Philips NP2500/37 WiFi Internet Radio Network Music Player with Rhapsody (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)The entire problem with this player is that it does one thing really well, but has a couple of other features thrown in addition that don't work as advertised.
As a player for Rhapsody, this really rocks. The songs come up quickly, the interface is easy to navigate, and all the songs feature artwork that looks great on the small but crisp LCD. The only downside is that it requires a paid Rhapsody account, although the free month is a nice introduction.
When it comes to internet radio and streaming music as an UPnP device, this player really falls apart. The internet radio functions work well, but the connectivity is very slow compared to the Rhapsody service, and it is unable to display song information from every station. Some stations work, some don't. Also, to find radio stations you are limited to either browsing the menus, or using the number pad to enter the station's name or a serach keyword. The number pad works about as well as using a cell phone without T9, so it is functional but very, very slow.
The UPnP service for streaming music from your home computer never worked for me. I installed the bundled software, updated it from the company's website, but the music never started. I was able to find my music library, even my iTunes playlists, but when I hit "Play," the player just hung forever and never started the music. FYI, I'm running a Macbook Pro with iTunes, and I keep my music on an external network hard drive, so that may have been the issue. A search through the forums of the Twonky Media Player(used for streaming) revealed nothing helpful, and I was unable to resolve it in the time I had to review the item.
As far as the player itself, the design is attractive and should fit well with most home electronics. The screen is bright and clear, and the remote works as well as can be expected. There are no on device controls, so the remote is essential to any use of the player, but I had no problems. It was also easy to connect to the internet, although entering a wireless network password using the number pad was time-consuming.
Bottom line, don't expect it to work seamlessly as a streaming media center from your PC or Mac's music collection. If you want it mainly for internet radio, it works, but is a bit hard to use. Rhapsody works great, but again, it requires a subscription.

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Wirelessly access 10,000+ Internet stations FREE, your music library, and Music On-Demand with a free trial from Rhapsody. Streamium is your Home Jukebox. You can access Internet music from your home country or hometown, by musical genre (rock, pop, news, sports, 80's, etc.). Your digital music is easily accessed by Streamium so you are always connected to music you already own (in addition you can leverage music from multiple PCs/Macs). Finally, you can get music-on-demand with Rhapsody (free trial included). Search thousands of titles and artists for music of your choice or play "name-that-tune" with your friends and family (by preferred genre). This network music player allows you to "free your music" from MP3 players and your computer. With easy setup you can hook-up to your home theater or home audio system so you can experience seamless entertainment with quality you are used to hearing. FullSound is a great feature built-in that brings back high-quality CD sound from your digitally compressed MP3 files. Enjoy album art from your favorite artists (from your PC/Mac, or from Rhapsody) and enjoy radio station logos and pictures that can be shown on your player. A remote allows easy music management from a distance.

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iLuv Internet Radio with Dual Alarm Clock (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)There was so much potential although I just find myself saying "BUT" way too many times.
They emphasize the clock display is remarkably large BUT it really isn't.
It is a nice looking unit, BUT you can't appreciate how large the case is until you see it and realize it will take up most of average sized night stand.
The sound quality is quite good if you play it at 4 to 5 or higher BUT the quality goes down at the lower volume level where most people realistically would use at the bedside. I haven't found any adjustments for things like bass and treble.
Customer support is terrible. They give you a phone number BUT it just sends you to voice mail. They give you a way to send a message online for express service BUT it is not "express" or helpful. I asked some simple questions while I was waiting for the unit to ship and it took two days for them to respond. They didn't actually attempt to answer my questions at all BUT just sent a .pdf of the manual and told me to read it. Not one of my questions was answered in the manual they sent (simple stuff like does the unit support WPA2, have a place for a 9 volt backup battery, etc.). The manual is very brief and does not go in-depth on any technical details like networking. There are many menus of options on this system that are never discussed in the manual. (Update: they did send me a second email a week later that did attempt to actually answer a few of my questions, and yes, it does support WPA2 but keep on reading).
The biggest killer to me, unless customer support can't advise me otherwise (waiting to hear from them), is that any time your wireless router is turned off OR the security key does a rolling change of the key AND you are using a wireless connection to the router, the iLuv is not able to reestablish a connection on its own. It will try BUT fail. When it fails, it starts the network wizard again AND DELETES YOUR KEY/PASSWORD! You have no choice and no way of stopping it. Even if you try to bypass the wizard and manually configure things, it will wipe out all of the network settings (it keeps the station presets, etc.) and require you to redo things. Oddly, when you manually reenter the key (the same key as you inputted the first time), it will reconnect on its own just fine. If you have a "strong" key for your system (like you should to be really secure), it takes forever to re-enter in the key. You would not believe the arcane method to enter in data via the buttons on the front panel.
This means whenever your router rolls/changes the security key (this is often multiple times an hour for security reasons) the wifi connection will drop and it cannot reconnect. Additionally, any time you turn off your router for an approaching storm, have a power outage, change any setting on the firmware of your router that requires it to reboot itself, etc., you are going to need to reenter your many-charactered key. Router power downs and reboots are just a fact of life. Using a router without a password would bypass this problem BUT that approach is not smart/safe. All of my other wifi devices can reconnect without a problem, so the issue is with the iLuv radio.
This brings up anther flaw. When you plug this unit in via Ethernet (which works well), there should be a software application provided on CD from iLuv that allows you to do all of the programming via your PC versus through the keys on the front of the radio. This is a serious oversight by iLuv.
UPDATE: After about another week (some "express" service, eh?) iLuv finally got back to me in regard to my second email about the dropped wifi connection issues. This is their one_sentence answer to the wifi disconnecting problem: "This problem will not happen after reset iNT170 & re-connect to internet every time user changed the password." I am sorry, but what a lame attempt at a guess/reply after a week of waiting.
I wanted to keep this thing... BUT I just am not feeling the "luv" at this point. The industry is now on the second generation of internet radios and I expected more. Maybe iLuv will release an updated firmware to fix the flaws. The radio is being returned today :( .


