Freecom Internet radio - €47 PC World

zod · 09-02-2009 11:30am #1

In the PC world sales atm

http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=3593

€47 .. said €75 off ( doubt if that is true )

but not a bad bit of kit if you want to stream your mp3 files/radio to your stereo, or play on the unit itself .. acts as a clock radio also.

event · 09-02-2009 11:43am

anyone know if this is good quality?

davehey79 · 09-02-2009 11:55am

what store did you see this in??

fdevine · 09-02-2009 11:59am

http://www.itreviews.co.uk/hardware/h1458.htm

Only one review to be found. In general, not bad, but only mono sound and a small 3W speaker. Speaker not an issue if you're connecting to an amp/hi-fi.

Well worth the price IMO.

TM · 09-02-2009 12:01pm

I can find more than one review...

http://www.google.ie/search?q=freecom+musicpal+review

Aquos76 · 09-02-2009 12:04pm

None in Waterford Store, I just rang them up and they said they sold them off for €30 just after Christmas.

00sully · 09-02-2009 1:38pm

defo worth 50 blips - picked one up in PCWB (before it closed

) n' I can safely say they are worth that - they are not perfect BY A LONG WAY but...for the price you cant go wrong - stream all my music from my PC and tune into thousands of online radio stations.

I basically got it to hook to my hi-fi (might no be worth it otherwise) and the interface is crap but it does what I want

also, streams RSS news feeds on its crappy little screen which is nice!

cahirhennessy · 09-02-2009 3:14pm

I've had one about 6 months now (paid about E115), and I've found it to be a great little machine. The missus is french so very handy for her to tune into some french stations. I hast got last.fm to work with it but has mysteriously stopped working recently, although I've not looked into it too much. It's a steal for that price.

skearon · 09-02-2009 3:30pm

Rang Carrickmines store, was told sold out and didnt expect any more; also said while he was unable to check other stores' stock he thought they were all sold out

If anyone finds a store with stock please report !

wait4me · 09-02-2009 3:30pm

Hey zod: Was this online or in a brick'n'mortar store?

yoshytoshy · 09-02-2009 3:45pm

They had a couple in airside last week. And none in blachardstown.

Do-more · 09-02-2009 6:15pm

Mate of mine just rang to say he got the last one in Liffey Valley.

zod · 09-02-2009 6:28pm

wait4me wrote: »

Hey zod: Was this online or in a brick'n'mortar store?

in naas .. had 2 or 3 left

Santa Claus · 09-02-2009 10:29pm

Just to clarify, this isn't capable of receiving DAB stations is it ?

AlmightyCushion · 09-02-2009 10:35pm

Santa Claus wrote: »

Just to clarify, this isn't capable of receiving DAB stations is it ?

I seriously doubt it.

loyatemu · 10-02-2009 12:02am

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I seriously doubt it.

I'd imagine most stations available on DAB (sod all in Ireland at the moment) are also streamed over the internet. The RTE DAB stations (2XM, RTE Choice etc) are definitely streamed.

zod · 10-02-2009 12:02am

for anyone interested in just using a shared folder on your pc/nas instead of running a media server for streaming music :

http://forum.freecompromo.com/viewtopic.php?t=9862

works well

v10 · 10-02-2009 12:14am

zod wrote: »

for anyone interested in just using a shared folder on your pc/nas instead of running a media server for streaming music :

http://forum.freecompromo.com/viewtopic.php?t=9862

works well

It sure does !

Spunge · 10-02-2009 6:46am

How exactly does this connect to the internet, do you need a wireless router for it to connect to ?

Do-more · 10-02-2009 8:10am

Spunge wrote: »

How exactly does this connect to the internet, do you need a wireless router for it to connect to ?

It has an integrated wireless card so it can be used with a wireless router, but if you don't have one it also has an Ethernet port so you can use it with a standard router.

Basq · 10-02-2009 9:19am

Hmmmm.. my father is looking for an Internet radio.

AlmightyCushion - any up in PC World there?

TM · 10-02-2009 10:52am

Santa Claus wrote: »

Just to clarify, this isn't capable of receiving DAB stations is it ?

No.

yoshytoshy · 10-02-2009 1:44pm

got one today for my dad at airside ,they have none left there now though.
They are a super little radio ,live news feeds scroll the screen as you listen to any station. Only gripe with it is it doesn't broadcast bbc radio stations ,they are mostly uk only.

Cheers op.

stevenmu · 10-02-2009 1:58pm

IIRC there's a BIOS update for them that will let them recieve BBC stations (and others that use the same format)

edit:http://forum.freecompromo.com/viewtopic.php?t=4844

yoshytoshy · 10-02-2009 2:56pm

Nice one stevenmu ,the menu of this little thing is far superior to a radio I paid €200 for last week:(

Edit : That update is one I've done already ,some radio's don't actually play uk stations outside the uk.

Bill-e · 10-02-2009 5:10pm

My psp has this function.

Do-more · 10-02-2009 5:38pm

Bill-e wrote: »

My psp has this function.

Where can I get a PSP for €47?

10-02-2009 5:38pm

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Nice one stevenmu ,the menu of this little thing is far superior to a radio I paid €200 for last week:(

Edit : That update is one I've done already ,some radio's don't actually play uk stations outside the uk.

Can anyone else confirm that it can or can't play the BBC radio stations? This is a major point for me.

yoshytoshy · 10-02-2009 6:30pm

I've double checked ,the radio lists the stations as follows.

