Grace DigitalMondo Elite Classic Smart Internet Radio Bluetooth Wi-Fi Qi-Wireless Fast Charger 7-Day Alarm – Microphone-Free (Walnut)

This radio is an excellent answer to the modern age for us older folks that grew up on radio. With all the available streaming services, it's nice to have something that isn't programmed to track you and present stuff based on an algorithm. With radio, you get what comes down the pipe. The functionality is excellent with a nice method of navigating. The knobs are nice feeling with a nice subtle click feedback as you rotate. The display looks good and is very readable and has a nice glow when the device is off. The size is good as a table top device, close to the size of a shoe box, but it's a little large if you were using it on a small nightstand. The sound is great with a noticeable amount of bass when you set up the equalizer. It's not super hifidelity quality like a high end stereo, but fills the room with plenty of great sound. The hardest part is probably combing through all the services and the stations you can choose to add to your presets (up to 99, though the buttons on the front are quick sets only for the first 10). The website to pick and choose the curated list of 100,000s of stations is easy to use, But there are many stations that don't seem to work. So once you choose to save them in your folder, you have to go through and check out if they are dead or not. They do state that you can send them the station info and they can either update the feed or remove it if it's gone. I also recommend the mobile phone app since that is a super easy way to navigate really fast. Chromecasting and Bluetooth work well. The remote is usable and has all the buttons you would need, but it feels a bit cheap compared to the quality of the radio. This thing has been a joy to use so far and highly recommended. The price for the quality is worth it. One thing to note: the battery that makes these Grace Digital radios portable does not work on this model even though the battery says its for an "Elite" model (different radio) and Amazon seems to show it as being frequently bought together. So don't buy the battery or you will be returning it.

I can finally sit back, tune in, and enjoy listening to my favorite radio station on iheart 680 am WRKO @ 6am with my Morning Coffee! Radio works crystal clear, and it is sharp! The set up is so easy and offers lots of preset stations or you have the option to manually tune in. You can also select podcasts! The remote control is also user friendly. I did a lot of research before purchasing and thus far I feel I made the right selection! The cabinetry and size fits great in my home! If you are in the market for a nice looking and sounding radio for a fair price this is the one! I highly recommend!

You might ask, why buy one of these when you can use a smart speaker? The answer is ease of use. The Mondo Elite has a nice selection of user controls on the radio, including multiple ways of accomplishing the same thing. If you wake up at night, you can roll over and punch a preset button to play a podcast or internet radio station (power comes on when you press the numbered preset button). You can even press the snooze button on the top to tell the podcast to turn off after some time (you can set the length of time). so it doesn't wake you later. I could do that with an Alexa Echo, but by the time I remembered and made all of those commands I'd be completely awake!The process of entering podcasts or radio stations is kind of awkward -- you have to use a phone app to find it, then save it to "my stuff." But it works, and after you find the podcast, it is easy to prestore an episode or internet radio station on the face of radio.When you use a preset, you only preset to any specific podcast episode, not the whole series sequentially, which is either good or bad depending on your goal. I couldn't get some of my local radio stations onto the device. And believe it or not, THERE IS NO REGULAR OVER-THE-AIR TERRESTRIAL TUNER ON THIS RADIO. Seems like an obvious omission that would have been cheap and easy to produce. I like that the clock display is customizable so you can decide what's bright enough to see but not so bright as to wake you up. In all, this is like plugging the internet into a high end clock radio. Without the actual radio.