Review on Retekess PR12 Pocket Digital Radio, AM FM Mini Portable Radio with 📻 TF Port, Backlit Display & Earphone Jack, Ideal for Jogging and Gym (Black) by Sam Faucher

In terms of FM reception and sound quality, this is the best pocket radio I have ever used, without exception. As an MP3 player it's limited to its rudimentary controls but sounds fantastic and you learn to work within its limitations because it's so small but sounds so wonderful. As AM radio, you really only get your local stations except at night, but you may or may not mind that much depending on how much AM you listen to. Overall this is a truly outstanding product in terms of its small size combined with impressive sound and exceptional reception and build quality. The overall impression of this PR12 is very favorable. The case is neatly assembled and the controls feel comfortable. The display is clear, the backlight is pleasant in color and very bright. The designers of the radio decided to reduce the number of controls, which is good because you can control them entirely by touch - a great advantage when the radio is in in your pocket and you are listening through headphones or a headset. But the small number of actual controls means many of the switches serve a dual function, which takes some getting used to. But once you get the hang of it, using this radio actually becomes pretty intuitive. Let's talk about VHF reception. I verify that there is a 6kW VHF tower three miles from my home and a neighboring VHF station 80 miles away. Even without a very close transmitter on an adjacent channel, long range FM reception of 80 miles cannot be guaranteed. With that local station so close by, few exceptional radios can - and that's the Retekess PR12. Is one of them. I was shocked. Only two of my other radios can pick up this distant station from my house, and they are large portable units with much longer antennas (and cost many times more than this small radio). Here's another point - FM on this PR12 is very stable and only minimally dependent on carrying the radio around and repositioning it. This makes it ideal as a portable radio for use with headphones or headphones. You just can't appreciate the FM performance of this radio no matter how hard you try and no matter what you compare it to - it's top notch compared to radios of ANY price range and almost unbelievable when you consider how much it costs and what it is costs tiny sizes. the size. The sound quality through the speaker is also incredible for a device of this size. Crisp, clean, lots of volume, almost no distortion even at high volume. The only other pocket radio that comes close to sounding this good is the Sangean SR-35, a more traditional sized pocket radio. When I hear them side by side I think this PR12 is actually a little better, so I call it the best sounding pocket radio I've ever heard. The headphone sound is also very good, although finding good headphone sound isn't as difficult as finding good speaker sound on a small radio. AM is the PR12's only weak point, although I've seen larger radios do worse. As you know the number one key to good AM reception is a decent sized ferrite rod antenna inside the radio and there simply isn't room in the PR12 for anything other than a very small AM antenna and so you only go for reliable AM Reception close to you (for regular 1-5kW local/regional AM stations) and 50-100 miles away for 50kW power stations. This is during the day. At night I still get AM from many outlying towns, but not as many stations as a radio that is really AM sensitive like GE SuperRadio. Also, there is some noise in the AM band, likely coming from this radio's own circuitry. Depending on the frequency, it ranges from non-existent to quite annoying. If you're looking for a tiny pocket radio with good AM radio, check out the Sony ICF-T46. It's available here at Revain, but it's actually a Japanese market radio with instructions and packaging in Japanese. With this radio, however, that doesn't really matter as it's fully analogue with no digital controls so you don't need instructions on how to use it. This radio comes very close to this retekess, but is a bit thinner. Due to the PR12's small size, as mentioned above, some of the controls are actually reusable. What takes most getting used to is that the tuning rocker also leads to another preset and doubles as a regular tuning slider. You hold it up or down to adjust the volume, short press up or down to toggle between presets, and after the first press of the scan button, short press to manually adjust the volume. Although it sounds complicated, after 5-10 minutes of listening to the radio it becomes second nature. But probably not all users could adapt to it. Elderly people in particular who lack manual dexterity may prefer a radio with more traditional single function controls. With MP3 you have the limitation that you can only move through one track at a time. That's not just true of this unit, but any player that doesn't have a fully functional touchscreen display or other controls that let you navigate through folders and filenames. Insert 10,000 songs here (which you can easily do with a large micro SD card) and try skipping to track 4,563. No, I can not do that. Just accept it and you'll either not fill your micro SD card completely and store tracks in a manageable amount, or you'll just listen to the songs in order without trying to find a specific track. A good strategy is instead of buying bigger and more expensive Micro SD cards and recording thousands of tracks on them, take several small cheap Micro SD cards and put different types of audio tracks, different songs, etc. on different cards and they you would like to change that. Charging the internal battery is quick with the included micro-USB cable, and an on-screen battery indicator shows when charging is complete, just like a cell phone. Some other small radios with rechargeable batteries will give you an idea of the charging time as they do not have a battery status indicator. The Retekess PR12 pretty much does everything right. Its only weakness, so-so AM reception, is an almost inevitable result of its small size - a trait that otherwise makes this radio far more notable.