Way too expensive
Styling choices notwithstanding -- I rather like it actually, although it needs a colour screen -- this thing is just too damned pricey for what it does.
A couple of weeks ago I picked up an FM/DAB/iPod dock STEREO clock radio from Asda. It had garnered mixed reviews on shopping forums because of a couple of odd design choices, but it was just £35. It lacks the built-in internet streaming capabilities of this Revo model but it's being used with an iPod Touch so there were dozens of internet radio programs in the App Store to choose from. If I wanted to stream my own media I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to set up a suitable server that could talk to one of the iPod apps, or to Safari.
For what it's worth the design problems were a excessively bright backlight quite unsuited to use in a bedside radio (solved with the low-tech application of a piece of paper between the backlight and the LCD) and an overly loud, unadjustable alarm volume (solved by switching to iPod mode and using the iPod as the alarm source). If it's not being used in a bedroom these problems are moot; in fact I bought a second one for use in the kitchen.
Quite a bit of faffing around you might say, but remember that this thing was £35. Even if I hadn't already owned an iPod Touch I could have picked up an 8GB for £140, the Asda radio for £35 and still been £55 better off compared with the price of the Revo.
There are probably countless arguments about convenience, build quality, sound reproduction and reliability that might allow some price overhead for the Revo. But it's more than SIX TIMES the cost of the bargain-basement Asda set. That's pretty hard to justify.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
