iLive iKB333S Under Cabinet Radio with Bluetooth Speakers (Silver)

I was hesitant to buy this radio, since I'm not familiar with the brand name, but the price spoke to me. I like to listen to talk radio when I'm cooking, or cleaning my kitchen. Our local station doesn't have very good signal strength, so I needed a radio with decent reception. This unit has an external antenna, which was a deciding factor in my choice. My station now comes in very clearly, since I was able to position the antenna for the best reception. I also wanted an under cabinet unit so no counter space would be lost. This radio fits perfectly under my cabinet, and looks very nice, too. I didn't want to spend a lot of money, since I don't have to have concert sound, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the clarity and quality of sound this little unit produces. It sounds much better than the boombox for which I paid twice as much. I may start listening to music again! All things considered, I think this is a great radio, at a great price.I haven't used the bluetooth feature yet, so I can't speak as to it's usefulness.Since my handyman husband installed it for me, I don't know how difficult installation would be for the average person. If you have a drill, and a screwdriver, I don't think it would be very hard. Rather than drilling holes in the cabinet, my husband cut a piece of plywood to fit, attached the unit without the 3 extender pieces, then screwed that into the bottom of the cabinet.PROSThe sound is by far the best feature of this radio. For such a small unit, it has a very rich, clear sound. When I turned up the volume to listen over the running dishwasher, there was no distortion. The sound is so crisp, I can even understand what is being said when I'm in the next room.The external antenna ensures that you can choose the best positioning for lower signal strength stations in your area. It's a thin wire, about 3 ft long, attached at the back of the unit. It can either be "snaked" up through holes drilled in your kitchen cabinet, run up the outside corner of the cabinet, or just attached to the bottom of the cabinet if you're lucky enough to live where the radio stations all have good signal strength.The size of this unit is great. It only extends a few inches below the bottom of the kitchen cabinet, so it doesn't get in the way at all. It's also a nice looking unit. The silver part extended on the top is up under the cabinet, so you only see the black with the silver edges.CONSThe buttons and their labels are small. Since my husband attached the unit at the front of the cabinet, I have no trouble seeing them. If it were farther back under the edge, it would be more difficult. With continued use, most people memorize where everything is, anyway.There is only 1 button for the 20 preset stations. You have to cycle through from one to the next. Since there are only a handful of stations that I listen to, I simply programmed them in several locations. My talk radio station is at 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. The music stations are on the ones in between those.The clock only displays when the unit is off. The station numbers display when it's on. Since I have clocks in several locations, this isn't an issue for me.The light feature on the bottom is too dim to be of much use. Since I don't need one there anyway, this doesn't matter to me.

I bought this under cabinet radio with Bluetooth to install in our kitchen so we could enjoy some music and/or radio shows when cooking. I've used a few other under-cabinet radios, of varying quality, and I know how good—and how bad—they can be.This radio is very nicely priced, and for the price, you get a decent FM-radio, a solid Bluetooth speaker system (works with everything I tested—iPhones, a Mac, and an HTC Evo), and a clock.First, the positives:- It comes with standoffs so you can mount it under shallow or deeper cabinet façades, which is a plus.- The template it comes with required a little work to get taped in place and flat under the cabinet, but helped make sure the pilot holes were precisely where they needed to be.- The speakers can get pretty loud, and sound better than the cheapest speaker sets you can buy—but not much better.- The FM tuner is pretty good, and picked up every station in our city, and has an external antenna you can adjust for better reception.- Bluetooth pairing is straightforward.- The price is very good for what you're getting (if the price were $10 higher, I would take off at least one star...).Now, a few caveats:- The buttons are very poor. They are all indistinguishable circles with tiny text on them, and they require a firm press before activating.- The clock is terrible; for some reason, it gets really dim almost every time the radio/bluetooth is turned on or off. And getting it to switch to 'bright' mode again is difficult—you have to turn on the light, turn off the light, then hold down the dimmer/light button again. Very strange.- The sound quality is passable. Very little bass, but it's way better than the built-in speakers on any of the devices we used to use to listen to music in the kitchen.For the price, this is a good under cabinet radio/bluetooth speaker system. If you have the budget to get a nicer/brand-name radio, do it. But if, like me, you just wanted a decent, permanently-mounted bluetooth speaker set for your kitchen, for as cheap as possible, this is as good a deal as you'll find.