Logitech Squeezebox Radio - Black

I bought this rather pricey unit after a bad experience with a cheap and cheerful internet radio, which proved to be highly unreliable and frustrating. The "out of the box" experience with this product was excellent- I had registered for a mysqueezebox account before the unit arrived, so after a quick setup, I was listening to the radio. It was also fairly easily able to set this up to stream music from the music library on my network- easy to browse by title, artist, album, year, etc. It even picks up the cover art. The colour screen looks excellent. The availability of facebook is a bit of a gimmick, but other "apps" are excellent- I especially like last.fm.

Other reviewers have pointed out that inputting text is a bit laborious; well, I'd say that its better than most. In the main, the controls are intuitive, responsive and easy to use. Also, as other reviewers mention, the sound quality is excellent- for kitchen listening, the fact that there is only one speaker is not a problem; the sound is clear & rich with a lovely bass, but not "boomy". It certainly doesnt have to strain to fill a largish room.

So, why not give it 5 stars? Well, for the price, I would have expected a remote control and I think its very cheeky to expect users to pay for a proprietary battery pack- why not use standard AA cells? The "accessory pack" (remote+battery pack) is not even available as a I write. Another irritation is that the unit does not remember preset buttons- every time you turn it off (not disconnect from power), it forgets the button presets. After some googling, I discover that this is a known fault. Maybe it will be fixed in a future firmware update.

First, let me give you a little background. I have owned this product for a little over a year. I use it in the bedroom as a radio (do not use alarm- more later). I also have a Pure Evoke- another internet radio. The Squeezebox gives out quite a good sound for its size, although not as good as the Evoke in my opinion. I do have the extra speaker for the Evoke, and the stereo certainly helps. The sound on the Squeezebox is definitely good enough for a bed side radio. One thing a do like about the volume on the Squeezebox is you can adjust infinitesimally- the Evoke as little clicks which I found one click was either too low and the other was too high. This is why the Evoke found itself in the kitchen and not on the bedside table listening to low volume music in bed.
For users not familiar to the internet radio concept please let me explain a little more... There are basically two methods of connecting the Squeezebox to the internet. The first is the vanilla connection via your own wireless connection (or LAN cable) to one of Logitech's servers. These servers seem to based in Germany and the US. They provide the radio with the time and a list of all internet radio stations available. If these servers are unreachable your radio will not work until it re-establishes a connection with one of these servers. Also if you use this method of connection you can not use the BBC iplayer applet to listen to the previous weeks' pocasts, programs etc (big shame Logitech). The other method of using the Squeezebox is connect it a Squeezebox server that you install on your PC, laptop, server etc. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. The advantages are more functionality. The BBC iplayer and other applets now work and the Squeezebox can now access any mp3 collections you have on your laptop, PC etc. It is cool in that you can use a program like mediamonkey to associate the album cover to the mp3 tag which allows the album cover to be displayed on the Squeezebox's small LCD display. This really works well. It is quite easily to scroll through albums too via the large jog wheel on the front (this is not the volume wheel!!).
Now to the disadvantages and unfortunately they are some. How they impact you depends on what you want out of the product. If you use the Squeezebox solely as a radio and no more then you rely on the availability of those servers in Germany and the US mentioned above. In reality this means from my usage about twice a month the radio does not work due to some connectivity problems. If you use the Squeezebox via the Squeezebox application then be prepared! Read on. If this application is running all the time ie your laptop must remain on all the time then the product works fine. However I do not like to leave the laptop on all the time as it wastes energy. If you switch the laptop on and off constantly the Squeezebox Radio get confused to connect to the local laptop or to those remote German and US servers. It will serach for the laptop and if its not there it will give up. It will not switch to the remote servers. Even an "IT Crowd" switch it off and on does not necessarily fix this. There is an option deep in advanced options to switch library from one to the other, but sometimes the option is not there! Logitech if you are reading please fix this so that it will switch from one library to another automatically. This stops the product from being a "radio". My definition of a radio is you switch it on and it "works". It doesn't. I will probably get flamed by Logitech fanbois, but not all of use want to run a 24/7 dedicated server for music collections. Another problem that seems to crop up on the Squeezebox forums is the alarm. It seems many people are having problems with it. I have not used it myself, but I suggest that buyers either read up more about the problem or maybe even steer clear of it if you need a reliable alarm clock/radio.

In summary, its a good compact radio with a nice sound. The auto dim LCD display is clear and provides a lot of information including album, artist and album art. The Squeezebox will not appeal to everyone, but its probably the best of the bunch on the current generation of internet radios.

Update 15/4/11- Just noticed that there is now an official Logitech Android App which I duly downloaded. To be honest it works really well and does ALL of the functionality that the interface on the radio does. I did have a couple of homebrew Apps to do the same thing, but this official one blows them out of the water. Kudos to Logitech for supporting the App platform and they have done a really good job with it. I guess my radio is going to be very clean now as I think I will be controlling everything from my phone!!

The Squeezebox Radio, and also the Touch, now features a killer App for UK and some European users following Logitech's deal with Swedish music streaming service Spotify. I have liked the look of this Radio since it was launched but I already had a number of Internet radios so could not justify buying one - until now!

To use the Spotify App with Logitech you must have a Premium subscription with Spotify - just as using it with an iPhone - and the experience is more like with the iPhone than using your computer. However, I found the iPhone App easier to use and to be more reliable than Logitech's version. If you are familiar with the iPhone App you will soon get the hang of this one - but the lack of a keypad makes searching much more tedious with the radio.

The Logitech App is my least favourite way of accessing Spotify but it does the job reasonably well. It is prone to stopping and rebuffering from time to time - which doesn't happen using my computer or iPhone. It will not play some tracks saying unavailable in your region - even when the track plays fine on other devices. This can be really annoying if playing a playlist which then stops at a particular track which then has to be skipped manually; and if you miss the fleeting error message you have no idea why it has stopped playing!

However, when working properly Spotify sounds good on this radio and excellent when using phones - and you get the full 320 Kbps audio stream you pay for with Spotify's Premium service. There is no Line-Out jack so if you want Hi-Fi connection you should consider the Squeezebox Touch, if you just want portability and convenience then this radio will do - especially if you add the accessory pack.

The Squeezebox Radio is a product I have been very pleased with - but not as pleased as I should have been! It is annoying in the things it doesn't get right, but when it is working well it is amazing. It does many things other Internet radios / Media Centres do not do - but it is only as good as the Apps it uses.

If you are a Spotify Premium customer you need one of these players to get the full benefit of your subscription. If you do not yet have an Internet radio, or are looking to upgrade, this is one of the best - and for music streaming from your computer the Squeezebox Server is far easier to use than trying to fiddle around with Windows file shareing!

I would love to give this radio the full five stars - and maybe when the firmware / Apps are more reliable it will deserve it - but for now not quite perfect..................but very good.