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Have had no connection problems. For me, this means no RAI (Italy's equivalent of BBC). You can set the backlight to go off after a specified number of minutes, and the sleep timer is really easy to use -- both important for a bedside radio. I just got this after returning a Grace Allegro (I posted a review of that). As I wasn't that happy with reciva either I'm in a quandary as to whether to keep it and live with the limitations or exchange it for another brand of reciva unit. BUT NO realmedia stations.
Haven't had that with vtuner -- I can actually get everything it says I can.
Now the BUT.
And the other stunning BUT -- no presets.
Setup was easy; unlike some reviewers I found it easy to add stations.
Before buying make sure the stations you really want stream in MP3 or WMA.
internet radios use either reciva or vtuner.
The Grace uses reciva and I did have issues with stations supposedly being available but then in reality they weren't.
There's a very nice remote with numbered buttons -- but you can't assign stations to them (at least that I can find despite having read the manual).
But for sure no RAI and no presets means I won't be buying one for my 83-year old Italian mother.
We've had one of these for about 10 months and it's worked so well I just ordered a second one to use in another part of the house. This little box contains a great selection of features for the price, is very easy to setup and use, and doesn't take up much space on a shelf. The only thing it lacks is a decent speaker, but adding a good quality pair of external speakers like the Bose Companion II set makes it sound great.
MP3 player is very picky: It will only accept a real USB flash drive but not a USB mass storage device such as an SD card reader or an MP3 player. It could use wireless n support. You can add stations yourself, all new units have this capability. I sent it back and got a new one that works almost perfectly. I have had this internet radio for more than a year now, and I am very satisfied. All that needs to be done is for Aluratek to release a firmware upgrade allowing you to use NTFS and exFAT and fix the sleep function glitch. If you use the snooze button to set it, it will cut out the sound stream and if you set in in a menu, it sets it, but does not actually work. The only glitch I've found is that it refuses to set the sleep function after 11 p.m.
I love some of its features like AP capability: It can work as an access point if you plug it in with an Ethernet cable. Streaming from a computer works flawlessly. The first unit I bough had the defective firmware many people complained about, and one day completely froze. However, these are relatively small glitches and they do not significantly affect the device. It will only support FAT 16 or FAT 32, no support for NTFS or exFAT. Internet Radio and FM tuner also work very well. Also, unlike some other units, the Wi-Fi antenna is removable, so you can in theory upgrade it to a higher gain antenna. For the price, there is no better unit.
I'm somewhat old school and somewhat computer illiterate. However, the product was hard to program and the CS people were quite encouraging and helpful and as a result I sent the product back. I thought this radio alarm clock was the answer to all my prayers as far as music selection and convenience. This had some factor on my decision to return the product. I'm sure it's a good radio but it did not serve my purpose. This was no fault of the CS personnel or a quality issue of the radio. Thank you. Rob Cowan, Deerfield, IL.
Then 7 pm. I called customer support and they said the current version is 1.48. At 5 in the evening, it reported the time to be 2 am. I don't know where to begin, this was such an awful piece of equipment. Do all my issues relate to bad firmware. Of course, to do so requires a thumb drive, which I don't have anyway (I'm at my parents' house, and don't carry a drive with me at all times).5) When I looked online, the website reported that the most current firmware is 1.37.
4) I thought perhaps a firmware upgrade was called for.
Then 2 pm.
Of course my device shipped with 1.47a.
I was able to connect to my wireless network without any problem, but that was the high point of my ownership experience.1) It is unable to connect to the DNS server to get a list of radio stations (and I tried this with a hard-wired ethernet connection as well)2) It connects to the time server (I think) but the time reported has no resemblance to reality.
So apparently the website is out of date (see complaint #3).
I checked and reset the time zone, so I know that wasn't the issue.
When the clock started running backwards, I started losing all hope.3) Online tech support is useless.
The "a" by most standards would indicate this to be an alpha version of the firmware, which is software in early development - if this is true, it should never be sent to a customer.
Perhaps, but I have a profound philosophical issue with manufacturers who ship hardware with alpha versions of their software, and then would require me to pay for additional hardware to restore a functionality it should have existed in the first place.
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