Meloson M8 Rechargeable AM/FM DSP (Digital Signal Processing) Radio, MP3 Player & Portable Speaker with Built-in Micro SD/TF Card Reader

If you've owned a non-Apple mp3 player then chances are they threw a limited FM radio tuner in there too, just because they could. Well the Meloson M7 goes the other way and adds a basic mp3 player to decent radio with good sound.The pros of the M7 are:- Good sound for a small speaker, if you listen to music you will appreciate the difference.- It works well as a powered speaker. It sounds better than most of those pop-up speakers- Easy to use. You can dial up a radio station using the keypad, or have ATS scan and save stations for you.- AM/FM reception is good, but not excellent. My little Sony has a better tuner  Sony ICF-S10MK2 Pocket AM/FM Radio, Silver - It plays mp3 and wma files- When you select a source it remembers the station or mp3 you were last on/playing.- Light sensor next to LCD automatically turns on backlight when dark- Manual is helpful, written in better english than most Facebook posts.The cons are:- The mp3 player is Clinton-era technology with no support for ID3 tags or even displaying file names.- When micro-SD card is the default source when inserted, it takes several seconds to read the card when selected.- Handy stand has no stowaway spot on radio and could be easily lost.- Text on LCD is soft. Higher contrast would be better.If you're a gadget fan, or frequent traveller, then you'll appreciate all of the features in one place. If you're a radio nerd you'll probably be underwhelmed by the sensitivity of the tuner, but appreciate the deep sound of the speaker. If you're looking for an mp3 player with a speaker, keep looking.Check out my video overview on YouTube: [...]

I bought this radio for my weekend cabin, so I wouldn't have to remember to pack my little Tecsun radio each time. I wasn't expecting much. My criteria were that it be rechargeable, charge with a USB connector so I could charge it at the cabin's solar/battery power, have simple controls (tuning and volume knobs), bearable sound, and stabile tuning. I wasn't expecting too much. I like my Tecsun radios, but they have a bunch of buttons that get pushed while in my shirt pocket and go into snooze mode or alarms come on unexpectedly. I actually wanted something with FEWER features that was more predictable, since I pretty much dial in the public radio station and never change it. This radio had the advantage of adding a SD card, so I thought that might be useful. I haven't used that yet.I've had this radio a few days and I'm impressed. Instead of leaving behind at the cabin, I brought it home because I liked the sound quality so much. The controls are simple. If the radio is left in one place, the tuning is very stabile. It has a little bit of a problem when listening while walking around with it, but that is true of most radios. The hole to insert the wrist strap was rather tiny and it was a bit difficult to get the end of the strap through it, but that is a problem you only have to solve one time, so not a bit deal. The radio is plain, no beauty queen, but the layout is simple and easy enough to figure out the radio part without reading any instructions. The battery life is adequate, about 1.5 normal days of use (I'm guessing it ran about 12 hours on a charge). Ran fine off the micro USB 5v supply. Whip antenna will probably eventually get snapped off by accident as do all of those annoying antennas (I wish they had some sort of strong flexible ribbon type). On the lower left you will see two additional "knobs" that look superficially like the tuning and volume knobs. They are fake and a rather strange addition to an otherwise plain and unadorned simple radio. Not sure why they introduced this little bit of unnecessary confusion.THIS RADIO SOUNDS GOOD. There is nothing unnatural about the sound. No distortion, no fake base bump, no weird over-amplification of high frequencies, just good clear natural sound that seems too good for such a small speaker.I think now I'll buy a second one for the work truck, I like it that much. Not much to look at, but simple and does what it is supposed to do. I'll try putting a couple stations into memory and see how well that works and try it to play mp3s, but I'll still just mostly use it as my outdoor work radio.UPDATE AUGUST 8 2013I ordered a second Meloson M7 to keep in my work truck, and it arrived with a defective battery that would not charge. The seller offered to send out a free replacement battery.I left the first Meloson M& on the dashboard of the truck for a few hours. The plastic that surrounds the buttons shrunk, warped, bent up. It is some sort of low temp thermoplastic that completely deforms with the mild heat of a closed vehicle. They really should make that from a different material. So, two problems so far, a defective battery on the second radio and a twisted plastic panel surrounding the buttons. But the first radio still plays well.SECOND UPDATE AUGUST 12 2013The battery cover is not designed very well, after the first time you remove it, it will fall off without notice. The tiny protrusions that are supposed to catch the free end don't do their job. I lost my cover several times and had to hunt through the grass to find it. Now I have it taped on with electrical tape. No problem, but if you use that solution then the storage compartments for extra SD micro cards behind the battery is pretty much no longer a "feature".The warped and bent bezel around the buttons was so annoying, blocking the buttons, that I had to remove it, and that actually improved the looks of the radio.The little portable "stand" chunk of plastic is another useless thing that was not thought out very well. There would have been so many better ways to make some little rotating leg or something to keep it from tipping over, I'm amazed they came up with that poorly thought out solution. The radio tips over in a breeze, and with anything that sprouts such a delicate antenna, stability should be taken into account when designing the radio. I'm going to have to get out the glue gun and come up with a better solution for keeping it upright when outdoors.

First off, I ordered one and it arrived quickly, yet had a bad battery, returned it right away and as soon as my refund hit, I ordered a second one. So my review starts with teh arrival of the second unit, which functions perfectly.The sound of the speaker is very nice, antenna functions well, and the mp3 function is great if you have a few songs, or a lot and just hit random. Don't try to search through this thing for your favorites. The aux speak is okay I guess, the jumper double male jacks are fairly short though, so good for your Ipod if you wanna have more control over the music.Keypad functions are pretty simple to use, though things like memory aren't intuitive, so spend the 2 minutes it takes to read the manual.All that aside, I wanted a good small rechargeable FM radio that could also play MP3's and had a nice sound quality, this is it. It's a mono channel, but the speaker is a multi unit design, pretty good bass and treble for such a small unit. Clear sound at low and high levels, though some things maxed can make it rumble at full blast.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++update 8/4/2013Took this to the drive in movie, and the movie sounds overpowered the speaker constantly. No matter how quiet or what equalizer setup I used it was just to low of frequency.I'm not removing a star because this is a very specific flaw that most people won't run into, but it's not going to handle super low bass levels well.Sleek small profile makes it nice for your day pack or an office radio.