- Model: YW631
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not Worth It,
By
This review is from: Sharper Image 5-In-1 Emergency Radio and Spotlight (YW631) (Electronics)
I would stay away from this model. I have other brands (Freeplay and Dynamo that do a much better job). This one works fine with batteries; however, it is the crank / solar feature I have issues with. With my other brands it only takes a couple of minutes of cranking to supply hours of radio power and several minutes of light. This model seems to require hours of cranking for minutes of radio and seconds of light.
The solar panel must be charged for 40 hours to have an adequate power supply. This would require too much work for someone that does not have AA batteries on hand. It does offer a DC (car plug) cord to charge the unit as well, but does not come with an AC (home plug) cord that would be much more helpful. It recommends charging the unit for five hours before use.... like I am going to go for a five hour drive just to charge my radio. The whole idea of an emergency radio / flashlight is to be there when you need it. The other models mentioned above serve this purpose much better and offer short wave radio bands. I got this refurbished for $15 and I overpaid for it. The only Sharper Image product I have ever bought that I am completely unsatisfied with.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Works as advertised, but not conveniently,
This review is from: Sharper Image 5-In-1 Emergency Radio and Spotlight (YW631) (Electronics)
I always thought Sharper Image only sold top notch stuff until I bought
this thing for my 79 year old mom to use during power outages. The first problem is there's too many switches and they're too small with too many modes. Just about every time my mom (or most people for that matter) go to turn it off they accidentally flip it to siren/flash, and they're hard to find during power outages. Seems to me it would be a much better design to have an on/off button for both the light and the siren/flash. The second problem I ran into right away (after breaking out the manual to figure out how to charge the thing) is it takes hours (i.e., days) to use the solar or hand crank charging methods. I'm not kidding here, it says 40 hours for a full charge on the included nicad batteries. Assuming those two charging methods are useless, you're left with using regular AA batteries or charging the nicads with the DC (cig adapter) charger which takes 5 hours. I don't know about you but usually I'm not driving around for 5 hours straight and I'm not gonna leave my car with the keys in the ignition on accessory mode so a flashlight can drain my car battery over 5 hours. The third problem is there's no extendable antenna for the radio, but the antenna wire is inside the flip up solar panel. This wouldn't be a problem, but my mom has to use all her strength to flip it up, and even then it just doesn't get high enough for good reception, but it works. I'm giving this a 3 rating because all the features do work, and you can use the hand crank for a couple minutes to get a minute or so of light in a pinch, but there's no way anyone is going to sit there cranking this thing every couple minutes while trying to listen to the radio. Also the alarm clock is a nice feature and is really easy to set.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sharper Image YW631 5-in-1 radio/siren/light, etc.,
By
This review is from: Sharper Image 5-In-1 Emergency Radio and Spotlight (YW631) (Electronics)
Nice unit, as far as it goes, which isn't far. The volume control knob
came unfastened from the volume control on the chassis and there's no way to get inside to fix it except complete disassembly which looks like a major undertaking. What's worse is that Sharper Image has told me that since they don't handle the unit any longer there's nothing they can do to either fix or replace it. They actually told me to take it to an electronics shop. I think the real problem is that I got the thing as a gift and therefore don't have a receipt for it so they're hoping I'll just go away. Well, go away I will -- permanently -- from Sharper Image and their lousy customer service.
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