BBC RADIO1 UK ONLY
BBC RADIO1 1XTRA
BBC RADIO2 UK ONLY
BBC RADIO3 UK ONLY
BBC RADIO4 UK ONLY
BBC RADIO5Live International
BBC RADIO5Live UK ONLY
BBC Radio 6 Music
BBC Radio 7
BBC World service
BBC World service entertainment.

Uk only go to a connecting display and hang at that. I have these stations working on my other radio ,so maybe this is a licence thing thats causing this.

Edit: Apart from that ,it's a great radio.

parsi · 10-02-2009 8:34pm

None in Mahon Point.

The Mahon Point store was fairly empty - none of the usual 1500 external hard drives or 5640 Belkin boxes - looked like a place that was on the way out.

lindtee · 10-02-2009 8:58pm

I can get all the bbc's on my internet radio. Just checked there and there seems to be at least 40 covering all areas of England, bbc sports, bbc russian...all sorts of stuff, its a morphy richards one which gets pretty bad reviews on amazon...but I'm happy with it, now the sound is not great at all and its not very pretty to look at but suits my needs in the kitchen. Have wi-fi at home and have had no problems with getting stations from anywhere at anytime, no matter what other wireless internet things are on! Never had a problem with it. You could add seperate speakers if the sound bothered you that much.

This is the one, cost me about €72 I think

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/electronics/portable-audio/radios/internet-radio-79724/review

http://www.gizoo.co.uk/Products/AvCommunications/AudioGadgets/morphyRadio.htm?SPMC=TGSAFFAW001

kdobey · 11-02-2009 3:01am

I've been watching the streamer market for years, nearly got a roku several times (but steamers are over priced). I saw this device a couple months back and as soon as I saw this bargain I raced out and picked one up this afternoon. I think it was the last one in Naas - my nearest PC World.

This is a great little device. Quick research could not reveal if it was a DLNA (uPNP) renderer as well as being capable of connecting to a DLNA (uPnP) server nor could I determine if it would work with Windows 7 "Play to" (DLNA control point function).

Well I can reveal that is does all of those things, wooho. This thing is really easy to set up - took about 2 minutes (I already have a multiple uPnP servers on my network). The interface is simple (which you can regard as a good or bad thing). I immediately selected "update firmware" from the musicpal's own menu and a couple of minutes I was running firmware 1.58 released January 2009 (it came with version 1.30 from 2007). - So firmware is actively developing (it's linux and has a strong hacking community).

I can select music from windows 7 and select "play to" musicpal and it just works. I can select music from my (DLNA) n-series Nokia Phone (some of the time) and do the same thing. Pretty cool.

On the downside - it seems DNLA (uPnP) support gets flaky after a while - or that could be windows 7 (which is flaky in this area). After a bit of use the "play to" feature doesn't work. In addition to this, I can't play files from a third device on to the musicpal (a common DLNA renderer problem it seems) - i.e. if the uPnP server is the same machine as the uPnP control point it works ok - other then that it's troublesome (still testing).

On the downside - the speaker on this thing is not great - it's fine for the kitchen where I have mine but don't expect great things - however you can plug it in to external amp via line out OR headphone socket - eg active speakers. Also the interface is limited - there is only so much you can do with two push knobs and two buttons. But i think it does a good job - I like it. Some BBC stations do work (eg. world service) - many BBC stations are "UK only" but that's entirely due to restrictions placed on the BBC end blocking non UK IP addresses.

Other positives - it looks great it's actually quite small and mine now lives on the kitchen windowsill. You can easily see how this was 130 euro (even more on dabs/komplett) - this is a great bargain price - i'd buy another one for other rooms! This thing does alarm clock, calendar, news, weather and anything else delivered via rss. You don't need to bother with any of that bleeding edge DLNA stuff i talk about - always works fine when you use the local interface on the music-pal. Also Irish channels are listed and work fine

Thanks to the OP - I'm loving it.

kdobey · 11-02-2009 3:13am

lindtee wrote: »

I can get all the bbc's on my internet radio. Just checked there and there seems to be at least 40 covering all areas of England, bbc sports, bbc russian...all sorts of stuff,

Who is your ISP - I had assumed (with some third party evidence) that this was a case of the BBC blocking non-UK traffic. Are you UTV internet by any chance ? I think they can sometimes use UK IP's in Ireland ?

yoshytoshy · 11-02-2009 8:31am

kdobey wrote: »

Who is your ISP - I had assumed (with some third party evidence) that this was a case of the BBC blocking non-UK traffic. Are you UTV internet by any chance ? I think they can sometimes use UK IP's in Ireland ?

I have a roberts WM201 and it plays all stations ,Realaudio ,WMA and live versions of each bbc station.
The freecom wont play and neither will a lot of these wifi radios ,you need to check all this out before you buy.
They all seem to have issues in some areas ,my roberts is a rebranded sangean and seem to be among the best ones.

deffin · 11-02-2009 9:41am

Tesco's have a Morphy Richards internet radio for sale for €109 - is that good value as was thinking of getting one.

yoshytoshy · 11-02-2009 11:11am

If you buy it in tescos you can always take it back if it's cak ,the obvious problems are the security on the wifi WPA2/WPA/WEP and the strenght of the wifi.

lindtee · 11-02-2009 3:23pm

deffin wrote: »

Tesco's have a Morphy Richards internet radio for sale for €109 - is that good value as was thinking of getting one.

Check out maplin-that's where I got mine (maplin-cork). Was around 70-80 euro mark(can't exactly remember). If you do purchase and sound quality is important to you, get good quality speakers.

Freecom Internet radio - €47 PC World

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