Customer Reviews:
 Free at last November 17, 2008
This is a neat product. I'm no longer tied to my very annoying local radio stations. I can get what I want without preemption by our no-good college sports.
 Lacks the Features of Even the Most Common Clock Radio November 13, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I really enjoy talk radio. I started out years ago with the consummate AM radio, the GE Superadio III. Then, I went digital to the CCrane. Now, years later, I was quite pleased to join the wifi radio community.
This radio works and it looks nice. Really, I am sure it is a technical marvel inside but all I care about is whether I can hear the talk host. But I have to say, I am fairly disappointed with the features on a number accounts. Now, that doesn't make it inferior to other wifi radios. Unlike Consumer Reports, I don't have the luxury of comparing various models side-by-side. This may actually be great by comparison to the competition. That said, here are my issues:
1) Five presets? That's it??? On a standard dial radio, that is pretty skimpy. But on a radio where you practically depend on presets, that is not nearly enough.
2) C'mon, even the cheapest clock radios allow you to simply press a "sleep" button on the top. I have to turn this radio on. Wait for it to link-up with the network. Then press a button, dial-a-dial, and select the preferred option. Ridiculous.
3) For $[...] bucks, it would be nice if the freakin' buttons had some sort of back lighting. C'mon, I bet 90% of the users have this on the nightstand. It would be nice if you could see the buttons after lights-out. Heck, I would even accept some sort of glow-in-the-dark buttons that are available on $[...] remote controls.
4) I wear contacts. At bedtime I remove them. Are you kidding with the font size of the clock display??? What is it, 8 point arial??? Jeeze, it is supposed to be a CLOCK radio. My Casio wrist watch has bigger numbers.
5) Speaking of the clock... When the radio is on, in the sleep mode, for instance, there is no clock display. Rather, the current radio station display scrolls. Now, most clock radios allow you the option of toggling between a clock display or the radio station display. This is another feature I normally would have just taken for granted.
6) Setting the alarm is another pain-in-the-arse. Why can't I just press a button to enable my preset alarm? This feature is available on my wind-up alarm clock. But, no, I have to press this, dial that, press this, accept that. [...].
7) I happen to be an EE. I understand the joys of the microcontroller. But here's a simple rule. A design should be elegant in its *simplicity*. This radio is really lacking in the "intuitive" department.
 Weak WiFi Sensing November 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The radio works great when it picks up the WiFi network but it sure doesn't have much range. I had it in my workshop only about 30 ft from the modem. I moved it everywhere in my workshop and it just couldn't find the signal. By the way, my Dell laptop had no such problem in the workshop. Returned the unit and received a prompt refund by Amazon. Amazon is great.
Great Product November 8, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've not written a review before, but this is a great product. Its functionality should be included in receiver/amplifiers.
I hooked mine up to my whole house audio system. Unlike other media streaming devices, this does not require that you turn on your computer to stream music or audio to your audio system. It also has an alarm clock, which means you can wake up to audio through your receiver. For reasons I do not comprehend, reciever/amplifiers don't typically have an alarm clock.
It plays any of the 10,000 stations included in www.reciva.com or streaming music from www.pandora.com.
Easy to set up -- it found and connected to my ancient Linksys router.
I live in an area where there are three radio stations -- two that are the standard drivel of commercial radio and the other that fades in and out with sun spots and the seasons.
I considered XM or Sirius satellite rado, but rejected them because connecting them to a home audio system required a funky external antenna, a subscription fee, and was limited to the commercial programming of XM or Sirius. Access to internet radio is FREE and did not require running any wires or setting up antennas. With 10,000+ stations, you're not stuck with the local retarded shock-jock, a radio-evangelist, or stations that appear to have only 6 CDs in their collection that they play over and over again.
Competing units seem to include a Sanyo unit being marketed in Canada (why not the US?), and RCA unit and some other stuff marketed by C.Crane. I found that none of the local big box electronic stores carry internet radios except for Best Buy that carried this radio. That means internet shopping.
The cons -- this is not stereo. The stickers were really hard to remove from the unit. There are "only" 5 preset buttons, but when you set up your reciva and pandora accounts you can specify as many "favorites" to display on the unit under "My Stuff" so the preset buttons are really not relevant.
Now, if someone made a comparable unit to stream video from the internet to my TV ...
So much easier than listening to radio on my laptop November 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been listening to various radio stations on my laptop but this has become a drag lately as it slows down some of my other programs and is a pain in the neck to change stations quickly. I have Sirius radios in 2 of my cars and was thinking about getting a home Sirius radio, but when I saw the Grace radio on line at Amazon I decided to give it a try.
Best part- no additional subscriptions- I can now get thousands of stations at the twist of the easy to use master control knob. I am a public radio junkie and they even have a public radio filter so I can browse among all of those stations in the US. This thing gets so many worldwide stations that I never knew existed....in many different genres.....amazing. I have it set up in my kitchen with a set of computer speakers and subwoofer- sound quality is pretty much determined by the sampling rate of the station.....pretty much identical to my laptop but this thing is much easier to use (turning dials rather than opening web pages and typing in passwords). I especially appreciate the analog volume control, too. Now my computer runs a lot faster since it's not having to process my radio feed as well. The Grace radio was pretty simple to set up. The directions are kind of sparse but it's pretty intuitive. I kind of wish it would take a standard ethernet connection instead of only offering a wifi connection...but for $160 I suppose I can't expect miracles. If you like to listen to radio and really enjoy jazz, classical and interesting stuff instead of the pop drivel on most stations from FM then you will love this radio
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