- Compatible with all iPod and iPhone models
- FM radio and Internet radio tuner
- Wi-Fi connection for Internet radio
- NXT BR (Balanced Radiator) stereo speaker system
- Digital clock with dual alarm, snooze and sleep timer
The setup was somewhat straightforward. The setup wizard located my home's wifi and connected to it without hassle. It detected the time and my current location straight from the network, which was great, although the daylight savings setting option was a bit vague and resulted in the time being set an hour earlier. This was quickly fixed through the main menu.
The remote control was not performing very well upon initial setup, but casting off the batteries that shipped with the product and replacing them with some new alkalines improved performance. I wouldn't even bother with the batteries that ship with it. If they are not DOA, they will be in short order.
The battery replacement did not completely eradicate the remote control's unreliability. I'm not exactly sure where the sensor is for the remote, but if you have the radio on a nightstand or a low table, trying to use the remote control from above the device doesn't work that well. It helps to move the remote in front of and on the plane of the radio.
Enough setup, onto the product features themselves.
iPod / iPhone dock: Works as advertised. There are many devices out there that incorporate a dock for an iPod or iPhone. It's basically table stakes to get in the game. It comes with little dock inserts for the various models of iPhones and iPods, just like everyone else. And I never use any of them because, just like all the others, they don't account for a cover on the device and so none of them really fit my device in its day-to-day state. Anyway, one feature that is nice is that if you insert your iPod/iPhone into the dock, a menu comes up on the front display that offers to take you directly to the iPod menu. No need to search for the iPod menu. But if you are just throwing the device on there to charge it and are already, say, listening to Pandora or a podcast through the internet radio, that menu disappears in a few seconds and doesn't interrupt what you are already listening to.
Pandora: Setup was easy. You log into your account and the device gives you a Pandora website to go to on your computer and a code to enter to sync the device with your account. It takes two minutes. Once done, all of my Pandora channels appear on the device. I can play my custom stations or dial up new ones. There are buttons on the remote to allow you to "like" or "dislike" a song. On the whole it works very well. The only thing I noticed is that I can't see if I have already "liked" as song on the display, and if I hit the "like" button on the remote for a song that has already been categorized that way I get no feedback. It only gives me feedback if a song is newly "liked" or "disliked". It's a minor annoyance, but given the slightly erratic performance of the remote, it always begs the question, "Did I already 'like' this song or is the remote just not picking it up?"
Internet Radio: Pretty impressive. The radio determines your location from the network and automatically gives you a "local stations" options that include any radio stations that stream. Personally, I listen to a lot of podcasts, and was able to search for my favorites with the remote and get a list of the latest available episodes. The catalog seems pretty expansive, too, as I don't consider the Mises Institute to be at the top everyone's podcast list, but I listen to it all the time and the radio found it without an issue.
Sound: I'm not an audiophile by any means, but this unit kicks out some nice sound in my opinion. I was impressed at the volume available and there is a selection of equalizer settings (including custom bass/treble settings) that let you tweak the sound to your liking.
Untested features: I have not tried the alarms (there are two), sleep, or music library functions. I am assuming the music library will detect available shared media from computers on your network and make them available to the device, similar to something a PS3 can do.
Glitches: Obviously, when your wireless network goes down, the internet radio goes down. The device can't be blamed for my/your wireless outages. The remote is also not quite intuitive in places. Instead of hitting the "menu" button when it seems like you would, you hit the left arrow button. Stuff like that.
Value: Current price on Amazon (less than half MSRP) makes it a consideration, I think. Value is subjective, of course, but I think most people will be happy with the product in the 160-range, but would feel like it was overpriced at MSRP.
Overall: Frankly, I was expecting less. We're only a few days in with the product, and we've had some dropouts that I am attributing to my flaky network. If you can get used to the navigation, most will be happy with the gadget. Solid sound and feature set. Could be the sole unit used in a small apartment if desired.
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I have had a lot of fun with this radio! I'm no audiophile, but to this casual listener, the sound is amazing. Out of the box, the audio is just big and round. I have an older BOSE alarm clock/CD player, and this radio sounds much better, if that means anything. There are the usual equalizer settings, so you can customize as you will.Set up was easy, if a bit tedious. The radio has an Ethernet port, but I easily added it to my hidden wireless network. You select letters and numbers using a wheel on the radio itself or using the arrows on the remote control. You use the same technique for anything you have to enter: search terms, passwords, logins, etc.
The remote control is the most functional one I've received with a radio/alarm clock. It's bigger than most radio remotes I've seen, but it's capable of doing anything you can do on the radio itself. So it's not just a power switch and channel and volume changer like some of the others I've used.
