Home > Consumer Reviews > Roberts Stream202 WM202BK DAB/FM/WIFI Internet Radio - Black

Excellent piece of kit. purchased this for my dad for his birthday. Couldn't have asked for better for the money. sound quality is fantastic along with the build quality and styling.

I don't normally write reviews but I have been so impressed with this product that I feel compelled to sing its praise!
Having moved house 2 years ago to a part of the country with abyssmal FM coverage and no DAB at all, I have spent many nights listening to Classic FM and Radio 3 with a sound quality akin to the speaker being wrapped in a sock full of custard.
I have pondered about buying an internet radio for a while and after reading many reviews plumped for the Roberts Stream 202.
Revellation. IT IS BRILLIANT.
Easy 5 minute set-up.
Switch on, enter your wireless security code then straight into CRYSTAL CLEAR music. The choice of stations is breath-taking and they are easy to access.
If you want fuss-free high quality radio with ease of use and stunning sound quality then look no further.
I can GUARANTEE that you will not be disappointed.
Carlsberg don't make radios, but if they did..............

Peter (Northumberland)

It's got a big user manual that I spent some time reading but pretty-much the whole thing can be summarised as "follow the instructions on the display", it's that easy to use!

Setting it up was a doddle too, just enter your WEP key to get to the internet and then, if you're PC uses Windows Media Player 11, all you have to do is run a short wizard and you've got access to all your stored music files (provided they haven't been protected using Digital Rights Management, which mine had, so I had to record them all again). Note, the Radio isn't limited to PCs with Windows Media Player, but that's what I've got, so it's all I can comment on.

There are only five station presets for each mode of operation (FM, DAB, Internet radio) but you can enter the radio's unique code at www.wifiradio-frontier.com and search through the thousands of internet radio stations by name, location, genre, etc. and then select the ones you want as favourites. The radio can then access these with a few clicks and twists of the controls, so you have relatively easy access to all those you've already identified as interesting to you.

The radio has 4 modes of operation:
FM: I can't think why you'd want this when you've got DAB and Internet Radio available. Perhaps you're favourite station is some local outfit that's only available on FM.
DAB: Reception is ok in my area and the radio can scan for all channels in range. If transmitted by the station then the radio displays the current track being played.
Internet Radio: As discussed above, easy to set up, easy to use and excellent quality. One slightly anoying feature is that if the server for an internet station is under a lot of load and isn't able to deliver the music fast enough, then the radio does a reset when the buffer empties.
Music player: Again, easy to set up and excellent quality. There doesn't seem to be any hit on computer performance (I've got an 18 month old fairly standard laptop, nothing special). My children haven't complained about things running slowly or poor internet response when I'm listening to music, so there don't seem to be any problems there. A note of warning, after getting the radio I updated my wireless hub to a BT HomeHub 2.0 and niether me nor the BT help guys was then able to get the PC and radio to see each other (although all other features worked fine). I have now reverted to my HomeHub 1.0.

Some negatives:
The size and positioning of the buttons around the main dial makes them a little tricky to use, especially for a right-handed person. A case of style winning out over function, I think.

At first, I thought I couldn't get at the BBC listen again feature (even though the literature says that you can) but I did manage to get there after referring back to the manual. One draw-back of this though is that the playback control buttons (skip forward / backward, pause, etc.) are the same ones that are used for the radio station presets. When listening again, and presumably when listening to podcasts too, although I haven't tried that, the radio is in Internet Radio mode so you can't pause or fast-forward through the show. Effectively you have to listen to it all in one go, as if you were listening at the time of transmission.

All-in-all though, I am very happy with this radio and would recommend it.

I have had the Roberts Stream 202 for about a year now.I recently updated it to the latest firmware which can be downloaded through the menu system on the radio itself.Make sure that you update using the mains supply and a very good wifi signal otherwise you could ruin it.It is much better now with the latest firmware as it makes more use of the dot matrix lcd display with even more information displayed e.t.c. The main benefit which I find with the latest firmware update is the ability to dim or even turn off the display on the radio;the old software would not allow this and it was really annoying in the bedroom at night as the display would light up the whole room!Thankfully I can now listen to BBC 4 in complete darkness!!!!!!! All in all though this is a serious piece of kit and I would have no hesitation in recommending this to anyone.

I needed a replacement for my excellent Roku/SoundBridge radio, but didn't feel like spending 250 quid, so I picked up one of these. Big mistake.

The sound quality is OK, and the ethernet jack that complements the WiFI is useful, but everything else about this radio I dislike. After six months, I dislike it so much I'm going to pick up something else - maybe a SoundBridge.

Here are the things I dislike:

* The display is too bright, and on all the time. If you have this in a bedroom, you'll have to drape something over it to hide it.

* The controls are stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. The large twisty knob doesn't actually control volume as you might expect: it changes the currently selected option in the horrible menu system. You then have to press the knob in to select, hoping it doesn't twist slightly and select something else.

* If you use the alarms and the radio can't connect to the internet (which mine can't do if you have used it in the preceding hour) it defaults to an horrendous electronic bleep that is too loud (and can't be changed).

* Preset stations are limited and you can't easily select between DAB or Internet or FM without changing mode with the annoying user interface.

* DAB reception was poor.

* It doesn't stream audio from a Mac running iTunes.

* The included power supply is weak and broke after a month.

* The case sort of lets you tilt it forward as if encouraging you to try and angle it so you could actually read the time from bed, but it doesn't really.

* The time isn't displayed when it's actually on.

Overall, +1 points for OK sound, but -100 points for fundamental usability failures.