By chance I a saw a crate full of them at 'media markt' the Hague, nl. Strange that the shop where I initially bought the squeezebox radio never bothered to e-mail me about the batteries FINALLY becoming available.
25 Euro (36 USD). It looks like a small bomb: A bunch of batteries taped up with black tape, with some wires and a connector sticking out. Don't try to do air travel with this one! The ugly black clump can just be squeezed into the belly of the radio after mating the connector with the radio. It comes with a whole book full of incomprehensible instructions in a zillion languages. After throwing these into the bin, I just switched the radio on. It nicely detected the presence of the battery pack. It's a bit unusual, and perhaps not best for battery life to be stored fully charged?, but the pack was already fully charged at purchase. 36 USD for a couple of taped batteries is a bit on the high side, even for European high tax zones. However, at the bottom of the box, I found a small remote control unit. "Woooohooo! Now I can switch stations, also when my PC is not running?". Wrong. The remote control unit is made by people who never knew what to use it for, or why to add it and never tried to use it themselves: The small unit can up or down sound. Switch on or off. But it can't select station on the radio! The remote control can, however, be used to navigate the menu on the screen. What's the point of that?? The screen on the radio is so small that you nearly need to hold the radio in your hand to see what you are doing. With the radio that close to your face, a remote control has no use? I suppose the remote control unit is just a quick fix to justify the package price, more than anything else. At least I could take out the small battery and re-use it in my car keys. Careful, there is a gadget failure hall of fame. This remote control could be a modest contender there.... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=pogue-the-gadget-failure-hall-of-fame Tried a couple of recharge cycles. Works fine 4-5 hours on a charge, which is fine for an afternoon in the garden, paint work in the garage, etc. The radio nicely detects and show re-charging of the battery when back on power. It could probably run more hours on battery, if the radio display could dim and cool off, when playing on battery. OVERALL ASSESSMENT Battery operated mobility of the radio is now finally available. The battery pack is a bit expensive, but it fills the long standing gap nicely. The remote control unit included is useless and rather unnerving. -- uffe ------------------------------------------------------------------------ uffe's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=39973 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=75056 _______________________________________________ Radio mailing list Radio@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/radio
