The Logitech Squeezebox Radio is a valuable Wi-Fi radio which has an amazing design, an incomparable selection of excellent streaming music services and compact sonics.
Design
The exterior design consists of a cabinet made of plastic with a strong feel and a shiny finishing, available in black and red colors. It has a built-in handle attached on its back, a speaker grille on its left and colors display and controls on the right side.
A large and a small knob are situated on the set for navigation and volume control respectively unlike in other Wi-Fi radios where these two controls are combined. Other buttons for handling critical functions such as an alarm, internet radio preset or other are also situated on the set.
The Logitech Squeezebox Radio has a colored LCD display screen of 2.4 inches which can be improvised by offering a brightness level adjustment.
User Interface
The Logitech Squeezebox radio has a high resolution screen with a graphical user interface, which displays vibrant menus and album art. Music can be accessed by navigating from the Home menu. When a song is played the screen displays the title of the song, artist, album name, and album art and track number.
Features
Although there are a number of, in fact too many applications containing in the Squeezebox Radio but the major ones can be easily categorized; online music services include: Shoutcast, Pandora, RadioTime and Live365 etc, internet radio and podcasts, applications include: a PC based music collection, alarm clock, connectivity, add on pack and control via browser.
Performance
When tested on performance, the sound quality was not very good which is expected of Wi-Fi radios with small and mono music units in compressed versions. However, the sound quality of this radio is as good as one can expect from such a product. The sound of the device is tremendously balanced, with no disruptions in case of rising volumes; hence it cannot fall on the scale of being distorted.
When played songs like “Come Together” by The Beatles, the skulking bass line of the song in the beginning sounded very natural, which came as a surprise as even the bass response remained calm without getting disturbed when positions were changed. Playing other more aggressive songs, the radio proved that it could play a list of its own genres.
However, when the Logitech Squeezebox is compared with Squeezebox Boom, Boom proves to be more rocking and with a result of a detailed sound quality. For music lovers, adherent sound quality focusers, Squeezebox Boom is the right option as its large size and improved stereo configuration makes it best for you.
As expected from Squeezebox products, the playback of the Squeezebox Radio is excellent with a natural steadiness and evenness. If you are listening to local music, the sound quality will remain undisturbed and the tracks stream right perfectly into each other. It is also surprising that the Logitech Squeezebox Radio played Rhapsody tracks with only little bumps and glitches whereas the actual Rhapsody software itself has greater bumps and hiccups.
The test on this radio has proved to be good enough and not as bad to break the deal of buying it but one thing is recommended to Logitech that it should focus more on the stability in their future firmware fixes and products!