I ordered 2 of these, for each of my children, and they're getting a lot of use. They crank away, and use the unit with their iPods, or just listen to the radio. The solar feature is a good one, and that's worked for them as well. Even seven year old Julie is a good cranker. Great invention, and I'll be looking to LLBean for more "green" products.
This Radio is a great addition to my camping supplies. The Solar power works great!! I am very pleased with the quality of this system. There are multiple ways to charge this system that all work, the cord works with my ipod and the sound is great, you have to make sure your ipod is turned down and you use the volume control on the system so the sound doesn't get distorded. Overall a great buy, I would recommend for anyone...campers, bikers, fisher, the outdoor type!
I bought this radio so we could listen to our iPod while camping since you usually can't get many good radio stations out in the woods. The radio works and sounds great with my iPod using the included cable. You have to be a little careful placing it back in the case since you can bump the on switch and drain the batteries overnight. You can't change out the batteries, but you can use the crank which provides sufficient battery life for a couple minutes of cranking. The solar panel doesn't work as fast as the crank, but it's free energy if you leave the radio in the sun during the day. You can also charge it up in a couple hours if you have an outlet nearby. Its compact and durable enough for camping.
Good: compact and easy to pack, multiple ways to charge, weather radio and AM/FM bands, good carry case. A good emergency radio to have around. Bad: mediocre sound is disappointing, distorts fairly easily. Hard to tune radio. Only one speaker, so must obtain a stereo-to-mono adapter to hear both channels from MP3 player. High price must be for solar panel, certainly not for the quality of the sound.
