Home > Consumer Reviews > Roberts Stream202 WM202BK DAB/FM/WIFI Internet Radio - Black
Roberts Stream202 WM202BK DAB/FM/WIFI Internet Radio - Black
See it at Amazon.co.uk for £123.71Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + Share15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
Could do better
(3 out of 5) by Pizza on Apr 17, 2009 (Guernsey, Channel Islands)You will be reading all of the reviews you can find for this machine so I won't bore you by saying what it can do. Let me concentrate on how well it does its thing as far as I'm concerned.
First impressions
A bit lightweight but adding the 6 D batteries for mobility soon cures this!
Build quality ok if a little plasticy. Won't win many style awards.
Some of the buttons seem a bit small and fiddly.
Initial set up ok to follow in manual and I soon got sound out of it.
FM Radio
Reception is very poor in my area but it picks up the 2 local stations well and the sound is good. Even better when boosted through my usual sound system. Simple to set presets on the 5 buttons available. Obviously didn't need that many for FM.
DAB Radio
I'll tell you in a few years time when it reaches us.
Internet Radio
Again, relatively easy to set up following the manual. I have a Mac G4 and use a third party router with a password set but it all flowed through ok. Logging on to the central radio website was easy and with some 15000+ stations etc there should be something for everyone available. If not, then you can add your favourite URLs to your personalised pages.
The 5 preset buttons doesn't seem enough here but the menu system is easily accessed to get to your favourites set up via the website.
Not the easiest of menu systems to work through though and the buttons are a little fiddly in practise but it all works ok and the sound is good.
Streaming
The fly in the ointment!
The manual does concede that there are computers out there that are not PCs but isn't too helpful regarding streaming set up for Mac users. An email to Roberts did produce a prompt and helpful pointer towards some useful documentation though.
There are two methods of streaming. Sharing and UpnP.
I couldn't get Sharing to work. Maybe it's me, maybe it's the many bits of different kit involved but the radio didn't want to find any MP3 files in my folders. Life is too short to spend days lost in technospeak so I gave up and moved on to method two.
I needed to download a UpnP program (I used EyeConnect) but once this was in place I did achieve some degree of success although it couldn't access all of my Playlists in iTunes and once it reported a "Network error" it wouldn't then work with previously successful finds until switched off and restarted.
So, a partial success but it could and should be a whole lot easier if this is ever intended to be a mass market product.
Sundry Alarms etc
I didn't buy it as an alarm clock and the screen is too bright to use in a bedroom unless you are scared of the dark. Haven't bothered to find out if they all work but I'm guessing that they will be simple to use.
Conclusion
When it works it works well but it is not perfect and needs some patience to get everything up and running. I bought it to access internet radio and to have portability and it does what I want it to do so I am relatively happy.
Would love to give it more stars but the Streaming experience lets it down for me.
First impressions
A bit lightweight but adding the 6 D batteries for mobility soon cures this!
Build quality ok if a little plasticy. Won't win many style awards.
Some of the buttons seem a bit small and fiddly.
Initial set up ok to follow in manual and I soon got sound out of it.
FM Radio
Reception is very poor in my area but it picks up the 2 local stations well and the sound is good. Even better when boosted through my usual sound system. Simple to set presets on the 5 buttons available. Obviously didn't need that many for FM.
DAB Radio
I'll tell you in a few years time when it reaches us.
Internet Radio
Again, relatively easy to set up following the manual. I have a Mac G4 and use a third party router with a password set but it all flowed through ok. Logging on to the central radio website was easy and with some 15000+ stations etc there should be something for everyone available. If not, then you can add your favourite URLs to your personalised pages.
The 5 preset buttons doesn't seem enough here but the menu system is easily accessed to get to your favourites set up via the website.
Not the easiest of menu systems to work through though and the buttons are a little fiddly in practise but it all works ok and the sound is good.
Streaming
The fly in the ointment!
The manual does concede that there are computers out there that are not PCs but isn't too helpful regarding streaming set up for Mac users. An email to Roberts did produce a prompt and helpful pointer towards some useful documentation though.
