Retekess V115 Shortwave Radio Digital Radio AM FM Shortwave Receiver with 1000mAh Rechargeable Battery Presets TF AUX Playback

I purchased this radio because I discovered it can record radio onto a MicroSD/TF card. After using it a bit, here is my review. Pros: For its small 1-inch speaker, it sounds pretty good. Not fantastic, but good. The speaker doesn't distort when turning it up high. Stereo sound on Headphones, and it sounds quite good with headphones. The radio recorder works very well. It records as an MP3 file, and there are 3 recording quality settings. It records at 128kbps on the low end and 320kbps on the high end and something in the 200s in the middle. You can also play those MP3s or other MP3s you have on the data card. One-touch recording to start recording quickly if you hear something on the radio and want to quickly record it. You can also use it as a voice memo recorder. The Display has big numbers and is quite legible. Comes with a good backlight. Has a 15" telescoping Antenna. AM and FM Reception is good for local or semi-local stations. Not really for DXing. Digital Tuning. Yeah! You can tune by either punching in the frequency directly or moving up and down the presets. Customizable presets for each band. 9 kHz or 10 kHz stepping for AM, making it useful all around the world. It receives a wide band of shortwave bands, from 4.75 to 25 MHz. You can set a sleep timer when listening. Has a very common, user accessible, rechargeable battery, so you can charge more than 1 battery and swap it out when charging is not available. Recharges using a USB-C cable. It's light and is a small size. It will fit easily in a shirt pocket. Has an audio-in jack. Comes with a wrist strap with a little kickstand that you can plug into a notch on the back of the radio. It has no clock. I consider that a Pro. Cons: The User Interface for many of the features is poor. It takes some effort to figure things out. The manual is not super helpful. Shortwave reception is poor. It might be better if you purchased one of those long clip-on wire extension antennas, but as equipped, it is poor. The V115 is feature-rich and very useful for listening to & recording AM/FM radio. Bottom line, I think it's a good featured unit for only $20. The ability to record radio to MP3 is why I bought it. Read more

I bought this mostly to play music and ebooks. I like the radio reception as well, its better than most especially for its size. I live on a hill that blocks most of the radio stations, I was surprised that this unit received stations I can't usually pick up on the FM. Sound quality is amazing for the size of the enclosure and the size of the driver. I found it will play mp3,wav and wma. it does not claim to do FLAC or MP4 (aac) files and in fact won't cause I tried it... I had a problem with the sd card not latching in place after I removed it a couple times. I opened it and found there is a small metal tab that provides tension on the spring bar that latches the sd card. I pushed that metal tab down a bit with a tiny screwdriver and it works fine again. I picked up a couple spare batterys, looks like I'll be using this for a good while. I have a pi-pirate radio, 3 or 4 Logitech squeezebox streaming radios, a jvc, etc,etc.as far as computer radios go , this one doesn't lag as much as the others, the fidelity is great on playback and the controls are easy to figure out after a bit of messing about with it . sound reproduction is better than an Ihome ipod dock I've got it next to. Overall for less than the price of a case of beer or a couple bottles of fine sparkling cold duck, what we've got here is an outright entertainment bonaza, that fits in your pocket. I liked it so much I gave my brother one. doesn't pickup much on the shortwave, but thats not really what I bought it for. all in all a dandy radio for office, kitchen or garage, even fits under the pillow if you like audiobooks. one of the better radio products I've used, especially at its price point. Great travel radio. edit 3/25/2020 - well I now own 2 of these little babies. so to keep them straight. I did a little cosmetic mod to one of them and colored in the indentations on the Volume rocker and the transport buttons. I used a white Sharpie (oil based) and a half a dozen q-tips dipped in alcohol for cleanup. I tried masking but my mad skills weren't up to it, turned out it was easier to just apply carefully the paint, then let it dry and remove the overage with the qtips. I wound up doing 2 coats to get sufficient coverage. not bad for 20 minutes work at the most, and it makes it easy to see which one is which at a glance. Read more

No other portable radio has this many features for the price. Its re-chargeable -- just plug it into a USB port on your computer and it charges up to full in about an hour. Many features - It can play MP3s via the memory card slot. - It can record for the radio, - It can record from line in - It can act as USB speaker for your PC - it has AM/FM and multiple bands of shortwave. = It can record from voice from the built in mic (great for dictation) - it has station presets. A note on the recording feature. It records at up to 320 kps for MP3, however the high frequency response its somewhat rolled off (muffled a bit). Its fine for basic recording but I wouldn't use this to convert your record collection to digital. A note on the tuner performance -- the sensitivity is low, meaning it has a tough time pulling in all but the strongest stations. AM and shortwave are even worse. This can be mitigated by attaching an external antenna -- however that sort of counters the "portable" nature of this device. Its ok for pulling in a few your stations (as long as they are strong ) or for poolside listening whatever. The sound for the speaker is very good and it can play pretty loud for the size. Great battery life as well Its combination of features for the price is unbeatable, but if you just need a basic portable ration, I would pick something else due to the tuner performance. Retekess -- PLEASE fix the low sensitivity issue on this radio. Read more