Logitech Squeezebox Radio Music Player with Color Screen (Black)
by Logitech, Inc
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Category: Speakers
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: Logitech, IncBrand: Logitech
Edition: Electronics
Format: CD-ROM
Model: 930-000101
Color: Black
Publisher: Logitech, Inc
Studio: Logitech, Inc
Music Label: Logitech, Inc
Product features:
- Listen to infinite music, news and sports from every corner of the globe with this easy-to-use, all-in-one Wi-Fi music player--all without a computer
- Start listening to free Internet radio stations, online music services, and your personal iTunes collection in minutes--connects easily to your home network via Wi-Fi
- Bring full, high-quality sound to any room with an ultra-compact design that fits easily on your night table or kitchen counter
- Just turn the dial to browse radio stations, music tracks and even album art, displayed on the full-color screen
- Recommend music to Facebook friends instantly right from your Squeezebox
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Logitech Squeezebox Radio Music Player with Color Screen (Black)
Customer Review: Radio Ga Ga, some other features
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The Squeezebox Radio is a first class, excellent Internet radio with clock/alarm functions. With the Flickr app installed, it will display photos stored under user's Flickr account. Other capabilities which are nice to have but not likely to be widely used include its ability to stream audio from a computer or double up as an iPod speaker.
PACKAGING, CONTENTS
As it's the case with most Logitech products, the Squeezebox Radio comes inside a box where everything is packed nicely and securely, with enough padding to ensure that rough treatment won't damage it. All shiny surfaces are protected by plastic film sheets. I experienced no problems or frustrations taking components out of the box.
The box contents include:
- the Radio
- power adapter with the US-standard 110V removable plug
- 3.5mm audio cord for iPod or other MP3 players
- folded poster with setup guide/manual/warranty statement
Logitech's warranty is for 2 years from date of purchase and they would expect you to have the purchase receipt and to pay for shipping unless local laws prohibit that.
INITIAL SETUP
The physical setup is as easy as attaching the removable plug to the power adapter, plugging the adapter into a power outlet and connecting it to the radio and turning the on the radio. An Ethernet port (cable not included) is available for wired connections. I did not attempt to perform a wired network setup.
Once the radio is on for the first time, a language is selected from those displayed on the screen and then the radio will attempt to find a wireless access point. In my case, it immediately found my Linksys router and connected to it.
The initial setup completed with me creating a Logitech account by providing an email address and a password. At that point it's possible to listen to the radio.
OPERATION
Radio
-----
Starting with 'radio', the array of options is almost overwhelming. The least intimidating way to get to listen to a station is by selecting 'Internet Radio'. This will open a multi-layered menu with everything from Staff Picks, Local, Music, Sports, Talk, World and Search. If you pick World, the next layer would include Find a City, Featured Cities, National Networks, World Music. Find a City would open a listing of continents. If you pick Antarctica, believe it or not, you can select between All Stations or By Genre. It turns out that the only genre in that continent was Folk and there was actually a Folk station broadcasting off Antarctica. This was just an example to show the breadth and depth of the Internet Radio menu option. Once you like a station, it can be easily assigned to one of the 6 preset buttons that flank the radio's color display.
Another way to get music off the Internet is through Apps. These are dowloadable setups that would let your radio channel some services, some of them free. There are 29 such Apps that Logitech allows you to download and use at the time this review was written, not all of them free and not all of them 'music'. Staying with the music, the easiest way you can get an App to work on your radio is from Logitech's site you access with your Logitech account - Logitech promises not to Spam you and so far I didn't get any Spam from them. My favorite FREE music App/service so far is Pandora. It lets me, among other things, create my own 'radio stations' by simply entering one or more artists and songs names. Then, Pandora will play music that is compatible with my input. For example, I entered Pink Floyd, the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix for one of my 'stations' and I get to listen to, besides theses three, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, some Cream.
The Settings menu is equally rich in options. It's another multi-layered menu tree that controls just about every aspect of your Squeeze and I'm not going to go into details because it may take several pages. The good news is that the options are pretty well organized and it shouldn't be difficult to customize the aspects of your Squeezebox behavior that you would like to modify. Thankfully, the 'Restore Factory Defaults' option exists, buried somewhere, 3 or 4 levels deep under Advanced.
Clock and Alarm
By default, the Squeezebox will display the date and time when turned off. There's no need to do anything to set date/time since it seems to 'get' the correct location for the time zone off your IP address. It's possible to select a different zone through the Settings menu, of course.
