Review on Portable Emergency Solar Hand Crank Radio – NOAA Weather Radio with AM/FM, LED Flashlight, Reading Lamp, 4000mAh Power Bank USB Charger, and SOS Alarm – Ideal for Household and Outdoor Emergency Situations by Kenny Sarma

This is my first radio of this type so I'm not sure if other emergency radios are better or worse. I chose this one because the rechargeable batteries were easy to replace when they started to wear out. On my own I don't think this is a very good emergency radio for a number of reasons. First the only good thing. The speaker is fantastic. I'm really surprised that the radio sounds so good. Now for everything else. The biggest problem is that this device cannot be turned off. I first suspected this when I noticed that the flashlight function has a digital switch (poorly designed digital power switches tend to drain power). Yes, you can turn off all individual functions (e.g. turn off the radio), but the battery will still drain. I checked this with an ohmmeter across the battery contacts, although actual consumption can change when voltage is applied and I don't have an ammeter so I can't be sure what the actual consumption figure is. The instructions say you need to charge it AT LEAST every 3 months. For real? An unused 18650 can typically last a year or more and still retain most of its performance. I have a power bank that I haven't used in 2 years and was 3/4 full when there was a recent power outage. The instruction to charge it every 3 months or more suggests they know there is a discharge problem. The instructions also state that if it hasn't been used in 60 days, you might have to crank it by hand for a minute to wake up the battery. Only 60 days on the shelf and the battery charging circuit kicked in? whoops This setup is bad for something you can only leave in an emergency. If you only intend to use it a couple of times a year, you'll have to remove the batteries entirely (requiring a screwdriver). And then preferably something to keep them safe. Yes, you could, BUT A REAL SWITCH COST 10 CENTS. Many universal cameras and MP3 players, in addition to the usual ones, have a small fixed power button specifically designed for those times when you won't be using them for a long time. Next annoyance: The charge status display has no completion. There are 4 LEDs to indicate the charging status and each of them will flash and then light up when that charging status is complete. I let it charge for 8 hours after the first 3 stages were stuck and the 4th never finished. The crank arm needs to be shorter. It's actually too easy to turn and I tried harder to move my arm fast enough with little resistance and therefore little force. The bottom battery can get stuck in the walls of the compartment and not touch the positive terminal. Contact depending on the exact location of the label on the battery (it has a standard shrink wrap plus a specification sticker). I noticed this when investigating the pending charge issue, checking each battery individually to see if one was bad (two in parallel to increase capacity, not voltage, so it would only work with 1), and first I thought it was a bad battery until I noticed the negative contact spring was too weak to push the battery forward. I stretched the spring a bit to increase its strength to fix this. The solar panel is basically useless. I was already familiar with the limitations of small, cheap solar panels, so I expected this. In fact, the manual says the solar panel is primarily for "extending battery life" rather than charging. It outputs only a fraction of the energy required to operate the radio (while a manual crank can start the radio and charge the battery many times faster than it is being used). Batteries are discharged or irreversibly damaged. It is best for an emergency radio to have spare batteries, but that is not possible here. Lithium AA or AAA batteries can sit in a drawer for 20 years and still work, so it's a great plan B that this radio doesn't support. regularly. Not sure why, maybe it just doesn't have the capacity or is missing a significant boost converter to do its job well. It has a "rubberized" coating that eventually turns into sticky goo. I've had a lot of products with this horrible substance and now I don't buy them anymore. You pull out a device that hasn't been used in a while and it's gotten into a mess. The hand grip does not directly charge the USB port to charge your phone. When the rechargeable batteries are bad, the crank powers the radio with continuous rotation, but my phone can't see the power. Is it the (bad) design? The same launch can charge a pair of 4000mAh 18650 when it is very slow, but no USB output power is provided to charge the phone battery of the same size. Whatever the reason, remember that if you take out the emergency radio and find that the batteries are dead, this thing is absolutely not going to perform this function. good speaker. This is a decent radio if you need a rechargeable radio that you intend to use fairly regularly. And don't worry, you might find the surface is sticky when you pick it up. I would give almost 2 stars for at least a good radio but the battery contact issue is just unacceptable.