Ocean Digital WR-23D Portable FM Internet Radio 2.4” Color LCD Built-in Battery Wi-Fi Bluetooth UPnP & DLNA Player (Black)

Belong I paste a 2019 review of the earlier Ocean Digital portable model, a fine radio with one minor defect, a small screen that was greyish and rather dim. I have poor vision but still managed. The new version, the one I am reviewing, has all the features of the earlier model and now a GREAT large color screen that is much more user friendly. I gave one of these radios to a skeptical friend who said he probably would never use it, and now he writes to say he uses it throughout the day. Sound is clearer on this one, and the equalizer for tone not so hard to find. The designer of this new one noted all the weakish spots of the earlier model, and not only fixed them but went way beyond in fine tuning. One reviewer seemed unhappy with this device, and my sense is he or she expected it to be like an AM radio with a dial for stations. Of course wifi does not work that way, but you can search by continent, or country, or genre, and within a country for genre -- so if you want "talk" from Italy you can find it and, in this newer model, find it quickly An electrical device as well thought out and pleasing as something made by Steve Jobs. A strong recommendation. And now here my 2019 review of the earlier model: ....... "Immensely impressed. I have had internet wifi radios for many years, and was one of the first in the US to get one. This is a superior radio in many ways. The internet in my home is cheap and weak, and yet this picks up easily and securely, when two of my other wifi radios, table models, often get no signal. The radio is so small I can carry it with me easily from room to room, or in a suitcase. About the size of a paperback book. The setup, once you read the instructions and realize that the OK button is often the wrong one, and the arrow-forward button is the one you need to SET a command, is smart and intuitive, easy, and very sane. I put twenty stations into memory in not much time, and suspect that will hold me for a long time. The sound is good, and although the volume maximum is by no means loud (perhaps a little too low on some stations), generally the volume is good enough – at least for voices, for BBC, for NPR – but not perhaps for music. Yet in the headphone jack I can stick in an aux speaker if I want a crowd pleaser, or a headphone, and the volume is good. And in STEREO with headset or auxiliary speaker. This radio has been well designed and very well thought out, even I think with a slight delay when you hit a button – in case you got it wrong and want to retract your finger. I am accustomed to RECIVA and PURE networks, but the one this radio uses SKYTUNE, although different, is just as good and maybe better. I have found a few stations, like NYC WQXR Q2 or New Sounds band, here, and not elsewhere (andnot, for example, on Alexa). A solid feel, good broadcast FM with antenna (although I set my necessary FM stations on internet wifi and they are better there). My eyes are not good and the screen is small, maybe too small, but I can live with it. Yes, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS carefully, and they are very clear, clean, and helpful, with some welcome surprises for easy setup and use. I suspect I will be in the market for other WIFI radios by this manufacturer, OCEAN DIGITAL. I’m happy. And not much makes me happy these days (December 2019) in Washington DC "

After an initial snafu, got a brand new radio and all is great.So....read the manual. Just do it. Learn how to set the time or change the fm band to your area, etc. If you arent really electronics oriented, just read it. This radio is easy to opporate.This little machine has become my new favorite thing. It is close to the size of the original late 70s Walkman. You can plug in headphones, which I recommend and it is a little beastie of a music machine.It isnt hard to set up. Pick what you want...heart button to save what you like. I saved 55 stations over a week. There are stations that are pure music....no commercials. You need to find some.Yes, I am a Gen X. Do not care if there is an app for all this. I like to hold the radio...place it on the table, take it to the yard, etc. My wi fi range allows me to enjoy this all over my house and in my yard. Take it to a friend's? Just put in their wifi password....easy!Wanna hear rock, classical, indie, country, punk, goth...anything you can think of.Radio Romania clear as a bell all day? Yep? Radio Sputnick? Any station in Cali? New York? As long as they broadcast an internet station you got it. No static. No standing on one foot while trying to mess with an antenna.This radio has real fm as well. Read the booklet. Add your local lovely stations. It will scan them, so then just save your favorites.Blu tooth??? Yep.Also, you can add stations manually or via pc.Battery life is great. Quick charge. Built in speaker sounda perfectly good...maybe great. Quality head phones take it up even higher. My XBox one headphones sound terrific on this.This is an absolute buy....period....hands down, wonderful thing. Good, quality product!

If you read nothing else in this review, please read this... go into the settings and adjust the buffer from 2 seconds which is the default to 5 seconds which is the maximum. I have found this to fix every problem I had with it. Ok so for my review...This is a neat little network digital audio server in a convenient battery operated mini boombox form factor and at this price point you don't have many options at the moment if you also want an FM broadcast tuner. (no AM) After all you can do this all with a cell phone pretty much.I had one primary objective. I was looking for a night stand radio that I could set to one particular streaming radio station and I wanted to turn it on when I go to bed and leave it on all night long and wake up to it. And should the internet or power be out, which is common here, I wanted to be able to tune to FM broadcast.When I first unboxed it, I was able to set it up easily without cracking open the manual. I found it to be self explanatory. I was able to locate the streaming radio station directly on the unit and not have to use a website to set it up. I just searched by the radio station call sign and it popped up. If for some reason it didn't, you have options. You can manually add the network URL to the stream in the web based admin if you wanted to.I was able to add the local broadcast station. Luckily the radio station's tower is a half mile away so it's a strong signal but if it weren't for that I'd have a problem. The unit requires you to do a scan like you would with setting up a TV for television stations. You can't manually tune the dial to a radio station, only if the receiver detects the station and adds it during a scan. It only detected about 4 radio stations and in reality there are much more stations that can be received here. So I took off part of a star for that.The first night I turned it on and when I woke up it was off. I don't know why it turned off. The battery didn't die. I don't know if it lost wifi signal and then went to sleep as a power saver function. I still don't know why. But at that point I was starting to think this was going to be sent back. The next two nights, I tried it again, and it stayed powered on however it was having some trouble staying connected to the network. I also got a few strange error messages, one of them was a 404 not found like it was trying to retrieve something and then couldn't find the file. The wifi radio in the unit isn't so great. More fractions of a star deducted. It was cutting out pretty frequently even though other wireless devices like my iphone were not having the same problem with the same station.I went back into the settings and set the buffer to maximum. All the problems went away. I have been using the unit all night long for a couple of weeks now and it hasn't cut out at all after this change. So if you're having trouble, start with that. Yes it's slight delay from the live broadcast but who cares.I don't trust the device enough to let it onto my music server but it seems pretty straight forward enough to pull up most network streams or files. It's connected to a service that lists thousands of streaming stations and I did not have any problems using it but even if you do, there are other ways to set it up.I think the audio is good. Better than an alarm clock. The screen brightness is not an issue for me and it's adjustable. Some reviews have mentioned that. I don't think the battery life is all that fantastic. It's about 9 hours with the screen on the default brightness playing at a very low volume the whole time. I now leave it plugged in all the time.So in conclusion, so far I am happy with it. The build quality is what I expected at this price point and it's doing everything I wanted it to do. If it lasts a couple of years I'll still feel like it was worth it. If not I'd be wondering why I didn't just get an Apple homepod mini or something like that for not much more money even though it wouldn't have the FM broadcast.