The Alarm function is surprisingly rich. Any number of separate alarms can be set - don't know if there is a limit. You can set the time, whether it's a one-time or reoccurring and if it's a repeat alarm, the day of the week it will play. The volume can be selected and then you can dive into another one of Logitech's overwhelming menu trees that allows you to sound your alarm from the current playlist or play one of many Musical Sounds, Natural Sounds, or Sound Effects. Not much to complain other than you can't hear a sample of the sound you selected or maybe I didn't know how to play it.
Other Internet Apps
Normally, the Squeezebox will display the logo of the station you are playing or, if you are listening to a service such as Pandora, you will see the album cover the song came from. But if you install the Flickr App, you can display your Flickr pics instead. It's pretty cool but it wears off quite quickly. The color screen is nice and bright but it's also small and I get a radio because I want to listen to it, not to stare at a 2-inch screen. Again, it's nice but I wouldn't miss this capability if it wasn't available.
There are other innovative apps that may have some limited use. The Amazon app for example, will allow you to buy your favorite music directly from the Squeezebox (wow!!!). The Facebook app will, according to the Logitech site, allow you to share your favorite music with family and friends, discover new friends with similar music interests or communicate with friends away from your computer. I didn't try it yet.
More Features
As if this wasn't enough, the Squeezebox also allows you to stream music off your home computers after you install the Squeezebox Server on it - supports Windows (Vista/XP/2000), Mac, Ubuntu, Linux. Again, a nice thing to have but I simply can't see why I would want to stream music to a device equipped with a small, mono speaker. I'd rather listen to music off my laptop since it comes out in stereo there. I suspect it works well but I didn't think it was worth trying.
The Squeezebox also allows to connect and play an iPod or some other MP3 player - cable provided. And, again, it's good to have this but piping iPod music through a little mono speaker... not worth it.
Finally, you can listen to the Squeezebox with headphones. It's nice you can but I don't think too many users would care about this capability.
MY EXPERIENCE
I find the Squeezebox to be an extraordinarily great Internet Radio device. Or rather, an Alarm Clock/Internet Radio. While limited by the small, single speaker to 'mono' sound, the quality of the output is quite impressive. I suspect there's a large cache built in because, when listening to the same Pandora output on my computer and on the Squeeze, the Squeeze came pretty close to crystal-clear while my computer's output was below par.
It's impossible to say how many stations can be tuned to but the number should be in the thousands. It's not always easy to find what you are looking for but quick and dirty searches are possible by simply entering the station's call letters or you can go geographically by continent/country/city/genre.
Some of the available Apps are fun to use - something like Pandora's customized radio stations should be close to one's dream of music listening. Other apps can go in the 'wow' category as in "I can't believe they can do this" but aren't likely to be used much. The beauty of the Apps concept is that the Squeezebox is infinitely expandable as more Apps doing things we can't imagine today can be added when available.
What impressed most about the Squeezebox were:
- extraordinary easy and quick setup on a Wi-Fi network
- the sheer volume of Internet radio stations available
- the availability of great Apps such as Pandora
- the Alarm/Clock function
- the color screen that displays interesting information such as album covers or stations logos and the name of the artists playing
- infinite expandability through new Apps
Some of the shortcomings include:
- ONLY 6 preset station buttons
- mono sound
- a simple remote control would make operation easier
- there's no information in the broadcast quality (kbps) displayed anywhere or rating the station based on the quality of their broadcast
- it's possible to get lost into some of the enormous menu trees
- completely dependent on Logitech for service - nothing other than maybe streaming music from one's own computer would work if Logitech went out of business or stopped supporting the Squeezebox.
MY RATING
I really, really love this device and Amazon's rating for "I love it" is 5 stars. Clearly, it's not perfect but, for the price, this is close to the best one can get when it comes to the ability to listen to distant radio stations without involving a computer.
All we hear is Radio Ga Ga
Radio Blah Blah
Radio what's new?
Someone still loves you!
Note:
Please see the first comment to this review on the ability to expand the sound quality to 'stereo' and 'amplified'. I am not likely to try that because I have other options for listening to hi-fi, loud music but it's nice to know that it can be done.
Description of Logitech Squeezebox Radio Music Player with Color Screen (Black)
Logitech Squeezebox Internet Radio 930-000101 Network Media PlayersDigital Cameras & Photo Categories
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