Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)They must have read my mind. I have a KA1102 which I consider a classic, and I had been hoping that Kaito would make a radio similar to the KA1102 that would also play MP3s. Needless to say, I was more than overjoyed when this product magically appeared. I previously listened to my MP3s on my cell phone which has a speaker that sounds like a cheap tin can. The sound quality of the KA1121 is very good for a radio of its size, and there is little need to mention the legendary Kaito reception that is significantly better than most portable radios. The radio performs very well so long as it is unplugged from the wall and running on the batteries. There are lots of nice features that you would expect from a Kaito radio, including SSB, line in, and tuning knob. I particularly like how I can recharge the batteries without removing them. It has a cool flat black finish that feels rubberized. The MP3 player supports USB 12Mbits/second Full Speed(not V2.0 480Mbits/second High Speed) and file transfers are fast. You plug a USB plug into the KA1121 MP3 player and it shows up in Windows Explorer as a removable drive, so you can simply drag and drop files to it. The MP3 player has a cool green glow which stays on all the time you are using it, although there is a time out setting to automatically turn off if you wish.
Now for some of the issues that need some improvement. The LCD on the radio is too small. You need some sharp eyes to see the tiny battery indicator. The buttons do not light up like they do on the KA1102, and the size of the radio is outside the pocket category. The MP3 player display truncates long MP3 file names, and even though it scrolls the MP3 name across the LCD, the scroll rate is too slow and requires too long a wait to scroll to the end, and despite the scrolling, very long file names still get truncated. In the case where the MP3 is playing, the information stored in the MP3 title tag gets displayed instead of the MP3 file name. File name truncation is a problem if you want to listen to a sequence of MP3s with long file names. I have to manually rename and shorten the MP3 file names and tags. I use a freeware program called Mp3tag to do this. I also feel that the method of timed recording to the MP3 player is too complicated and the manual is not clear enough on this. A couple of times, I ran into serious problems where the MP3 player became corrupted during download of MP3s or while deleting MP3s. When the corruption happens, the MP3 player will not work and all the MP3 files are lost. My computer has never had any USB issues with any other USB devices, so I am blaming Kaito for the corruption problem. Kaito does mention that if the MP3 player stops working, to use the included utility disk to reformat it, so Kaito apparently is aware of the issue. I'm not sure why they did not fix the problem before release. The included utility disk reformatted the MP3 player, but the MP3 player still would not work, so I then formatted the MP3 player from Windows Explorer as FAT32 and then it worked again. The MP3 player certainly needs some improvements, but I will still give the KA1121 five stars simply because I consider this product to be ground breaking and competing radios don't even have an MP3 player.
The KA1121 is a high performance AM/FM/SW weather radio and MP3 player/recorder with many features and few shortcuts. If you need MP3 capability then buy this. If not, you might consider the KA1102 or KA1103. I listen to MP3s often, and I enjoy the KA1121 very much. I have upgraded the batteries from the included 1300 Mah NiMH batteries to higher capacity TENERGY 2300 Mah NiMH with good results.
UPDATE: A fix for the MP3 player corruption issue above seems to have been found. A comment from passband.com Thursday, May 8th, 2008 - "What causes this is the `1121's electrically noisy AC adaptor. To get around this, either remove the adaptor plug from the radio or undock the MP3 module before starting an upload." or they recommend replacing the power charger with a less noisy one. Jameco P/N 283573 $6.95 with a Radio Shack Size H Coaxial DC Power Plug $2.99 Model: 274-1571 they say is effective.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Kaito KA1121 - Portable radio / digital player - flash 256 MB - WMA, MP3
The Kaito portable shortwave radios such as KA1101, KA1102 & KA1103 are well known for their outstanding sensitivity & selectivity by radio listeners worldwide, this newly released KA1121 is no exception and it has much much more to offer than a traditional radio. It is the world's first AM/LW/FM/Shortwave/NOAA Weather Band/SSB Receiver with a detachable 256MB MP3 player/digital recorder, both the radio and the MP3 player can work independently flawlessly. There are three different recording modes (sampling rate) to choose from, 32 Kbps/80Kbps/128Kpbs, the higher the sampling rate, the better the sound quality. You can easily set up the timer and record up to 32 hours of radio program and transfer it to your PC via a USB cable so you will never miss your favorite talk show, music program or sports event again. You can operate the radio and the MP3 player using the AC/DC adaptor or using the included rechargeable batteries that can be charged through the built-in battery chargers. For your convenience, 100 stations and 400 frequencies can be stored in the memories for easy tuning, you can also program the memories via your PC after you install the software. Frequency coverage: 1. AM: 140 Khz -520Khz ( Long Wave), 520 KHz- 1710Khz ( MW) 2. FM Stereo: 70Mhz- 88.0Mhz ( Low FM), 88.00Mhz - 108 MHz( Upper FM) 3. SW: 3000 KHz - 29,999 KHz 4. 7 NOAA Weather BandAccessories: 1. AC/DC adaptor 2. AA NiMH rechargeable batteries 3. DF6 NiMIHrechargeable battery 4. USB cable 5. Software CD 6. Soft antenna 7. Earphones 8. Carrying pouch 9. User manual 10. Quick reference guide 11. Warranty registration card
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