I like the idea, but the cell phone charger did not fit our phones, therefore useless unless we went to manufacturer's website and purchased a $40 charger.
ProsPerforming as Expected, a necessity for any home
The emergency weather/am/fm radio is a great gift for yourself or someone else. A few days after receiving it, we had a terrible snow storm (blizzard of 2010) and lost electricity. My daughter took out her present, the emergency weather radio, and tah dah! we had contact with the outside world. The high intensity light was a great bonus as well! Highly recommend!
This is a great radio. Mine already had a charge on the Dyn/Sol function when I opened the box and I've been using it on that setting without having to have charged it for the last week. I haven't cranked it or put batteries in it yet. I've hooked my ipod to it and used the radio as a speaker which works fine. The sound quaility isn't the greatest (lack of bass and little am radio-ish) but I didn't have high expectations in this area. The radio receiver works exceptionally well. I can pull in a lot of radio stations inside of my townhouse without even extending the antenna. My suggestions for improvement are: 1) The background of the LCD window should be white or something that makes it easier to see the numbers. It's difficult to see the numbers unless you are in a well lit area. 2) The backlight Display doesn't stay on long enough. It dissapears after a few seconds which is ok for checking the time but if you need to set the alarm at night or look at a radio station frequency number you have to try to hold it on which is impossible when setting the alarm. 3) The letters that are associated with the buttons on top of the radio for 'alarm' 'set' etc are too small to read, and since the buttons are on top, under the handle it's very difficult to read. 4) The alarm has no 'Snooze' feature. 5) The tuning knob on the side of the radio has no distinct pointer to tell what setting it's on. It's all silver and there one spoke that is a tiny bit larger than the others which is supposed to be the pointer. There is no reason to have all of the other spokes on the wheel which are just decorative and serve only to make it difficult to see what you have it set on.
Overall I like this radio and will use it a lot. The good things about it are so good I can live with it's shortcomings.
My only concern was I did not read the instruction manual....and it did turn itself on when a weather broadcast or "update" came on....but after reading the manual..it did inform me that it will update with weather changes. Very useful tool if you are concerned with weather conditions, as I do not have a T.V. Also, the phone charger was a plus!
