Avantree SP850 Rechargeable Portable FM Radio with Bluetooth Speaker and SD Card MP3 Player 3-in-1, Auto Scan Save, LED Display, Small Handheld Pocket Battery Operated Wireless Radio (No AM)

This review is for the Avantree 3-in-1 portable FM radio with Bluetooth. I've had many speakers that stream music, bluetooth speakers and just FM radios in my continual search for an interruption-free portable music experience that I can use while I'm working. This radio comes as close to filling the bill as any other speaker I've had. It's a nice little unit. My first impressions when I unboxed it was that it was well packaged, in an eye-appealing box. The box you almost hate to get rid of, it's got little magnets that help the lid to close soundly. It's cool and all, but the radio is what I'm after, it was a bit smaller than what I thought it would be, which is not a bad thing. It's lightweight too, which might make you think it's cheap, but you will be surprised.I did have a problem with my first unit. When I turned it on, the LCD display would light up, but you saw nothing. That's kind of a problem with a speaker like this that is multifunction. I did figure out how to set the sources I wanted without actually seeing what was on the screen, that was nice, but I knew this was a defect I couldn't live with. I wrote the email address on the support card that came with the radio and got a response within a couple of hours. I was all set up to return the unit to Amazon, no questions asked. And for my inconvenience, they gave me a code to get $10 off if I wanted to reorder the unit, which I gladly did. I left this review at 5 stars because although I had a problem, one I believe would be rare with this radio, the customer service was top notch and ready to make me a satisfied customer. It's not that common anymore to get customer service worth a salt, so I appreciate that, in addition to the really cool radio!I'm glad because the unit I received worked perfectly in every way. The LCD display is quite handy and it's also got a battery saving feature that kills the light after a short period. I've found the battery life to be very adequate and has lived up to the 8 hour claim. The nice thing about this unit is that the battery is replaceable. And I do love the Micro SD slot. If you have a lot of old MP3 music on a hard drive, you never have to worry about not having music if you fill a 32 GB card with MP3 music, it will be a long time before you have to hear the same song twice!The radio itself is stylish looking and has a strap that can be removed. My initial thought was that I was going to toss that strap, but the first time I hung it near where I was welding, I immediately appreciated it. I weld and fabricate, so I create a great deal of ferrous shavings and dust, which wreak hell on speakers in general (the ferrous dust gets pulled into the speaker magnets and covers them to the point that the speaker no longer works or works with much distortion. I try to keep anything with a speaker away from my welding dust, so the strap is handier than I first thought.The radio sounds suprisingly robust and crystal clear for such a small device. It looks to me like there are actually 2 speakers, each on opposite sides. This seems to give it more bass. It's a good sound in all modes. The radio even has a built in equalizer with some preset modes, so that's fun to play with too and each one has a noticable difference in sound quality. The radio is equipped with a pleasant female voice that helps confirm menu choices. To me, it's a classy feature that sets this radio apart from others.It's got a good FM tuner. The radio has an autoscan mode which is a good way to start. Let it run through and save the best stations, then you can go through and delete the ones you don't want or like. You can go to any station quickly by hitting the corresponding buttons on top. 102.5 would be 1-0-2-5 on the top buttons. When it does the autoscan, it saves the 30 best reception channels. These are the channels that the radio will go to if you hit the forward or reverse buttons. If you hard press the same, it will do a scan from that point to the next station that gets reception, regardless of the autoscan saves.The bluetooth is real easy to connect to other bluetooth devices and has a good range. 20 feet is about where I start losing the signal and music starts to get choppy. If it's a clear line, maybe further, and if you go into other rooms, it kills bluetooth badly, so that's just something to keep in mind. There's nothing wrong with bluetooth on this little radio.The Micro SD is my favorite feature of this radio. I used to have the Creative Jukebox type of music players. I had a Grace digital streaming player and I've had bluetooth speakers. None of them had the Micro SD capability that this has. The Creative Jukebox really didn't need it, but the Grace relied on a good wifi signal, which I know my welding equipment sometimes messes with the wifi signal and bluetooth too. Days where it seems that's the case, it's nice to have the Micro SD feature. I found out quickly that it doesn't support Itunes music format, but does support MP3 all day long. It also works as a portable USB drive when you plug it in with the provided micro USB cable. When you use this mode, it automatically goes to USB cable mode when you turn it on.If you are looking for a stylish, versatile way to play music, this is unbeatable. I love it!!!!