There are two methods of streaming. Sharing and UpnP.
I couldn't get Sharing to work. Maybe it's me, maybe it's the many bits of different kit involved but the radio didn't want to find any MP3 files in my folders. Life is too short to spend days lost in technospeak so I gave up and moved on to method two.
I needed to download a UpnP program (I used EyeConnect) but once this was in place I did achieve some degree of success although it couldn't access all of my Playlists in iTunes and once it reported a "Network error" it wouldn't then work with previously successful finds until switched off and restarted.
So, a partial success but it could and should be a whole lot easier if this is ever intended to be a mass market product.
Sundry Alarms etc
I didn't buy it as an alarm clock and the screen is too bright to use in a bedroom unless you are scared of the dark. Haven't bothered to find out if they all work but I'm guessing that they will be simple to use.
Conclusion
When it works it works well but it is not perfect and needs some patience to get everything up and running. I bought it to access internet radio and to have portability and it does what I want it to do so I am relatively happy.
Would love to give it more stars but the Streaming experience lets it down for me.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Met all expectations
(5 out of 5) by M. J. Blows on Jun 5, 2009 (Midlands UK)I bought this on the back of the other reviews and I am not disappointed at all. The DAB reception is great which was my prime reason as our FM suffered so much background noise.
The radio was easy to set up, quickly found my wireless network and was easily configured. It picked up the internet radio stations without any problem and also my itunes music which is stored on a separate NAS drive and streamed using Twonky Media server on the drive. Reception on all of the wifi radio and music is perfect.
The radio produces a good quality output, music is rich and speech is great. Can't recommend this radio enough, and it has already impressed those who have seen and heard it.
My only slight criticism is that it is not very energy efficient as the radio main screen light stays on the whole time unless you turn the radio off at the mains, which increases the start up time when you turn it on again; which is what I generally do. A proper standby mode would have been good as also the external power supply is connected the whole time unless you turn the radio off at the mains. If you can live with this it's a great radio which covers all possibilities for radio and music.
The radio was easy to set up, quickly found my wireless network and was easily configured. It picked up the internet radio stations without any problem and also my itunes music which is stored on a separate NAS drive and streamed using Twonky Media server on the drive. Reception on all of the wifi radio and music is perfect.
The radio produces a good quality output, music is rich and speech is great. Can't recommend this radio enough, and it has already impressed those who have seen and heard it.
My only slight criticism is that it is not very energy efficient as the radio main screen light stays on the whole time unless you turn the radio off at the mains, which increases the start up time when you turn it on again; which is what I generally do. A proper standby mode would have been good as also the external power supply is connected the whole time unless you turn the radio off at the mains. If you can live with this it's a great radio which covers all possibilities for radio and music.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Roberts Internet Radio
(4 out of 5) by Active Pensioner on Feb 16, 2009 (Wiltshire)Good product, slightly fiddly to tune using imternet radio, and for the older listener, as I am, the volume control is not intuitive. But, sound quality and reception capability in all modes are of a high order
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Internet radio - superb!
(5 out of 5) by Lynn Arderne on Sep 13, 2009 (UK)I bought this purely for the internet radio element and what a superb purchase! Within 10 minutes of taking it out of the box it was up and streaming music via my wireless router - very simple to connect. No need to connect to any computer, no need to upload any software, no fuss. Cannot believe the simplicity of it and there is no break in the signal whether I am in the house or the garden. Would recommend to others looking for an internet streaming radio.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Roberts Stream WiFi Radio.
(4 out of 5) by CG Hazell on Aug 5, 2009 (United Kingdom)This is the 2nd of these I've bought and recommend it for performance and overall practicality. It's reasonably good value for money and works well. The only criticism I have is the display. This is not the best quality and very bright at night. In the standby mode, the display remains live and I hate to think how much power it consumes! However, it's a small price to pay for world wide radio station connectivity and will probably kill-off short wave radio!!