PoGo's Radio Your Way LX radio-centric DAP
By Ryan Block 
posted Mar 9th 2005 12:02PM
posted Mar 9th 2005 12:02PM
Kind of seems a little like shooting fish in a barrel to us, making a teched-out portable AM/FM radio at this point,
but hey PoGo, don't let us stop you. Their new Radio Your Way LX
could stand to be a a lot smaller for a freaking flash-based device at 2.3 x 3.9 x 0.78-inches, and sure, they could
stand to go whole hog with the radio thing and make it a
Sirius,
XM, or
DAB device (or even add freaking time-shifting, for
that matter), but you get what you get: 128MB or 512MB mass-storage compliant capacities, 10 radio program recording
presets, mic and line-in, SD slot, built-in speaker, dock, and a shockingly weak 15-hour playback life. Still, this
could be the greatest thing your great aunt ever got for her birthday.
[Thanks, Jeff]
What other MP3 player supports AM?
Is it any smaller?
What other MP3 player supports AM?
Is it any smaller?
Now it should offer a lot more storage for it's price, but, it does allow you to shift public broadcasts to the time you want to listen and record via line-in. Who hasn't wanted a line-in with live MP3 recording on their iPod?
15hr estimated playback is a bit better than the average iPod's 8hr actual life (Apple advertises up to 12hrs (using no features & 1 ripped CD))
That said, 128MB & 512MB is poor.
What will determine it's value to radio nuts, like me, is the quality of it's AM/FM circuitry.
Also, city-dwellers, again like me, wonder does it have a local/distant sensitivity switch and/or a stero/mono mode?
-barry
Hey, hasn't anybody notice that the circular navigation button looks like that of the iPod's early generation buttons before the click wheel version?
I thought Apple got patents on that kind of interface?!
Don't know if I'm right or wrong on this one, but maybe they found out a way (a loophole maybe from the patent issue, that's why it doesn't have a hard drive in it) to circumvent the patent issue on the iPod interface patent.
Well, it's interesting though for what it's worth...
Maybe, if it was made by Apple (hint!) and the technology (radio) was more or less backward compatible / future proof, I'd be more interested I guess!
Good idea though, but I guess it would just be incorporated well (with improved capabilities & features) into the iPod's future specs... hmmmmmm! : )
Well its about time somebody included the long forgottem AM radio. I listen to AM for my sports talk fix. It would be even more cool if they had added timeshift recording. Anyway, outside of the AM radio part, this thing is not that cool.
If time shifting means that it can record at a preset time then this unit can do that. It is basically a Tivo for radio. I hope it does have a local/DX switch. I agree that 128 and 512 are lame, but you can drop in a SD card up to a gig. so 1.5GB is pretty good.
The device can time shift radio. I believe it is the successor to the original radio your way.
The original had a ton of flaws and was kind of cheaply made and the low bitrate quality max of 32kbps made this device better for recording talk radio than for recording tunes.
I have the original, but don't know if I would buy the successor, especially now that most of the good music and talk is moving or already on Sattelite and can be timeshifted with timetrax.
looks like a cross between a 1g ipod and a storm trooper.
15 hours of battery life? More than enough. Time shifting? That's what this device is designed to do. Direct mp3 encoding/recording of AM and FM radio, either via time-shifting or on the fly with line-in and voice capability? There is no other device in the world that does this. Period. No offense, but the condesceding tone of the review clouds his judgment and reveals the author's music-centric perspective. Pogo/RWY is filling a long neglected niche, the consumer that likes to listen to sports, sports-talk, news, news-talk radio programming, record snippets and/or entire programs AND listen to and record in high-fidelity, music, too. For some strange and inexplicable reason, no other manufacturer or marketer of mp3 player/recorders up to this point, has ever realized that there is more to life than listening to tunes only, necessitating the incorporation of the AM band along with FM. Some of us, and I would imagine millions, like to listen to music AND news AND sports, and have one convergent device that allows you to do both. This is why an AM Radio is an essential facet that must be engineered into any "ipod" type of device for me, or it's a non-starter. The first generation RWY had a poorly executed design and was a feeble fidelity recorder. However, the AM and FM radio reception was more than adaquate. Let's just hope that Pogo has had their Korean manufacturer incorporate the reception strengths of the old unit into the new, which will now have direct mp3 encoding at up to 256kbps. Truly, and I'm no "Great Aunt", a promisingly stunning device that is long overdue.
I think most of you are missing it - this is not supposed to be an iPOD
This is a radio recorder "TiVo for your Radio"
There is no other device out there that is a digital hand-held AM radio recorder - a big deal if you are a AM talk show junky or AM sports lover.
What is not mentioned is that this device allows for variable speed Mp3 play back..there are five choices of speed, which means that you can speed up voice playback (think of ipodding voice programs or mp3 recorded voice from other programs on AM/FM or from computer recording). As i read the specs, variable speed playback works only for Mp3 files.