I've used Pandora, the Internet radio, and docked my iPhone 4, and all worked seamlessly. I've had the radio a little over a week, and I've used it several times. One time, I experienced silence for 20 or 30 seconds when it suddenly had to reconnect to my network.
It has the usual alarm clock functions. Each dual alarm can be set to go off once, daily, each weekday, or each weekend day. Ultimately, however, I was unable to use this as a bedside alarm clock. First of all, at one foot wide by eight inches deep, it's footprint is too big for my already-crowded nightstand. Also, my nightstand sits a little higher than my bed. The display (which is too small to read more than a few feet away) is set at about a 45 degree angle, midway between vertical and horizontal. I can't see it lying down. I do wish the display was larger and set more vertically.
Because of these issues, and because I already have most of the radio's functions available to me in my bedroom, I decided to put the radio in my kitchen where I enjoy it immensely while puttering around there. And when I unplugged the radio to move it from the nightstand to the kitchen, it saved all my settings. Because I didn't find a place for a backup battery, I was worried I would have to reconfigure everything. But it just reconnected to my network, reset the date and time, and was ready to go immediately. Bonus!
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I wanted to like this iPod dock with internet radio, but I really wasn't thrilled with it. The foot print of this device is rather large (about the size of a sheet of printer paper). Set up was a bit of a pain with the dial "keyboard". The dial is a bit on the stiff side and I just found it irritating to use. Once it was set up using Pandora with the dock was easy but it wasn't any easier than using it with an iPhone and a speaker only dock.Sound quality for this dock was good, but I didn't think it was anything spectacular. In fact, I think the sound quality on my cheap Skull Candy ipod pipe is better.
I'm absolutely not a fan of the "wall mountable" feature. To use this function, you would essentially have to put your iPod into the dock so that it is parallel with the floor. I couldn't imagine putting my iPhone into that dock with it in that position.
The dock works but I found the set up to be a pain and the size to be cumbersome. I suppose if space and money are no object it's an OK product but I wouldn't buy this if I were in the market for a new speaker dock for my iPhone.
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We use this in the office mainly for the function of Pandora. It has been great so far, very easy to sync with pandora account onlnine by adding and deleting stations, etc. The sound is very clear. You can even skip forward, and give a song a thumbs up or thumbs down on the device. We did a lot of research for a product that could do this and for the price this is great.
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I was really tempted to rate this radio with 5 stars, since it is one of the better internet radios I've encountered. It is not perfect, but it's definitely worth careful consideration.
The big selling point for me is that this radio will do internet radio AND it will charge many iPhones (3G, 3GS, 4) and iPods with the universal i-connector. If you don't have one of these devices and/or don't care if you can charge your device, you can still play music from ANY device with a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. Compared to the competition, which appears to be one player from Grace (sold through Sharper Image), this unit deserves to be considered.
In addition, it's quite a good alarm clock: you can wake to any function (internet radio, regular radio, etc), there are two completely independent alarms that can be set to go on certain days but not others, you can specify the volume of each alarm, etc. None of this interferes with the sleep function that goes in 15 minute increments. I mention this because some older Sony models allowed either an alarm OR the sleep function... There is no battery back-up, but you can set the machine to automatically update the time after a power outage. The alarm works well. For those days when it really matters, you can always use the iPhone as a back-up.
Internet performance will depend on your router, but I had mine up and running (VERY reliably) from across the house in about 2 minutes. For other products (notably a certain wireless Brother monochrome printer) I've spent up to 2 hours messing around with this type of thing so I was impressed.
The interface on the radio is a little clunky, and the remote is required for certain operations. I quickly and easily started to use Pandora (the like/dislike buttons clearly an afterthought on the remote control, and not present on the radio), searched for and found a selection of internet radio stations. Interestingly, some BBC stations (but not the world service) appear to be blocked, presumably because I'm not paying a license fee. The thing which blew my mind was when I searched for podcasts of a particular NPR show. Within seconds, I had a choice of shows from the last ten days. Basically, that's free on-demand radio of my favorite broadcasts in seconds. I might buy another for my kitchen.
The one thing I did not check is how easy it would be to mount this thing on the wall and still charge an iPhone. I guess it would probably work since the connector is at an angle. I have it on my bedside table, where it's the size of two generous hardback books.
As I mentioned, there are some minor annoyances. The clickwheel is fiddly and the remote is only marginally better. My biggest annoyance is the display, which can only be dimmed with the remote, and that setting is not saved when the radio switches off. Huh? For such a great alarm clock, this seems like an oversight. Still, the features are amazing, the sound is really pretty good, and the unit looks quite attractive. For other rooms of the house, it would be perfect, but you probably wouldn't need the alarm or the iPhone charging feature, at which point there are cheaper options available. Still, I like it so much, I might buy another for my kitchen anyway.
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