Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)It's pretty straight-forward: it lets you listen to thousands of radio stations that broadcast on the Net. As I write this review, I am sitting here, on the US East Coast, listening to some Icelandic rock station. In the past couple of hours I browsed through radio stations based in France, the Philippines, UK and, I believe Thailand. Pretty cool, eh?
But, let's summarize:
Installation: super-easy. You stick the USB thing into the proper port and you get prompted to allow for the software to install on your computer - at least that's what Vista does.
Interface: you get 2 top-10 lists that can be expanded to top-100, by region or by genre. The tops are not too useful, unless you really believe that the number one talk station in the world is broadcasting from Bulgaria but, it's fun to have them there. The categories are usually hit and miss - you are almost as likely to find music on a 'talk' station as your are to find actual talk but... it's no big deal, believe me. The stations are also classified by Genre and Location and, within each of these, you can sort them by 'country' - not all stations have a country assigned to them and Kansas and Kenya are both viewed as 'countries'. You can include individual stations on your favorite list and you can vote them up or down. There is also a 'history' section, a 'help' section and a link to the maker of the product. Oh, the bottom of the window is reserved for advertising but, I bet, you are NOT likely to stare at the Aluratek windows while listening to the radio so it's not bothersome.
Reception: each station shows a number of bars, telephone style - 4 bars are supposed to be the clearest and no bars you probably can't get. The quality of your connection is, without a doubt, dependent of your own bandwidth. Depending of it and depending on many other factors, your connection may break from time to time or you may not be able to connect at all but, so far, I am happy with what I get.
Why I almost took out 1 star?
- The interface could be improved. What I definitely miss is the ability to enter my own little notes to the stations that I mark as 'favorites'. The way they appear now - which could be something like 'WKZR' or maybe a string of Chinese hieroglyphs - is not always descriptive enough.
To summarize: if you spend a few hundred $$ for your laptop, I can't think of any good justification for not spending $20-30 on this little device.
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October 2, 2008 Update
I learned from a related discussion thread that there are 'free' sites that allow access to thousands of radio stations with some search capabilities. http://www.vtuner.com is one of them. Some may prefer to use such a site for their radio listening and save some money. Personally, having purchased this device, I am more likely to use IT than Vtuner but this is my personal preference only.
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The USB Internet Radio Jukebox allows you to easily access more than 13,000 radio stations in over 300 countries around the world with no monthly fees. Simply insert the USB Internet Radio Jukebox into your computer's USB port and you have a world of entertainment at your fingertips via Aluratek's internet media player. You can search for music geographically by continent/country/state or by the more than 50 different available genres including a wealth of news and sports radio stations broadcast throughout the world. Once you find a favorite station whether it is from your local country or while visiting other countries around the world, simply add it to your favorites folder. You can also search for the top ten radio stations in each country or by each genre and cast your own vote for each channel. No software installation is required making this a truly plug-n-play experience. Let the fun begin!
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