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The iNT170 from iLuv is an internet radio with dual alarm clock. It allows the user to access world-wide internet radio stations via Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections. Features include powerful built-in speakers to hear your music with depth and clarity, large display for easy reading, dual alarm clock, 40 preset stations for 20 Internet radio & 20 FM radio, auxiliary line input for any audio devices with 3.5mm jack, and LCD dimmer level control (3 steps). Digital dual alarm clock features include auto time update everyday though internet, wake to Internet radio, FM radio, or buzzer, and sleep to Internet radio or FM radio. Radio features include nternet/FM stereo, PLL tuning digital tuning technology, and programmable presets for 8 radio stations.

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Sangean WFR-1 WIFI Internet Radio Review

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(More customer reviews)An internet radio opens up an almost overwhelming number of broadcast streams and for someone like me, who enjoys classical music, there is a wonderful choice of commercial free stations worldwide. I own (or have owned) a number of internet radios;a Slim Devices Squeezebox(!), a Roku Soundbridge R1000, a Revo Pico portable, a Receiva AE and a Sangean WFR-20, but the new Sangean WFR-20 is almost the best of the bunch (I will explain why it is not unequivocally the best in a minute!).
The Sangean WFR-1 is beautifully finished with a polished wooden case, an array of controls on the front panel, including on/off, volume and equalizer (tone control). They are not particularly intuitive but better than the single knob on the WFR-20. There is also a substantial and full function remote control, resembling that of the Roku, rather than the credit-card sized devices that come with Pico and the WFR-20. The amber display is larger than those found on any other set but the Roku (more about this later).
Set-up was very easy (I use an ethernet wired connection to my router but it works with my wi-fi network) and it was playing within a few minutes of unpacking. There is also an FM tuner with a separate antenna. Sound is excellent and far superior to any of the other sets I have owned except Roku, which is almost as good. For this unit, Sangean has gone to Frontier Silicon rather than to Receiva for their streams. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of stations, including Real format so I can get all the BBC channels (a big negative with Roku). There is little delay in receiving streams after switching on and Frontier has a good website where you can set up favorites and add new stations. Playing stored music from my computer via Windows Media Player has been easy and more consistent than with the WFR-20 or AE.
Now for the downside. Despite a larger display that claims to offer four lines of text, there is no control for format (as Roku provides) or for brightness (which the WFR-20 offers). Most frustrating is that Frontier do not stream program information with the station! There is plenty of room for this on the display and such information on content is invaluable because some stations do not provide this audibly; the WFR-20 does this well because it uses the Receiva streams but it would require reprogramming of software by Frontier to have this on the WFR-1. Frontier tell me it is being discussed but they have no plans for implementation! Surprisingly, Sangean, although the 800lb gorilla here, do not seem inclined to pressure Frontier. I have had several conversations with the amiable Selwyn, whom you reach quite easily when you call up technical support at Sangean, and he agrees totally with me and suggests that I contact Frontier (which I did) or write a review to make this point - which I am doing!
So in summary, this is an excellent product with great acoustic performance but marred by small, but irritating, shortcomings in the display. As a result, I gave it 3 stars rather than 5.

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WiFi Internet Radio & Media Player

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Grace Digital GDI-IR1000 Wi-Fi Internet Radio Featuring Pandora and NPR On-Demand Review

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(More customer reviews)I just bought this radio several days ago and absolutely love it! Very, very simple to operate, and took literally 15 minutes to set up (and I employ both 128 bit WEP and MAC filtering). In addition to the myriad stations available, I've linked my Internet Radio to my Pandora account; this allows the unit to play music directly from my Pandora radio stations. I can even create new Pandora radio stations directly from the Grace IR (although it is quicker and easier to do this from a computer). The sound quality from the onboard speakers is excellent. I have my unit connected to my home stereo system via the Grace IR's Headphone output into L-R inputs on my receiver. This is an excellent, excellent buy! I am considering purchasing a second unit for my bedroom. I highly recommend this unit.

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Listening to streaming Internet radio via your wireless 802.11b/g broadband network using the Grace Digital Internet Radio (GDI-IR1000) has never been easier. Enjoy over 15,000 free global radio stations via the high quality built in speaker -- in any room of your house. Includes Grace Digital Internet Radio, AC power, Owner's manual, Mini to RCA stereo cable to optionally connect to your stereo, Built-in headset jack (audio out) on rear panel. Wirelessly stream Internet radio directly from the Internet via your wireless router and broadband (DSL or Cable) connection or stream your audio library directly from your PC or Mac; Compatible with your wireless router and security setting, works with 802.11 b/g/n routers and 128 WEP, WPA and WPA 2 security, supports HTTP protocol. Easy set up - just scroll and click; Multiformat audio compatibility, supports all major music formats including; MP3, WMA, Real Audio, WAV, AAC, AIFF; 5 programmable alarms so you can wake to your favorite music or alarm tone, Each alarm can be set to announce once, day of the week, daily, weekday, or weekends; Sleep timer settable in 30 second increments up to 24 hours; 5-watt speaker provides solid bass and crisp highs; Equalizer settings optimize your audio performance with the 6 built in presets or customize the bass and treble settings for your environment and musical taste; 4-line display and easy-to-use dials and buttons for fast station browsing with adjustable backlight display (30 micro backlight settings); 15,000 music, talk, and sports stations so you can choose from over 280 locations and 67 genres, 20,000 on demand streams and Podcast.

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