Homerton

I've had this for a few days now and got to know it better, so if Amazon get round to publishing the first version of this review, which seems to have disappeared into the ether, then this one is the one to read.In the interests of full disclosure, I am a 'content creator' for Majority, which means I expect to get paid for this review. However, I spent my own money buying it, and I'm not being paid enough to sugar-coat the review. This will be just as I see it, regardless of the finance.So, what's it like? It's a pretty little thing out of the box. Mine is in an oak veneer, with a bit of a '50s Ercol feel to the rectangular, radiused enclosure. The prominent speaker grill on the top looks perfect for spilling coffee into, but the front face is nice and clean. The top face also has the button controls and rotary knob which is important in set-up but virtually redundant thereafter due to the dinky remote control.Set-up was pretty easy, except for connecting to wi-fi. Putting in the password required several tries due to the unintuitive nature of the input controls. To move to the next letter, you use the 'next' button, not 'go'. The tiny little manual didn't cover that, but eventually it worked. Tuning the internet radio and DAB services was a breeze. I have read some other reviews where there were problems with disconnection, but I haven't experienced that.There is no Spotify/Deezer/Apple Music connect, but if you're desperate there is Bluetooth and you can control the unit through the mobile phone. There's also a 'plug and play' option for compatible devices, USB, a CD, and AUX port and an FM Radio for real dinosaurs. I've used them all now and they all work nicely.I like the information centre. It shows you a real-time weather report which is useful in the mornings, and an analogue clock which is easy to read with your eyes full of sleep. Apparently there is a dimmer function if it's too bright, but it hasn't bothered me. I'm still learning about some of the other functions after a week of trying it.Sound quality is pretty good for a box of this size. It's not going to shake any stadiums, and vocals get a bit distorted at 'very loud', but it handles enough to the point the neighbours get unhappy with no issues. Bass is solid, separation of instruments so you can follow individual lines is more than adequate and vocals, particularly female vocals, are rendered with sympathy and liveliness. My first choice of sample CD, 'Blue' by Joni Mitchell, sounded so good I listened to the whole thing rather than just playing a sample track. It struggled a bit more with Metallica, but at moderate volumes coped pretty well. Planet Rock and Kerrang come over nice and clear, with a real sense of 'air' - proving that this is not just for talk radio.The manufacturers are offering a 3 year warranty if you register the product, so they must be confident in the build quality. I've only had it a week. So far, nothing's broken.This unit is ideal for what it's designed for. I wish I'd had something this good to take to my first bedsit. I would buy one in a heartbeat for my niece when she goes to University. It's just perfect for that small space. It does everything you need - and sometimes more than you want. I spent about five minutes just trying to navigate internet radio. There are literally thousands of stations to choose from. As it is, it sits in the bedroom but it would be equally at home in the kitchen or the workshop - anywhere that you want background music but aren't really 'audiophile listening'. I have to admit, I haven't tried it with headphones.What would improve it? A USB-charging facility, perhaps? Definitely the possibility of connecting external speakers. The electronics are good enough, but the fact it's only a single (therefore mono) speaker does mean you loose some depth and perspective from some broadcasts and performances.These are only minor gripes, however. I really like this little box. I'm keeping it.

A very solid product with modern design. The many features all work well and are relatively easy to access and set up. DAB radio self setup was quick and easy to follow and found all the stations you would expect in the UK. The Wi-Fi setup using the routers "WPS" button is to be recommended over manually keying in the security password, this can be frustrating using the rotary dial on the top to select each letter and character in the password, especially if the the password is long with special characters. A lovely product with a nice sound and many useful features. My only niggle was that the unit kept switching itself off after 15 minutes, I later found that one of the settings was set by default (??) to close the unit down after 15 minutes, once this was set to "Off" all was well again.

As always, I did a lot of research of expert reviews, small print in extremely good and bad customer reviews before deciding to buy this machine, and I haven't been disappointed. It looks great and the user interface is easy to read and mostly easy to operate. Sound quality is very good from all sources, or at least as good as you might expect from a single speaker which, if you're used to stereo through two speakers, can be a bit disconcerting at times.Having recently moved to the wilds of Scotland, I was concerned that DAB and/or FM reception might be poor, particularly as the previous owner had installed a fancy radio aerial in the loft with outputs in a couple of rooms. Enquiries on local Facebook pages elicited a mixed response, but it turns out we have very good reception for both and I was surprised that I can't really discern any difference between FM, DAB and Internet for the same station.I always start by reading the manual and this one is very good when compared to some of the poorly written (or poorly auto-translated) documentation that comes with some consumer electronics nowadays. Having done that though, there are a couple of things that confuse me still, e.g. I expect to Favourite channels and see them all in the same place, but it seems to differentiate between DAB and FM so when I click on the Fav button my favourites are empty. Then I find them again elsewhere which is frustrating. Could just be me! Channels are listed in alphabetical order with no search facility (leastwise not one I've found) and there are a lot of them so finding the one you want can be frustrating.I haven't tried the USB input, but I hooked up with Bluetooth without any problem. Spotify Premium is on the menu, but I found that by using bluetooth it would play whatever was playing on my phone directly, including my non-sub Spotify playlists.My only real gripe is with the CD player which requires a lot more force than I would like. The mechanism is as reluctant to accept discs as any I've found in thirty years of playing cds, to the point that sometimes I'm sure the disc will break. There's probably a knack to it that I haven't got. It seems odd to me that if you introduce a disc to the slot in another mode, e.g. radio, that the mode doesn't just switch automatically as it's fairly obvious you want to play it!So far, so good and on a week's use I would certainly recommend it. [Afternote: Everything was fine when I wrote this, and continued to be for a while until, eventually, none of the functions behaved exactly as they should. I re-configured, checked for software update, but still had problems so returned it without problem. Ghost in the machine I guess - other reviews indicate this was unusual, not sure if I'll get another one though.]