PoGo! Products "Radio Your Way" Portable MP3 Player and Radio Recorder

Other products by PoGo!

Product Details

Product Manual [3.76mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00009ZY4E
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #63,120 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 10, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Early Adopters Pick: June 2003. This is the first ever portable digital AM/FM radio recorder.

Addicted to radio but feeling left out of the MP3 revolution? Love MP3 but wish you could listen to the radio, too? Tune in to what PoGo! Products is up to and enjoy Radio YourWay. This device not only stores and plays MP3 and WMA (Windows Media audio) files and provides FM/AM radio reception, but also records any radio broadcast--news, sports, or music--so you can play it back at a more convenient time or transfer it to a PC.

Ten memory presets help you find favorite stations quickly and easily, and timer recording lets you set the Radio YourWay to record shows you'll be unable to listen to live. Recording is as simple as pressing a button, and you can even set it up to record daily or weekly programs. On playback, it's easy to fast-forward through commercials or unwanted material and rewind as often as needed.

The unit offers a built-in microphone, letting you record voice (microphone frequency response extends up to 3 kHz, fine for voice recording) or create MP3 files from analog sources like cassette or CD-player outputs using the Radio YourWay's analog line-level input. Its native recording time is about 4.5 hours with the built-in 32 MB memory, but you can use an optional SD or MMC storage card to increase the recording time to nearly 40 hours (up to 288 MB between the card and the internal memory). When connected through the USB port, recorded radio or voice recordings can be transferred and stored on a computer hard drive. MP3 and WMA files from a computer can also be transferred to the Radio YourWay for playback.

A special monitor function makes it possible to listen in the supplied earphones to what's being recorded, and an HD mode lets you use your 32 MB internal storage as hard-drive storage for whatever file types you need to store. The unit runs on two AAA batteries (supplied), and a DC-input jack accommodates an external power source (AC Adapter not included). Non-volatile memory maintains your time and other settings during battery changes.

What's in the Box
Radio YourWay device, earbud headphones, direct record (analog line-in) cable, USB cable, external FM antenna, two AAA batteries, neck strap, CD software, user's manual, warranty information.

Product Description

Radio YourWay is the first portable, solid-state AM/FM radio recorder! Imagine being able to record any radio broadcast like news, sports, or music and then be able to play those recordings back at a more convenient time.Recoding is as simple as pressing a button and you can program Radio YourWay to record a particular broadcast totally unattended. You can even set it up to record daily or weekly programs.Radio YourWay has a high quality speaker so you can listen to live or recorded broadcasts. It also comes with a pair of earbud headphones for private listening. Additional features include a built in microphone for dictating voice messages.Using the provided USB cable, you can transfer files between Radio YourWay and your computer. Now you can store voice recordings or radio broadcasts on your computer's hard drive and send those recordings by email to friends. You can even download MP3 files to Radio YourWay and enjoy near-CD quality music. And because Radio YourWay is solid-state, it's 100% skip free, which makes it the ideal partner for taking along on your jog, bike ride, exercise or sports activities.With Radio YourWay you will never miss another radio program again! In addition, you can keep yourself organized with the handy voice-recording feature and listen to skip free MP3 music. And because of its pocket size, you can take it with you anywhere too.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth the early adoption, but just barely, August 25, 2003

By	Scott R (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

I've been wanting a DVR for my radio forever (ok, for at least two years), even if I wasn't entirely sure what I do with it. Well, now I have one, and if this first one inspires other manufacturers or better industrial & software designers, it's worth the purchase.

Radio recording (i.e. why you would pick this up in the first place) is fine for talk, completely useless for radio. One thing that these reviews don't make clear is that the recorded radio quality is terrible - completely flat and a bit muddy. It's perfectly adequate for talk, useless for music. The recording interface leaves something to be desired but works generally fine. The fact that you can't actually pause a recording in progress, turn off the device, and restart from that same location is completely brain-dead. In the end, though, I was able to listen to some NPR shows that took place a week ago while walking around a campground, and that's all I wanted in the first place.

