Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I'm not as enthusiastic as the first reviewer since I have other radios to compare it to so I'm giving this Coby radio only 3 stars because of the 2 line display and the user interface being so clunky and hard to use although it plays well. I would give it 4 stars if the interface were improved. There are no knobs, just a lot of buttons on the top that are used for going up and down through a confusing array of menus in order to find anything. The buttons tend to stick, are sometimes hard to push and difficult to find in the dark. It would be easier to use after memorizing the menus but since you can't see them you have to keep them in your head and they are hard to follow on the little 2 line display. Coby has another model, the IR850, with a 6 line display that would be better but it costs more. Other radios with 5-6 line displays are much easier to navigate when you can see the whole menu at one time and have a rotary know to scroll through them. This radio could really benefit from a remote control.
I also have 2 other internet radios, an IR808 similar to the Kaito IR-168 and an RCA/AR RIR205 from Audiovox to compare this to. While the RCA uses Vtuner for it's portal and the IR-168 uses IR168's own site this radio uses the Frontier Silicon wifi radio portal but it seems to be based on Vtuner. Frontier Silicon, in the U.K., designed the radio's processor module, wrote it's firmware and also provides the website for radio makers and owners to use. When I first opened the box and got the radio out and plugged it in, it connected to wifi and got a station right away which was a surprise since I had a lot of trouble getting the first 2 other radios to work at all. I did have to update my wifi router from an old 802.11B to a D-Link DI624 G model a while back though which is a big part of why it worked right out of the box.
The radio is smaller than it looks in the photos. They do say it's compact but it's no bigger than a loaf of pound cake. In spite of the light plastic cabinet it's a lot heavier than I expected. The wifi antenna is hot glued inside the top of the cabinet but the rest of it seems well put together. The speakers look small but produce good sound and are quite loud in spite of only a 2 Watt per channel power rating. I also noticed that it was made by Hip Shing Elect. Co., model IR706. They also make Grace radios and others. Coby doesn't really make anything, they buy items from other manufacturers with the Coby name put on them to resell. I also have a Coby HD AM/FM radio which I like but it's actually a Mondo Revo. One potential drawback to this radio design is that everything is done on the Frontier Silicon web site, even storing Favorites. This means the radio won't work at all if their web site is down. The RCA has a similar design that relies on the RCA/AR web site but some others such as the IR-168 have their own built-in web server that you can browse to with your PC and store Favorite stations directly into the radio's memory.
While other radios tend to have an SD memory slot or USB jack for playing your own music files this radio has neither. They claim it can stream audio from a PC using uPnP with Windows Media Player 11 and the manual even shows how to setup WMP 11 to do streaming, something I've never found explained in other manuals. Other radios such as the IR-168 claim they can do streaming using uPnP too but they don't tell how to do it. I was only able to get that to work in Windows 7 though and not in XP Pro. However, most security experts say to never use uPnP at all and to always keep it disabled because it allows hackers access to your files. If you aren't worried about hackers, have Windows 7 or can get XP to stream and have a lot of music, podcasts or audio books on your PC you want to play then this feature would be handy. There is also a way to get iTunes and VLC media player to stream over wifi to the radio but when I tried that my router kept crashing. One advantage this radio has is the ability to receive KFI and other Clear Channel stations that are difficult for internet radios to get. It won't play if you use the radio to go to Region and browse to LA, Calif. then choose the station however. That just produces a Network Error but if you go on the web site and choose the station and add it as a Favorite then it plays but tends to work intermittantly.
This radio would be the best for someone who only listens to a few stations and can store them in the Preset buttons where they are easy to access. It's not really that great for someone who wants to browse the web a lot, they would want a bigger display and easier to use controls like the IR850. The RIR205 and the IR-168 are both easier to use to browse the web for stations than the Coby.
The build-in FM tuner is more sensitive than I expected and even has RDS, a feature normally found in car radios, to show the station's call letters and the title and artist of the song that's playing on the screen, something that's not mentioned in the manual or on the web site. The FM tuner doesn't get HD stations but the radio has a feature listed under Internet Radio called HDi (also not mentioned in the manual) that has a list of HD2 channels from various stations around the USA that are on the internet. It doesn't get all of them however.
Pros
1. Blue & white display is bright and easy to see but only from the front, not the top where the controls are.
2. Has Help built-in but it's hard to read on the little 2 line display.
3. FM radio plays better than expected, is more sensitive than other radios and has a real whip antenna instead of just a piece of wire hanging out the back but it's not HD.
4. Can receive KFI 640AM but sometimes it works and sometimes you get a network error.
5. Faster than the others to connect to the wifi router and tune in stations.
6. Remembers it's internet settings and it's wifi connection when power is off in spite of not having any backup batteries.
7. Besides internet radio and FM there is also an option to play podcasts and streams from a PC.
Cons
1. Display is only 2 lines and hard to see unless you are right in front so you have to put the radio up at eye level but then it's hard to see the buttons on top. It's also too bright at night and there's no way to turn it down but you could use it for a flashlight or nite lite to illuminate the bedroon.
2, Display doesn't scroll so you have to keep pressing Info to see all the data. It doesn't show the song or artist either when playing internet stations.
3. Volume buttons stick and are harder to operate than a knob.
4. Favorites are hard to add, you have to browse through a long list on the web site to find and select each one and you can only add one at a time.
5. Only has 5 Presets for internet and 5 for FM.
6. Built in wifi antenna not as sensitive as some others that are external.
7. No remote.
8. No SD memory slot or USB connection for playing your music files from flash memory or USB thumbdrives.
9. No Ethernet jack, wifi only. A USB jack on the rear is marked Service Port Authorized Use Only and doesn't seem to do anything.
10. Can only play MP3, WMA and RealAudio file types. At least those are the only types listed on the web site when you add a station. Other radios can also play AAC, WAV and AIFF. The Frontier Silicon prototype this radio is based on can play AAC and the new Grace GDI-IRD4000 is claimed to supported: Real Audio, WMA, MP3, AAC, AAC+, FLAC (lossless), WAV (lossless), AU, AIFF, and OGG Vorbis so it probably just needs a firmware update to play additional formats.
11. There was no user forum available for support like other radios have so I created one on Google Groups called Frontier Silicon Based Internet Radios.
I ended up sending it back because I couldn't explain to anyone in the household how to tune in a station on it. To replace it I got a Coby IR850. It also has 2 big stereo speakers with good sound but is much easier to operate and has a remote control. The buttons on top are easier to use and it has a big display that's easy to read. They have a problem with the display backlight LEDs burning out early but they are not hard to replace. Directions for doing that are also on the Frontier Silicon Radio Google Group.
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Coby IR825 Compact Wireless Internet Radio System (Black)
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