Review on 📻 Sony ICF-P36 Portable AM/FM Home Audio Radio in Black by Kholar Irvine

Old school analog AM-FM radio that works really well! It's very small and will fit anywhere, although the small size means it has a small speaker. It's unlikely to win awards for sound quality, but it sounds crisp and clear with good highs. Sensitivity to AM and FM is better than most similar radios I've used. While it's not a "radio for DXers", it picks up off-the-shelf stations quite well. Selectivity is good, but don't expect weak AM or FM stations close to a strong local station. On AM you should be able to hear a reasonably strong outside station around 20kHz from a strong local station as long as the local station isn't broadcasting in HD and splattering the neighboring channels. A limitation; this radio only tunes 530-1600kHz; it does not cover an "extended band" before 1700. If you have a local station in that part of the band, this radio will not be able to pick it up. That audio output power is 100mW, which is good enough for personal listening, but don't expect room-filling volume. One benefit of this is that the radio has phenomenal battery life. Sony rates it at around 100 hours on a set of AA alkaline batteries. It also works well with a set of Panasonic Eneloop rechargeable batteries, which are safe to leave in the radio for long periods of time. They hold a charge well and don't leak, which is very handy if you want to use them for emergency radio communications. I like the horizontal form factor of this set with the tuning knob on top. For me, this makes it easier to set up. Tuning is smooth as it should be and it doesn't jump from station to station like radios that use a DSP chip. It's somewhat surprising that it doesn't have a stand, but it rests on the antenna clip on the back if you want to put it down. If it suits your needs I would recommend getting one of these before they go away. Good little radios are getting harder and harder to find.