As an MP3 player, it's acceptable but feature-deficient. I'm not an audiophile and don't have a particularly sensitive ear, so your mileage may vary, but music of varying ripped quality sounded just fine - unless you fiddle with the equalizer, in which case every type of music sounds bad. There's a bizarre repeat feature but no shuffle, no mid-song stop, etc.

It seems flimsy at first but has held up under reasonable conditions. I think the size and weight are fine. I'm happy it's expandable (was a requirement for me) and am disappointed that the solid-state market is moving away from expandability.

(One later addition to the review: the battery life seems to be about 50-75% of what's promised; I'm burning out in 7-9 hours.)

So, generally fine and I'm happy with the device. I'm hoping for its success so somebody else will do it better.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this product, but it is not for everybody, November 7, 2003

By	"grant_thayer" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

The main reason I bought this product is that it is the ONLY MP3 player on the market with an AM radio tuner. Who told the digital music industry MP3 listeners don't like to listen to the ballgame now and then?

As a bonus, this player is like a Tivo for radio. If you don't like talk radio, don't bother with this product. I think it is great. I have it programmed to pick up BBC News, an NPR show I like, my favorite sports program, and my favorite comedy show. I haven't tried to record a music show yet, but I will try it out. Supposedly it doesn't work very well.

In order to get this radio recording feature to work for you, you have to do a few things. I built a small holder for it on my windowsill where the radio gets good reception. Obviously, good reception is key for a good recording. You have to find a good spot for it. I also have the AC adapter set up so it can reach the device when it is in this holder. It will burn your batteries recording the shows. I also have the antenna it came with taped to the window so I get better reception and thus better recordings from this spot.

The recording fuction is great. It can be programmed for 7 days a week, 5 days, or any one day at whatever time slot you want. I can now listen to my favorite radio shows whenever I want, and in locations where I would never be able to get reception... such as in the gym. It is a nice change to be able to mix up the music with some talk radio.

My Radio Your Way came with 128 MB of memory. I don't know if Amazon is selling these yet. I quickly discoverd that if you fill the memory with MP3's, there is no room left for the radio recordings. So I bought a card to expand the memory by 256 MB. I fit about 70 songs on the card, and I am going to put some more on the internal memory as well since 128 MB translates to about 18 hours of radio recordings, and I don't need that much space for them.

I haven't had any problems with the software it came with. Everything has worked great. I love this product to death, but if you don't like talk radio, or aren't willing to deal with the setup for radio recordings (including buying the AC adapter and possibly extra memory if you want a lot of MP3's on it as well), or aren't interested in that function in the first place, or you don't care about having an AM radio tuner on your MP3 player... then this isn't the product for you.

My only suggestions for this product would be a shuffle function for the stored MP3's, and an armband for the gym.

I can't wait until baseball season and I can record all of the Giants games.

71 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Save your money!!, October 29, 2003

By	R. Stout (Okeefenokee Swamp) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I own many MP3 players and even two other Pogo products, namely the Ripflash (yes I have 2) that has been great except for the horrible PC software. Well this time Pogo has outdone them self with a neat idea and poor implementation. The idea of a VCR-like MP3 recorder is attractive to anyone who likes radio shows but cannot listen to them while at work. The Radio Your Way has many problems that make it a "poor" purchase. I'll get to the problems right away.

1.) Horrid PC software (again). If you have Win XP you must put it into Win98 compatibility mode to work.

2.) Saves files in a silly compressed RYV format that requires the above PC software to convert to WAV and then you must convert it to MP3 (stupid)

3.) The Chinese week days must be MONDAY-SATURDAY because that is what you get when you try to set the RYW to weekday record. Oh-I am told by Jesse at Pogo Support that I can have this "bug" fixed by sending my RYW back to Pogo and paying $10.00 to have the thing re-flashed. Yeah, right!

4.) Poor battery life- get an adapter right away.

5.)Only ten recording slots available. You'll use those fast to get around the above bug.

6.) Pogo support doesn't care...pay to have it fixed or quit whining.

I recommend waiting for Archos to add VCR-like recording to their great products.