2010 Yesterday USA Auction

 

 

I.  Phoenix Wi-Fi Radio  From Mike Handy.

Review: Com One’s Phoenix Wi-Fi Radio

Oct. 17, 2008 (3:01 pm)

The concept of listening to the radio over the internet is nothing new. I’ve been known to listen to Pandora or AOL’s Music service from time to time myself and I know a bunch of web workers who listen to streaming audio all day long. The only drawback to listening to music this way is that you have to take your laptop with you if you want to take the stream anywhere. Enter the Phoenix Wi-Fi radio.

The Phoenix Wi-Fi radio sports a nice LCD on the front that shows the time and date, preset station buttons, Snooze and Sleep modes (so you can use it as an alarm clock), and runs on either AC or rechargeable batteries. You navigate your way around the radio via a navigation pad, with the play button also doubling as an enter key. As you can see in the picture below, it fits nicely on a desk, with a relatively small footprint.

At first glance the design won’t win any awards but since I’m all about function first, I have to give Com One props. Integrated in the casing is a ledge with enough room to act as a handle for carrying the device around–nice touch! The bottom of the Wi-Fi radio also has felt on it so that you can feel comfortable leaving it on any surface.

 

Setup
To get the Phoenix Wi-Fi Radio up and running you first activate the 4 rechargeable AA batteries by removing a plastic strip. The company recommends that you first plug in the included AC adapter, which will fully charge the batteries and give you up to 4 hours of continuous play. I decided to jump right in so I was greeted with a configuration wizard which let me set my language and then discovered and connected to my WPA-encrypted network (once I provided the security key). Then I selected my time zone and was up and running.

Usage: streaming or USB key
The Phoenix Wi-Fi radio is pretty easy to use. If you’ve ever navigated an MP3 player, the radio’s navigation scheme will be very familiar.

It also ships with a printed quick start guide that will guide you through setup and all the way through playing some tunes. If you need additional information, there’s a comprehensive printed user manual. I emphasize printed since most products ship with a CD-ROM that has the user guide these days, so it was a nice change to have the physical manual at hand.

Out of the box you have access to over 11,000 radio stations and more than 11,000 podcasts. If that’s not enough for you, just insert a USB key preloaded with your MP3s or WMAs and start listening. You can also connect the Phoenix Wi-Fi radio to your uPnP-enabled media server.

If you’re still not happy with the selection on the device, you can register your device and customize it at wifi-radio.biz. There you can enter in your own URL streams or choose from a more expanded list of podcasts, radio stations, etc..

Overall, I was impressed with all of the functionality offered by the Phoenix Wi-Fi radio. Initially I thought it was just going to play internet streams but when I dug in I discovered that you can truly customize the experience, with your own radio stations, podcasts, and even ring tones and audio backgrounds. If you’re looking for a Wi-Fi radio that doesn’t need to be tethered to a computer, give the Phoenix Wi-Fi radio a try.

Read more about the Com One Phoenix Wi-Fi radio or purchase it for $149 at com-one.biz