Logitech Squeezebox Radio

Product: Logitech Squeezebox Radio
Website: www.logitech.com
Specifications: Streaming music player supporting MP3, OGG, FLAC, WMA, WAV, AAC and Apple Lossless formats, WiFI and Ethernet connectivity, 3.5mm input and output jacks, 6cm colour LCD screen, gloss black or red finishes
Price: £160.00

LOGITECH'S LINE of network music players got a major boost just before Christmas with the launch of the Squeezebox Radio. The firm partnered with glam-rock legends Queen to give punters a combination of new hardware and new content. The Squeezebox Radio does look mundane but underneath it possesses some kind of magic.

When Logitech purchased open source streaming advocates Slim Devices in 2006 it got access to the popular and fully featured Slimserver streaming software. Its prior acquisition of budget speaker manufacturer Labtec meant that the seeds for the Squeezebox Radio had already been planted. The most evident question now is whether spending £160 on a player that has only one speaker and no internal storage is worthwhile.

The Squeezebox Radio is styled somewhere between an old fashioned Roberts radio and a Japanese button-fest stereo system from the 1980s. Coming in gloss black or a nail polish red, the chubby design has nice touches all over. The rounded corners, a carrying handle moulded to the back and the rubberised main control knobs give the Squeezebox Radio a feeling of quality. Physically the unit is more cutesy rather than imposing and while more than half of the front is taken up by the speaker unit, the Squeezebox Radio sits well on a table.

Underneath the bulging exterior Logitech has included some unexpected features such as the inclusion of an Ethernet port. Quite why you would want to have a wired connection on something that is clearly designed to be moved throughout the house makes you wonder why Logitech included it. The massive bulge at the back is explained by the optional battery pack that can be inserted from a panel on the bottom of the unit. Again, quite why you'd want to spend the extra cash on that is beyond us, unless you want to relive the 80s and walk around with a ghettoblaster on your shoulder.

There's a 3.5mm headphone jack for private listening and also a line-in jack of the same diameter allowing the speaker to be used with other sources. The 6cm colour LCD is bright but lacks contrast, a trait made all the more evident when you view pictures with it. Again there's more over engineering with the inclusion of an ambient light sensor.

As you would expect from a product that was born out of a marriage with a company that embraced open source, the Squeezebox Radio supports a good range of formats aside from the ubiquitous MP3. Fashionable and superior formats such as FLAC and Ogg Vorbis are catered for along with AAC, WMA, WAV and Apple Lossless.

Despite the complete feature set it is the software that really makes the Squeezebox Radio shine. The first thing that's required is a Squeezebox account, which is easily set up. This will allow you to control your Squeezebox Radio through your computer. While the Squeezebox Radio doesn't come with a remote there are a number of Iphone applications that allow you to control most Squeezebox devices. This level of software integration is generally found in higher-end systems such as Sonos, so it's nice to see it trickle down to something a little more affordable.

Giving you control isn't the only the only thing the Squeezebox Radio excels at with the user interface on the device being truly delightful. Navigation is quick and simple thanks to the main control knob. The ability to tune into obscure Internet radio stations is easy thanks to effective filtering meaning even elderly expats would have an easy job tuning into their favourites from back home. However saying the Squeezebox Radio is only suitable for octogenarians would do it a great disservice, as Logitech has put a lot of effort into it to appeal to the Iphone crowd too.

Logitech has created the App Gallery, its take on an app store. The difference is that while Apple or Google go for quantity rather than quality, Logitech offers a very limited number of applications for free. Most revolve around Internet radio but there are Facebook and Flickr apps too. One has to question the usefulness of those two with such a small screen but they are well implemented and generally harmless albeit useless additions to a system that feels well thought out and complete.

As Slimserver was a competent streaming server before Logitech's acquisition of Slim Devices it's no surprise that sending music from your computer to play on the Squeezebox Radio is easy. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and features a Web based control panel to aid in configuration. It's all very impressive stuff and you have to doff your cap to the guys at Logitech for incorporating both the client and server side software in such a way that it masks the complexity but allows for tweaking should you feel a bit more ambitious.

So how does that single speaker stack up? The 20mm tweeter and 760mm woofer are perfectly fine for listening to Internet radio but if you're used to listening to anything encoded at greater than 256kbps on a quality set of speakers or headphones then the Squeezebox Radio is a little tinny. The bass is just not there and, while it might be harsh given the size of the overall unit, if you are going to be without bass you might as well give up and put a smaller woofer in there to save on space. However looking at it a bit more pragmatically, the Squeezebox Radio isn't there to provide a sonic performance like no other and for general listening while going about one's business it's absolutely fine.

The Squeezebox Radio is an interesting mix of traditional design enabled by superb software. As a device to stream music it's close to perfect, whether it be from the local network or over the Internet. Logitech has put a great deal of effort into making the software easy to use without losing any of the features.

For all the value added features such as the Queen memorabilia, Facebook and Flickr applications, the performance of the Squeezebox Radio boils down to how easy and well it can play music from either the local network or the Internet. As a semi-portable music player the Squeezebox Radio performs well. The speaker is certainly loud and while it lacks strong bass, for listening to Internet radio streams which are generally encoded at low bitrates, it's absolutely fine. The only downside to the whole package is the £160 asking price.

There's no doubt the Squeezebox Radio is a quality product with well thought out hardware and software, however £160 is a lot for something that can only play streamed media. That's the only reason stopping us from going ga ga over the Squeezebox Radio.

In Short

Logitech's Squeezebox Radio is a quality item with excellent software all round. The Squeezebox Radio allows you to get going in minimal time but offers a lot more for those who want to fiddle around with their streaming. With adequate sound quality the only letdown is the rather high price. µ

The Good
Excellent software both on the device and for streaming, high build quality, good variety of Internet radio stations loaded at start up.

The Bad
No removable storage support, no remote control.

The Ugly
Should be priced 40 quid less.

Bartender's Score
7/10