from Decatur, TX

I bought my radio online since I don't have a Best Buy near me and when I got it, the reception is awesome for 60-70 miles! I also get HD radio from Wichita Falls which is 79 miles away. Even though I kept hearing about the AM HD and the earphones, but the radio is a very tight opening.

What's great about it: Reception, RDS, the difference in quality

What's not so great: No AM HD, Armband, and the earphones

I would recommend this to a friend!

Sound Quality

Durability

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Customer Rating

Poor signal reception, Sporadic sound output

on July 15, 2012

Posted by: Kennybee5

from Puyallup, WA

My first issue was with reception. I had a short auxiliary cord in the car. plugged it in and only received a few HD channels and not the one I was particularly interested in. Since the headset./auxiliary output cord acts as the antenna, I tried a longer one. That worked better. But the cord had to be draped up around my rear view mirror to get adequate reception. This was not satisfactory. While using the unit for the first 10 minutes, it automatically re-booted, even clearing the pre-sets I had programmed. After some time the re-booting stopped for a while. But then the audio would quit. Even while the signal was strong. I would have to cycle the station for the audio to resume. Needless to say, I returned it to Best Buy the same day. No questions asked.

What's great about it: It's a great idea

What's not so great: Unreliable

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

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Customer Rating

Very Limited Life

on November 12, 2012

Posted by: Workaholic31

from Denton, TX

I love this radio it works awesome for a radio at work but only for about 3 month or just over 90days. Unfortunatelly I am about to exchange it for my 4th one in all cases it ceases to recognize the headphone jack, luckily I bought the extended warranty. Maybe by the time my warranty runs out they will have fixed the problem with these, as since I initially bought this I have seen SEVERAL others with the same problem..

What's great about it: Portability

What's not so great: Durability

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

Sound Quality

Durability

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Customer Rating

Beware and don't buy this radio

on September 7, 2013

Posted by: Twiceburned

from Milbury, Ma

Purchased first one April 2013, it stopped working (no sound) in June 2013 and got a free replacement under the 90 day warranty. The 2nd one just stopped working (no sound) after 2 months. I should have read reveiws before I purchasd it which said many folks have experience the same failures after a month or two. I'm disappointed in that Best Buy would carry this radio give it's poor quality track record.

What's great about it: Presets, digital tuning, reception

What's not so great: Doesn't work after 2 months, no sound

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

Sound Quality

Durability

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Customer Rating

Barely passable

on February 12, 2011

Posted by: jemiller226

from Western PA

First, what the unit does well:

It doesn't take up much space, it has an aux jack so you can use it in the car, and the screen, while obviously cheap, is easy to read.

What the unit does poorly:

Has worse reception than anything more expensive than a clock radio and doesn't hold a charge to save its life. I have to charge it before I use it every single time or the unit won't even power on. That's just *awful*.

Bottom line, if you want HD radio, don't do it on the cheap, or at least not this cheap.

What's great about it: size, price

What's not so great: everything else

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

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Customer Rating

Awesome, Best HD Radio on the Market

on July 15, 2009

Posted by: syrwhizzy

from Syracuse, NY

This radio, by far has the best reception of any HD radio I've used. It also has better reception than many analog radios.

Battery life, on a fully charged system, lasted just over 10 hours for me, and I used it all day.

PROS

Great price. You can't beat $50.

Best HD reception I've ever seen in the home/desk market. It doesn't beat the auto HD radios, but, it's better than any tabletop one I've played with.

Great display of Song Title/Arist data of HD broadcasts (what's called PAD)

Support for Song Title/Artist data on non-HD broadcasts (what's called RDS). This was a HUGE surprise for me, because most HD radios leave this feature out for some stupid reason. Thank You!

Great Battery Life.

Works great in the car with an 1/8" to 1/8" cable to your AUX IN. Basically, you can treat this HD radio like you would an iPod or other MP3 player in that regard.

CONS

It doesn't display the Album information on HD broadcasts (or PAD). Many stations transmit it. Most HD Radios don't display it. This is a mistake. I'd recommend another display mode on an HD broadcast when you press the "Enter" button. Right now there are two displays, a large font one showing you just the current channels data. Another one, with a smaller font, that shows you all HD1, HD2, HD3 channels data. I'd want to see another one that used the font size the three lines for the current channel only. One for Title, one for Artist, one for Album.

I wish it had iTunes Tagging. With the USB cord for charging, add another button and you're almost there.

I wish it had more presets. 10 is too limiting given all the new radio stations you can hear (HD2 and HD3 stations). I could easily fill 15 of them, and I'm not in a major city.

On analog broadcasts where it shows the Song Artist/Title (RDS data) I wish the enter key would change the longer field, the RadioText, to the smaller font, and then did word wrapping across the three lines of text that would be available in that mode.

I found a bug in the receiver, for analog broadcasts, where the smaller field (called the PS, or station name) which is displayed next to the frequency, does not display properly if there is a space in first character of the field. It just shows blank. i.e, a station is allowed to send 8 characters to this field, and they often scroll the artist/title/station name in there. If they send "12345678" everything shows up. If they send "1234567" everything shows up. If they send " 1234567" -- NOTHING shows up, it looks blank. I've had my hands on a bunch of RDS receivers, and well, this is the first one to ever exhibit that behavior. Many broadcasters center this field, so if it's not 8 characters, they add spaces to the left and the right to make it look better on most receivers.

Earbuds supplied with the unit are too big. They hurt my ears and basically don't fit in. And I'm told I have big ears!!! I ended up using my iPod earbuds or other high end Sony headphones with this unit to listen.

I wish it had some MP3 capibilities. Perhaps a memory card slot for an SD card so the unit could play some MP3s too.

What's great about it: Great price, best HD reception, great battery life, supports song/title on analog broadcasts too!

What's not so great: No support for Album info, iTunes song tagging, MP3's. Suppllied earbuds uncomfortable.

I would recommend this to a friend!

Sound Quality

Durability

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Customer Rating

POOR Reception

on October 20, 2009

Posted by: Dedalus

from Cincinnati

I bought this to listen to one specific local HD substation while at work, though there are 10+ HD radio stations within 10-15 miles of me. I am in my office right now and can SEE my favorite station's broadcast tower. I can SEE it. But do I get HD reception on this little radio? No. Not at all. Not even a little.

As a matter of fact, I cannot get ANY local channels in HD unless I am within 3-5 miles of the tower. One of my co-worker has a tabletop HD radio that clearly pulls on ALL the local channels in HD from here at work. All I can get from work with this Insignia portable is a few static-filled analog signals.

I would not recommend this radio unless you live next door to your favorite station and don't intend to move around much. =)

What's great about it: Small and inexpensive.

What's not so great: POOR reception. USB charging only.

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

Sound Quality

Durability

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Customer Rating

great idea poor execution

on March 5, 2010

Posted by: stuo

from austin tx

As I said I'm on my 3rd unit in 7 days. The first one developed a software glitch after 6 days. It lost all the presets. The unit went to 87.5 and would not tune or turn off. The second one I got tonight had the wrong buttons on one side of the unit. A set of the left side buttons was installed upside down on the right side. I took it back and got #3. I looked on the web and could not find another similar product from a different mfg. Too bad because I would buy someone else's in a heartbeat. Best Buy has been great. Too bad they sell this poorly designed and manufactured product.

What's great about it: HD radio in an Ipod size package

What's not so great: I'm on my 3rd one in 7 days

No, I would not recommend this to a friend.

Sound Quality

Durability

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