The media could not be loaded. I was looking for a music player to play music from an SD card that has good volume. The only negative I have found is that when you turn the volume up high it starts getting a little staticky sounding. In the video I didn't even turn it up as high as it can go. With the right volume for us there is no loss of quality. Once you turn it up and it starts getting staticky, to get rid of it you have to turn it off and turn it back on with the lower volume. I wanted three more so I found the best price on their website. Just bought some backup batteries and SD cards off Amazon. Can't say yet how long the battery lasts, but I was just looking for something that would last at least a few hours and most people agree that it lasts at least 6 hours. I definitely can recommend for someone looking for a decent device to use for listening to music off of a microSD card.

Update 1-24-2017I have changed my rating from one star after the company replaced my original radio with an updated version that had several improvements. The support from the company was very good, better than I would have expected. The instructions included with the revised newer version were clearer and more understandable than the original. The digital voice that announced which mode the unit was in (FM, SD, AUX etc.) was now more understandable and logical.My original complaint was the inability of the unit to find any but the strongest radio stations. This issue can be circumvented by leaving an AUX cord plugged in, which acts as an external antenna. I also now can manually tune the specific frequencies and assign them to the preset buttons. Since I only am interested in about 5 public radio stations, I no longer have to do through the tedium of manually deleting all the unwanted stronger commercial radio stations. I have also used the device with a micro SD (TF) card, and have used it as an AUX speaker for a portable DVD player, and it works sufficiently well for those tasks. I have not yet had need for the Bluetooth functions.At first when I was presented with the necessity of having the AUX cable attached all the time in order to pull in the relatively weaker FM public radio stations that I listen to exclusively, I was not pleased. However, when I consider the failure of other portable FM radios that I've owned in the past, I've had the most trouble with the longevity of the telescoping whip antennae that were used. They would either get damaged and bent, or come apart, or introduce a lot of static if the internal connections became loose. Compared to the problems with a telescoping whip antenna, having the dangling AUX cord is usually less of a hassle. With the radio in a shirt pocket, I have to loop the cord up to avoid treading on it.If you are lucky enough to live in a city near a broadcast transmitter, or if you listen to those strong signal commercial pop or religious stations, then the AUX cable antenna solution will not be necessary for you.The second generation of this radio is noticeably improved, and I now use this radio routinely around the farm and on the road. I think there are still a few minor annoyances that could be improved, but they are not significant enough to disqualify this radio from a purchase choice. The operation manual pamphlet is improved over the original, but still neglects to mention a few things, like the function of the built in microphone (which could be used if the device is connected to a mobile phone, as sort of a speakerphone). The instructions on tuning and deleting unneeded stations could be written better and clearer. I would prefer to have the radio boot up always in the FM mode, but it may start up in AUX mode even if the cable is attached solely for the purpose of being an antenna, then you have to go through the TF mode to get to FM. I'd rather have FM mode be the default or be able to set as the default and have it always start up that way unless specifically altered intentionally by using the MODE button.Also, the order of functions in the MENU mode puts you into the AUTOSEARCH mode right away, so if you accidentally get into that part of the menu, you could lose all the work spent assigning frequencies to buttons, since they will be overwritten. If I were designing the radio, I would have made it with some kind of locking feature, so that once you assign all the desired frequencies to buttons, you could lock that down and prevent the programming to be lost by the MENU button order of events.The newer version has a longer strap, so that is now a usable feature, whereas the original strap was too short for any purpose other than hanging the radio on a hook or bent nail.The sound quality is sufficient. The tuning ability, with the AUX cord attached is usually sufficient, some drop out related to directionality but still adequate.The good quality of the customer service and the honesty of the company, and their efforts to "make things right" is a big plus. I did have to repeat one question a few times before it got answered, but that was a minor issue. I did get a request from support asking me to change my original one star review to a better one, which under other circumstances would probably bother me more, but it was justified since most of my original problems had been satisfactorily resolved.The company is serious about making quality, reliable products, and improving any deficiencies. I would not hesitate to recommend this radio to someone seeking a radio small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.The rechargeable cell phone type battery is a strong feature. You can replace it or buy a second one as a spare if you are away from electrical power for a few days. It charges via a micro USB connector, so if you can charge your phone you can charge your radio. It sounds fine when using headphones too.I would give the radio a 4.5 star rating if that were possible.

We use this for my son who loves Jelly Roll. He carries it around everywhere. Easy to use. We use an SD card. Has a radio function as well.