Intempo Digital GX-01 Internet Radio/Music Centre

I have never written a review for Amazon before now, but I am really impressed with this product. I have a DAB Pure One radio and in comparison to that, the GX-01 wins hands down. The shear level of choice is amazing, and the speed at which you can navigate through every station is great.

I recommend registering with reciva.com as this makes choosing favourites much easier. They get automatically transferred to your radio when you reset (ie turn the radio off and back on at the plug).

The price that Amazon are currently selling this item is seriously good value. DAB is dead, long live streaming internet radio!

I bought one of these after researching hard for a couple of days, visiting geek sites, reading reviews and so on. I actually got mine from Argos for £100, which seems as much as you might want to pay. I was giving serious consideration to the TERRATEC Wireless NOXON iRadio and the Logik R100 but the former does not offer On Demand services and the latter apparently buzzes annoyingly.

My main interest was in Internet radio since there is no DAB reception in my area. I was also interested in accessing On Demand services, such as listening to 'In Our Time' whenever I feel like it or 'Book at Bedtime' in the afternoon - I'm that radical!

First impressions were that the unit looked quite good. It is a bit smaller than I had anticipated and I don't think the `wood' is real. However, it seems fairly solidly built - although I agree with others that the tuner knob feels a bit wobbly. Not a major problem though. It was actually pretty easy to set up; no real problem there.

Many of the radio's shortcomings are probably general weaknesses of this kind of technology. For instance, unlike traditional radio where you can move rapidly through channels, listening as you go, with Internet radio you have to select a station, and then it may take several - or even more - seconds to load it up. It does not lend itself to channel surfing - at least not without some patience.

Choosing stations is actually quite laborious. You have to scroll through dozens of stations to find the one you want. Happily, you can create 99 preset stations (although you will then need to remember which channel you assigned to which preset number!).
It is handy having a remote, although I think it might have been better if it had a swirly button like the one on Ipods. This would make channel selection significantly easier.

Sound quality was not as good as I expected. The overall sound is a little muffled, which again may be a general characteristic of this medium. It is not capable of producing a great volume either. Remember it just has one speaker so you don't get stereo sound.

One killer feature of this type of radio - which the manual doesn't tell you about - is that using your computer you can sign up for Reciva Radio (www.reciva.com/) and then create an individual file called My Stuff. In that file you can place new radio stations that you have found via the Internet, podcasts that you want to have access to, and other media streams. The next time you turn on the radio you will be able to access them. This facility enables you to organise information in a way that is useful to you as an individual listener and it's free.

I haven't tried using it to stream music from my PC yet and I probably won't bother. The sound quality is not really good enough to make this worth it, unless you hook it up to an amp and speakers via the headphone socket. When hooked up the sound is ok but I don't think it is as clear or crisp as regular FM radio, for instance.

This is really a kitchen or bedside appliance and is not designed for creating serious stereo sound. If the latter is what you are looking for you are probably better off buying a machine that plugs into your hifi such as the Logitech Squeezebox or Pinnacle Soundbridge.

However, if you are primarily interested in talk radio, podcasts, On Demand, and you also want to find out what sounds are out there in this brave new universe, then this is a handy device. Just idly flicking through channels today I stumbled across Zappa FM and David Byrne radio to name just a couple of stations. I am listening to some mad Zappa stuff as I write this...

While it is hard to comment on the radio you didn't buy, It seems to me that the Freecom Musicpal probably represents better value.

After trawling Amazon and other sites, comparing reviews, looks and technical ability compared to price, I bought one of these and love it. It is a solidly built machine [I really don't know from where some reviewers derive their opinions!], looks great in our kitchen, and plugged and played straight out of the box when next to my wireless router.

I found that the wireless signal in the kitchen wasn't strong enough to connect, however, so had to go out and buy a wireless range extender. This brought me a number of issues, which were nothing to do with the Intempo but to do with the Belkin extender that I bought - the instructions contained were very unhelpful and I had to do a lot of internet research before discovering that it needed wired configuration before being positioned. However, once that was done, which included making my 'open' network WEP security enabled across all devices, it worked straight away. It was during this process that I had a short Email exchange with Intempo, confirming where I thought the problem lay - any business that responds to its customers simply, accurately, promptly and with the sign off " Love xxx" goes up in my estimation!

It is worth anyone purchasing it going to the www.reciva.com website and using the instructions there to set up your own 'favourites' - I think that is easier than using the presets personally.

I'm still having a ball listening to countries wake up when I'm going to bed and vice versa, opinions of world events from totally different perspectives, comedy [the listen again feature is terrific!] and of course, just accessing music directly instead of waiting for the BBC [forget commercial radio for its narrowness of stale formats] to cover it at some time when I can't listen

One thing my wife pointed out when we went through the images of the various Internet Radios was how obviously they are being designed for geeky men at the moment - even Roberts product is ultra modern rather than their usual retro.....a point for manufacturers to pick up....many models were dismissed out of hand on appearance grounds! Also, a tip for anyone looking, Internet Radios work by connecting to a 'home' website. The Intempo uses Reciva.com and this works beautifully with the BBC 'listen again' service. This isn't always the case and if this feature is important make sure that it is available on the model you choose.

Internet radio is a real 21st Century enabler, and this Intempo product is a good 'mid-price' option that balances looks, build, technical ability and performance.