I'd say this device has many very interesting features, some of which I wish iPod had, such as variable speed, line input recording, timers, etc. The price might be a little high for the 128mb version, but the functionality is very interesting.
one feature I wish all players had is audio agc,limiting, so that its easier to listen to low passages and also to get limiting of loud ones. (years ago a sony cd portable had such a feature..)
I completely agree w/ Joe Smith. I have been waiting very patiently for this type of device. I was checking out the Radio SHARK when I came across this product. I knew about the original RYW, but it had too many flaws and was pleasantly surprised when I found out about the LX model. The iRiver iFP-799 or iFP-999 came the closest to what I was looking for, but did not tune/record AM. I don't understand why this feature is not built-in along w/ FM in other players. MP3 player manufacturers must realize that there is an older, more mature market they are alienating. Many people listen to talk/sport/news radio and would like to record these receptions as well since most sites charge subscriptions to download their MP3 archives of past or current programs. All portable radio/cassette/CD players can tune AM. I can't imagine you're saving much $. And the market gained would outweigh the cost incurred. This feature is extremely inexpensive and can be a major differentiator from all other MP3 players. If there was more manufactures that offer this feature in their MP3 players, it would drive the price down too.
This is a one of a kind product, as some above have stated. I had the old version which I dropped many times on concrete while getting out of the car or playing tennis (and I play hard), it suffered no more then a sctatch. I used it to record political content from AM radio and placed much of it on my site at the time, the reception was flawless and when I needed it the voice recording was flawless as well. This device kept me out of prison when I placed it by my front door as the police were beating on it. I was arrested and charged with all mannor of assault against the police for having a gun in my home but the audio captured by my old pogo saved me from their "10-20-life" threats and everything was dropped because the police were VERY CLEARLY heard to have entered my home illegally threatening me. You can also hear them run screaming when they saw I was ready to push lead, an audio record I will always have thanks to this device. The old one was great and the new one looks to be even better. I even slept with the thing, hearing a previously recorded Michael Savage screaming in my ear as I fell asleep every night. Can't wait to get it back from the property room when I get off probation, if SWAT didnt destroy it. Getting the new one either way!
The combination of functions fits my needs quite well - so far. (I've had it for a month.) I can listen to morning radio programs in the evening, as well as download mp3 files to it for mobile listening. Recording with the built-in mike goes surprisingly well, and I've used line-in to digitize a number of recordings and upload them to my web site. Storage is less of a problem than I first thought because of the SD Card slot, so I've been living with 128MB internal and 256MB SD. If I needed more, I'd spring for a 1GB SD card.
Flash memory yields less storage/$ than a hard drive, but is lighter and vibrationless (important when recording from the internal mike.) If you want only the functionality of an iPod/mp3-player, then get that. I got the LX to get the *package* of functions, and I did! (But the user interface is not easy to master, and it's taken me a while.)
All-in-all, I really am happy I got this!
I have the old RYW model (not the new LX). The new model has two "flaws" for me particular case.
First, sadly it doesn't have AM/FM European frequency system (it makes tunning not exactly at the required freq in Europe).
Second, battery is internal and "propietary". The old model had two AAA batteries with more or less (perhaps a bit less) batt time. I could use rechargables and charge them in one hour with a good charger. Even best, I can have replacement batts just in case they get empty. And I can charge a pair while I am listen/recording with other pair.
A precaution about battery time. For the new model, it's 15h FOR LISTENING only but 10h FOR RECORDING. Think in 12h in combined use.
The worst thing is for each 1h of listening you obviously need another previous 1h for recording it. So you get in one charge just 6h of radio (6h recording + 6h listening = 12h).
If you listen a lot of radio, it is one charge per 1 or 2 days just in case. It is too much for my taste. I you listen less radio, then it is acceptable.
Appart from this battery issue, the concept is superb, and it is really the only gadget able to do this kind of VCR-like radio recording.
After seeing the new RYW LX on the web, I went back and looked at my list of complaints about the original:
1) The pause position while listening to MP3 files is lost if you change to the radio and then come back to MP3 mode.
2) The radio station presets are segregated by band (AM or FM).
3) The built-in equalizer did not work while listening to the radio.
4) The timer recording function did not ask you which frequency to record. Rather, it defaulted to whatever station you were listening to when you set the timer recording function.
Have these issues been fixed on the new version?
-Grady
I think by "time-shifting" the original author meant the ability to pause go back and forward *while* you are recording... much like you can do with Tivo. In this sense the author is correct, the thing doesn't even have freaking time-shifting and I am one customer that is really disappointed by that.
This is NOT a Tivo for radio.
It's more like a VCR for radio - no timeslip funtion at all. That's very disappointing.
I'd pay $$$ for a portable FM "Tivo".
Why is there no such animal?!