It's so hard to find a good analog radio these days. This one has very good (not excellent, or I'd give it 5 stars) reception (although our local PBS station is still difficult to get, but even the C Crane radio is having troubles these days.) Tuning is very easy. The tuner is a high-quality macro/micro knob-within-knob dial. Sound quality is fine for talk radio, and it gets pretty loud, but there is very little bass for music, as you'd expect from a radio only 6" x 6" in size.
The crank powers a mini-pack of 3 batteries, that comes with the radio. These can be charged for perhaps 30-45 minutes of usage. The battery compartment also holds 3 AA cells, which is good for at least 10 hours of use ( estimate, i've never measured ). It works great with rechargeable NiMH batteries (1.2v o.k.) The battery pack to use (crank or AA) is selectable. Battery life is so long i've never bothered to plug it in. The light is really useful on campouts, i just lay the radio flat and illuminate the ceiling of our tent.
We haven't had a need for the siren or the red lamp, but the kids love to bug mommy and daddy with them, so I guess there is some value there, too!!
At such a low price, it's great to see an earphone jack, cellphone charger port, a 2-White-LED and 1-Red-LED light.
Cute radio in a neat little package. Instructions were not as helpful as expected. Had to do alot of trial and error to figure out. But figured it out. Haven't had chance to use in weather emergency yet.
I bought this radio for camping, but I've been using it to listen to the weather, news, and instructional programs in the AM band. The 3-LED light is bright and very useable; so is the red flash to signal for help. The siren is a good addition to audibly signal for help. The hand crank generator lets you charge your cell phone, and the radio itself. It takes 90 seconds to charge the battery, in order to get about 10 minutes of radio. You can also crank the generator while you listen to the radio. If you don't like cranking up to charge the radio, just throw in 3 AA batteries. I like it because it does many things well, and it is made extremely well. The materials are up to par with the high-quality merchandise that L.L. Bean is known for.
Living in Hawaii, we are subject to not only hurricanes, but also floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic disturbances, so preparedness is really not an option around here. This radio gives us the peace of mind knowing that we won't have to scramble for batteries for the radio or one of our cell phones if the power goes out or if we're forced to evacuate. Included is a list of available types of cell phone models from which you can choose a charger that will be powered by the hand-crank on the radio, but you have to mail your request in. The siren feature is added assurance that we can alert authorities to our presence if necessary -- seeing all those folks stranded on rooftops after Katrina certainly brought home the importance of this feature to us.
