amp.

9. 20 Presets for Favorite stations.

10. Remote control.

Cons

1. Backlight LEDs tend to burn out early. Directions for replacing them can be found on the Google Group called Frontier Silicon Based Internet Radios.

2, No Preset buttons are on the radio but they do show up on the display where they are easy to see and are on the remote.

3. Favorites are hard to add, you have to browse through a long list on the web site to find and select each one and you can only add one at a time but you can add the station currently playing as a Preset

4. Built in wifi antenna not as sensitive as some others that are external.

5. No SD memory slot or USB connection for playing your music files from flash memory or USB thumbdrives.

6. No Ethernet jack, wifi only.

7. Can only play MP3, WMA and RealAudio file types. At least those are the only types listed on the web site when you add a station but that covers most radio stations and streaming podcasts. Other radios can also play AAC, WAV and AIFF. The Frontier Silicon prototype this radio is based on can play AAC and the new Grace GDI-IRD4000 is claimed to supported: Real Audio, WMA, MP3, AAC, AAC+, FLAC (lossless), WAV (lossless), AU, AIFF, and OGG Vorbis so this one probably just needs a firmware update to play additional formats.

11. There was no user forum available for support like other radios have so I created one on Google Groups called Frontier Silicon Based Internet Radios.

Buy Coby IR850 Wireless Internet Radio System (Black) Now

The product was all it was advertized to be except for one little problem. The display went dark after 3 month and 5 days. You can't program the thing without the display. Beware that the warranty is only good for a mere 90 days, defiantly not industry standard. If they don't have faith in their product's quality, based on what happened to my purchase, I shouldn't have either. I even tried to get them to make an exception as I was within a week of the 90 day limit, but the phone operator said "the rules are the rules". I LEARNED WHAT EATING $125.00 TASTS LIKE, thanks Coby. Too bad, this is truly a unique product but the poor quality and warranty risk makes it a deal breaker speaking from my experience.

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90 day warranty over... months later light is too dim on the display screen to read. Called Coby to see if I could pay them to fix it. I was informed they would not repair my radio. Now I have a single station internet radio. I will never buy from this company again.

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I just want to confirm what others have experienced in terms of the display. It does fade away to almost nothing after few months of use.

The radio has great features and good sound, but if you can't see the user interface and menus, it is almost worthless. I dare say this is one of those products that COBY knew has some design issues, but rather than recall the product, they flooded the market with low prices to get rid of the inventory.

That was a bad move on Coby's part. Just creates ill will from the consumers towards the Coby brand name. I was always thought of Coby as a low end Electronics brand, but this product was so different from many Internet Radios I has seen. It sounded great in the store and the display was nice, so I took a chance.

Big Mistake... I actually gave mine away after using it for about 2 months because there was no way to dim the display and I wanted to use it for a clock radio in the bedroom. Little did I know that it had a self dimming feature. The problem is the dimming is permanent.

Stay away from this product unless you want a brick or a one station radio.

I own 3 of these.. yes 3. They all work great and sound good too. However the display went bad on ALL 3 a few months after I bought it and it is very difficult to see and change settings