(from GB 303) Mike Bruchas said:

The TTM Amazon store has the Aluratek WiFi radio tuner bug at a good price. I am thinking of buying some as cheap stocking stuffers.

Has anyone tried it on your laptop or as a USB plug-in on your PC?

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Product Description

The USB Internet Radio Jukebox allows you to easily access more than 13,000 radio stations in over 300 countries around the world with no monthly fees. Simply insert the USB Internet Radio Jukebox into your computer's USB port and you have a world of entertainment at your fingertips via Aluratek's internet media player. You can search for music geographically by continent/country/state or by the more than 50 different available genres including a wealth of news and sports radio stations broadcast throughout the world. Once you find a favorite station whether it is from your local country or while visiting other countries around the world, simply add it to your favorites folder. You can also search for the top ten radio stations in each country or by each genre and cast your own vote for each channel. No software installation is required making this a truly plug-n-play experience. Let the fun begin!

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Product Details

• Color: black
• Brand: Aluratek
• Model: AIRJ01F
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 4.00" h x 3.00" w x 1.00" l, .12 pounds
• CPU: PowerPC G4 2.1 GHz
• Memory: 2000MB SDRAM
• Hard Disk: 1GB
• Processors: 1

Features

• USB plug-n-play (no software to install)
• Search for music by Genre or geographically (over 300 countries) and 13,000 channels
• Save all your favorites right to the USB drive and take it with you when you travel.
• No monthly costs!
• Keep a list and vote for your favorite radio stations to tabulate TOP 10 genre and region lists among all users.

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Customer Reviews

Expand your mind, computer
It's pretty straight-forward: it lets you listen to thousands of radio stations that broadcast on the Net. As I write this review, I am sitting here, on the US East Coast, listening to some Icelandic rock station. In the past couple of hours I browsed through radio stations based in France, the Philippines, UK and, I believe Thailand. Pretty cool, eh?

But, let's summarize:

Installation: super-easy. You stick the USB thing into the proper port and you get prompted to allow for the software to install on your computer - at least that's what Vista does.

Interface: you get 2 top-10 lists that can be expanded to top-100, by region or by genre. The tops are not too useful, unless you really believe that the number one talk station in the world is broadcasting from Bulgaria but, it's fun to have them there. The categories are usually hit and miss - you are almost as likely to find music on a 'talk' station as your are to find actual talk but... it's no big deal, believe me. The stations are also classified by Genre and Location and, within each of these, you can sort them by 'country' - not all stations have a country assigned to them and Kansas and Kenya are both viewed as 'countries'. You can include individual stations on your favorite list and you can vote them up or down. There is also a 'history' section, a 'help' section and a link to the maker of the product. Oh, the bottom of the window is reserved for advertising but, I bet, you are NOT likely to stare at the Aluratek windows while listening to the radio so it's not bothersome.

Reception: each station shows a number of bars, telephone style - 4 bars are supposed to be the clearest and no bars you probably can't get. The quality of your connection is, without a doubt, dependent of your own bandwidth. Depending of it and depending on many other factors, your connection may break from time to time or you may not be able to connect at all but, so far, I am happy with what I get.

Why I almost took out 1 star?

- The interface could be improved. What I definitely miss is the ability to enter my own little notes to the stations that I mark as 'favorites'. The way they appear now - which could be something like 'WKZR' or maybe a string of Chinese hieroglyphs - is not always descriptive enough.

To summarize: if you spend a few hundred $$ for your laptop, I can't think of any good justification for not spending $20-30 on this little device.
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October 2, 2008 Update

I learned from a related discussion thread that there are 'free' sites that allow access to thousands of radio stations with some search capabilities. http://www.vtuner.com is one of them. Some may prefer to use such a site for their radio listening and save some money. Personally, having purchased this device, I am more likely to use IT than Vtuner but this is my personal preference only.

Good, but could be better
The Aluratek Internet Radio Jukebox is great for finding & surfing radio stations around the world and playing them through a single interface. It performs this task very well. I had it up and running on my home PC in no time, just as advertised. Reasons I didn't give it 5 stars:

- The interface itself is clunky, cryptic and a bit slow. It's easy enough to use, just kind of awkward.

- It does not necessarily work on "locked down" office workstations. Although it doesn't need to install software to run, it does need to put a special driver in your Windows directory. Not a deal-breaker by any means, but something to be aware of.

All in all, the Internet Radio Jukebox is great for exploring Internet radio stations. If you'd like that process made simpler and more convenient, then you'll probably be happy with it. Otherwise, it's no different from just bookmarking your favorite stations with your Web browser.

Great little product, at great price!
I discovered this Aluratek AIRJ01F USB internet radio stick as an Amazon promotion. The idea that I could be anywhere in the world but easily hear my local radio stations sounded great. (Or vice versa -- easily find broadcasts worldwide.) After checking the handful of reviews, I decided to take a chance -- hardly a big loss if it didn't pan out. Well, I'm glad I did. It arrived in two days. I opened the package. The instructions said, "Plug it into the USB port." I did (on my laptop which runs Vista) and, lo and behold, the application immediately began to run, and a huge directory of worldwide web radio stations came up, organized in several different ways, and easily searchable. In seconds, I was listening to my home town radio station. One click later, I was checking out a station half a world away!

Then a friend called and, in passing, he mentioned that he never gets to hear broadcasts of his old college's football games, because the school is 600 miles away, and he often travels, anyway. I recommended this! Could he figure out how to get the webcasts without this inexpensive device? Maybe....No, obviously not. This makes finding numerous stations so easy, no matter where you are or what computer you're using.

One issue: I tried plugging it into a secure laptop which runs Windows XP, and the self-starting app did not run automatically. I'm still trying to track down the ActiveX setting which is preventing this. But, no problem, anyway: All you have to do is create a shortcut to the application on your desktop, and then clicking that will start it up.

Nifty and inexpensive little thing, makes staying local, or going global, with your web radio, so easy! These will make great Christmas gifts, too!