Review on Sangean WFR-28: Gray/White Internet Radio with FM-RBDS, USB, and Color Display - Discover Limitless Music! by Robert Hole

Introduction: This is my fourth internet radio. We started with the Grace table radio, it's beautiful and sturdy, easy to use and versatile. Then I got the Mutant M-Wavio, fits in a shirt pocket but regularly leaks streams and networks. I recently bought an Onkyo Internet Receiver, large and handy with many input options. So with Sangean I had expectations. I am an old radio amateur. I used to carry a portable radio with me everywhere, but terrestrial (local) radio doesn't offer the same entertainment value as it used to, so I turned to the internet. acquaintance. portable. This is a good desk radio; and while it has a comb on the back to act as a handle, it would be useful to have some sort of handle at the top to lift it up. You know it's not small when it takes four D size batteries. I was going to use AA batteries with D size adapters to power this radio but it didn't work; The battery compartment is too narrow and I couldn't fit my batteries in that space with adapters. Now I understand why people who buy this radio (according to Revain) are also ordering rather expensive D-size rechargeable batteries will be to find a replacement for the original if it is lost or broken. The paper manual that comes with it is quite legible (unlike some other Chinese manuals), but it's not as helpful as it should be. It's a gloss black radio, solidly built, all contact points feel comfortable and secure, all buttons are clear and easy to press, there are four nice grippy feet on the bottom, nothing comes cheap here. The device needs some time (about 30 seconds). (I set it to disconnect from wifi on standby until I sort out the battery. Leaving it connected to your wifi should reduce the startup time). Connection to my WiFi was successful, start the wizard, select your network, choose characters for your WiFi password and boom, you're in business. The steps in the guide are not exactly the same as the steps required for the radio, if you have done something like this before you are fine, if not you may find it confusing. The setup/selection encoder suffers from the same problem as most of them; It can't always keep up with the user, depending on what the device's processor is doing it can take a few seconds for the encoder to realize you're trying to make a selection, and then it can jump a few steps ahead. It takes a bit of getting used to, but if you've used a WiFi radio before, it's pretty easy and intuitive. The display is bright, colorful, beautiful and informative. The display lights up when the radio is running on mains power and goes off a few seconds after each input when running on battery power. The sound is really good for a radio of this size. This radio has preset sound contours to help you find the sound you want and includes custom settings to help you set your own sound profile. It has a separate line output (in addition to the headphone output) that easily feeds externally amplified speakers and still sounds good. When listening to Internet radio, the INFO button scrolls through the display through multiple sets of data. There are five preset buttons. It must be ten or more. They have a list of favorites on the Frontier Silicon Radio Portal, but five presets is ridiculously small today. This radio depends on the Frontier Silicon Radio portal. My Mutant and Onkyo use the VTuner portal. In my opinion these two portals are so similar that I suspect they are run by the same people but with a different user interface. If you're not familiar with this service, check out this link to see what's available for free. http://vtuner.com/setupapp/guide/asp/BrowseStations/startpage.asp If you know other stations that are not listed on the service site, you can add streams to the Added Stations list for later browsing. Local FM reception is good, better than some of my other portable radios. The display shows images for signal strength, stereo, preset number and others that I don't understand and none of this is explained in the manual. There are five presets for FM, and here too there should be ten. There is a scan function, just press and hold the Tuning/Select button for a second; This works pretty well for finding the next available station. Plug in a USB stick at the top and you have a good music player. The controls work well, the sound is great and again the display is very informative. I connected the output of my MP3 player to the AUX input, this input takes a lot of current to drive it, I just had my MP3 player on full volume for good sound. Spotify not tested; I don't have an account. I use every day. This radio is very easy and pleasant to use. The batteries will charge when the power source is connected to the radio (when you set the internal switch to the rechargeable position). In the weeks I've had this radio it has only lost stream twice and I suspect the problem lies with the source of the stream. I have dozens (or hundreds) of streams saved in my favorites and when it plays it plays without a break. I mostly listen to streams or local FM, and while the built-in speaker sounds good, I usually send LINE OUT to amplified speakers when listening to music. In the internet radio menu there is a subsection called "HDi" (obviously they are high definition internet radio stations) where I found many high quality classical and jazz stations. This is also not explained in the instructions. I don't like digital volume controls at all, I prefer the analogue rotary control; But the up and down volume rocker on this radio is big, well-shaped, responsive and offers plenty of small increments. End. I use this radio every day and do not regret the purchase. The guide will get you started, and once you get the hang of it, it's worth experimenting with. This is one of the nicest and most useful radios I own. Advantages. 1. Strong WiFi reception.2. Strong FM.3 reception. Comfortable feel and access to all controls.4. Good sound via the built-in speaker, powerful line output (stereo) to external amplifiers.5. Excellent display.6. Long battery life.7. Really strong Cons 1. Need a pen.2. Batteries can be stuck.3. A little heavy.4. Encoder tuning can lag or jump ahead.5. A total of five FM stations and five preset internet stations.6. Odd voltage power supply. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Sangean is successful here.