Review on 📻 The ARCPT300W: American Red Cross Axis Safety Hub & Weather Radio with USB Cell Phone Charger by Kelsey Davis

Have been using Eton products for many years and am generally happy with them. Prices used to be too high, but the quality made up for it. After all, with an emergency radio you want to be as sure as possible that the radio is actually ready for use in an emergency. I bought a smaller Eton radio (Eton Rover) on sale earlier this year and was honestly disappointed. Even at the very low selling price I found no value in it. Tuning is terribly finicky. Reception is always possible and must be rotated back and forth. I also bought it on sale to replace a much earlier Eton American Red Cross FR-400 radio that was damaged. If I were to pay the full current advertised price I would feel cheated - and so even with the retail price I still feel like I paid too much. The design of ARCPT300W is fine. The LED display is very convenient for fine tuning. The handle is convenient to carry, especially when using a flashlight. There is a control panel with four buttons. You must first select a power source, either DYN to use the internal rechargeable Ni-MH battery or BATT to use three AAA cells. Charging the Ni-MH battery is done by turning the handle. According to the instructions, 1 minute of scrolling powers the radio for 5 minutes at low volume. My results were slightly better. You can also charge Ni-MH from a USB port connected to a computer or from an AC adapter. A full charge according to the instructions takes 8 hours and will supposedly power the radio for 4-5 hours, but my experience tends towards less. You can listen to the radio while charging the device through the USB port of the computer. I could do it. But when I tried the power adapter, I encountered such a loud hum that I couldn't hear the transmitter. I have yet to test it with other adapters. Ordinary AAA batteries will run out very quickly when you use them, even when the radio is off, notifications are off and the device is charging. I strongly recommend not leaving AAA batteries in the device when not in use. By the way, the included USB cable is only about 18 inches long. Reception was excellent on AM and FM, the latter with a built-in retractable antenna. You can tune into 7 NOAA stations and I've had excellent reception on two of them in my area. I haven't tried the cell phone charger. You can presumably charge it with the built-in NI-MH battery if it has half the capacity or more. The manual also says you can crank the engine up to 130rpm for 7 minutes to charge a cellphone for 5 minutes of talk time. That's a lot, of course, but when the main power is off, it was worth it. There is a white light flashlight with 4 LEDs that is suitable, and a red light flashlight with 1 LED, which seems to me to be of limited use. There's also an audio-in jack for use with MP3 players etc. Build quality is hardly adequate, if at all. It appears to be entirely plastic and likely won't survive a fall, so handle with care. The inscription on the carrying handle was deleted after moving it from room to room several times. Carrying case or power adapter not included. Overall I think Eton has downgraded their product to the point that the value of the product is questionable. I would not be satisfied with the full price - with the selling price I still feel a bit cheated. As I mentioned earlier, I am a long-time customer of Eton. The FR-400 that this replaces was excellent; it has a more comfortable design in some respects, but I think the quality is inferior in some respects. In general, the quality of Eton no longer convinces me and I will look around for an alternative. Jerry