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!!!!

I gave this to an elderly woman after I loaded the sd card with some gospel music. I love that all you have to do is turn it on while turning the volume button and the music will automatically start playing where it was when you turned it off.They don't have to press play or anything. This is by far the best feature. Amazing programming guys. The battery stays charged for a good while. The FM radio worked good, so clear. The radio also gets loud so that's a plus. Sound quality is great.I want to know if the manufacturer has tested the life of the battery while leaving it plugged in 24/7? I ask because some people might want to listen to this in their room and leave it there. But they can fall asleep while listening to it. Therefore, leaving it plugged in would be very convenient, but not if it ruins the battery. :)

[First Impressions]The Good: Overall, it's better than I expected. Compact. Simple, yet capable. Works as advertised. I appreciate the smooth power/volume knob. Sounds best with spoken media, like podcasts or e-books.The Bad: Nothing so far.The Ugly: The battery is cheap or weak, but works enough to continue using. The battery pack is easy to find and cheap; carry extras and swap if that's your thing. The sound is distorted at higher volumes, which seems to just be a cheap speaker. But if you don't want volume 11, it's fine. I bought this to quietly play 24/7 scriptures at home, so neither issue is a problem for me.

I bought Avantree radio to use primarily as an mp3 player. I previously used the cheapo players, and I was happy with them because they played the mp3s in the order they were in the folders on the SD card. However, the cheap players without fail broke after a couple of months of use. The more expensive branded mp3 players were not satisfactory because they required me to make playlists, which is more of a pain in the neck than I'm willing to tolerate. Just play the damn mp3s in the order they are in the folders, for crying out loud. When I put my ex-cheapo-player SD card in the Avantree, it played the mp3s like a champ. The sound is great and the menus are easy to navigate. Also, adjusting the volume is a breeze because volume control is a turnable knob on the player. I just got the Avantree recently, so I can't attest to its playing life, but it feels quite solidly built, so I anticipate getting a lot of mileage out of it. The only drawback as an mp3 player is that it's comparatively large, but the advantages it offers make that not even a hesitation for me.