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| Aluratek USB Internet Radio Jukebox |
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Reviews February 2009 • Vol.20 Issue 2 Page(s) 22 in print issue |
Aluratek USB Internet Radio Jukebox 13,000 Stations On One Flash Drive | ||
So, with all these viable choices, why would anyone pay nearly $40 for a device that essentially does what’s already doable free? If the device is Aluratek’s new USB Internet Radio Jukebox, the answer is convenience. Aluratek states its Internet Radio Jukebox is for “non-technical users who want the exceptional quality of digital Internet radio.” “Non-technical” translates into a device that doesn’t require paying a subscription plan, downloading software, registering an email address, or installing and using a separate media player to listen to Internet radio—all characteristics many Web-based Internet radio stations possess. Instead, Aluratek’s Jukebox puts access to more than 13,000 Internet radio stations from 150-plus countries on a USB flash drive barely an inch long and attachable to a keychain. Using the Jukebox is as easy as plugging it into a USB port on any Internet-connected Windows 2000, XP, or Vista notebook or PC. (I successfully used the Jukebox on WinXP, WinXP Pro, and Vista Ultimate systems.) The Jukebox then auto-launches, opening a small window that organizes 52 station genres—Talk, News; Classical; Jazz, Blues; Nostalgia, etc.—into six categories. Categories include Top 10-Genre, Top 10-Region, Station-Genre, Station-Region, History, and My Favorites. With My Favorites, stations you save store to the flash drive vs. to a Web site server. Expectedly, the Top 10-Genre and Top-10 Region categories display the 10 top stations as voted by fellow users for various genres and regions, including North America, Latin America, Europe, etc. Clicking Top 10-Region or Station-Region, meanwhile, displays an interactive global map you can use to tunnel down to stations in a specific location. Although any category leads to dozens of diverse stations, there’s also a search engine. After clicking a station’s link to start streaming it (which can take several seconds), Jukebox’s top area displays the current station and provides a Play/Pause button and volume slider. Below this is a section displaying available stations for a chosen genre, region, or other category, complete with the bit rate the station streams at, a link to its home page, and buttons to save a station to My Favorites and to vote a station a Hit or Miss. What’s missing is the title of the current song playing or the artist. Arguably worse is that although the Jukebox costs nearly $40, Aluratek displays ads for its other products in the window’s bottom portion. Although the ads don’t interrupt the song flow, it’s a questionable move. Further, unlike with such Web-based stations as Slacker (www.slacker.com) and Pandora (www.pandora.com), you can’t forward through songs you don’t like in Jukebox. Additionally, Jukebox occasionally dropped connections temporarily and couldn’t establish connections at all in my testing. Another small complaint is that the Jukebox window isn’t expandable, leaving the interface feeling cluttered and overwhelmed. Ultimately, whether paying $40 for a device that theoretically does what you can do yourself free makes sense boils down to what value you place on convenience. For those who live to hear new music, $40 is small beans for the ability to instantly dial to Ireland’s South East Radio, Radio Habana Cuba, and so on.  Send your comments to blaine@smartcomputing.com
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