Customer Ratings & Reviews

Good product but not enough FM stations. Great if you like Latin music a lot of those stations.

My daughter takes this radio to work every day!!!! She loves it and it makes my day a lot easier.

This is my third, they done last forever, but what does.

Works great as long as I'm not too far out of town

OK, so you're about to put down a nice chunk of change for a, well, it's just a RADIO, right? And you're wondering if the "HD" thing is going to make a difference or if it's just marketing hype. Well, what you get in this package will give you a nice, pleasant sound, but face it, any time you buy a portable radio or mp3 player that includes earphones, they're not intended to give you great sound. Then again, there's Apple, but they really can't afford to give you junk earphones when they're charging hundreds of dollars for their products. Still, they're just "starter" earphones, and they cost $29.95 if you want to buy them separately - and lots of people upgrade them to get better sound. So, what should you do? GET A DECENT PAIR OF EARPHONES!!! Like the Apple buds? No way - just average sound for the price. Check out Logitech Ultimate Ears 600vi or Rockjaw Alfa Genus #more bass than the Logitech# and the sound will rock your world. Both of these will play loud, but if you just have to have to crank it up every once in a while #for short periods - don't damage your ears# get the Logitechs. So what about HD? It really works. It gives you a little bit better sound than the station you get the best reception on in regular FM. And the regular FM sound is great - full spectrum, including the BASS. The downside? If you live in a rural area, there might not be many hd stations near you. Just google "HD radio" to find out. Also, not all hd stations are of equal strength #some are farther away from you# and on the weak stations, you will get occasional drop-outs, and with weak regular FM stations, the signal can drift in and out. Hey, it's RADIO. Just for reference, I can tell you that the sound quality equals or surpasses my San Disk Sport Clip mp3 player #and crushes it in the bass# Of course it's not as good as my $100 Fiio X1 or my $200 Ibasso DX-50 mp3 players, but if you don't have a whole big bunch of CDs that you can rip to MP3 or Flac, it's really not worth getting one of those players, unless you're prepared to shell out hundreds and hundreds of dollars to buy music online. And besides, radio has ALL THE NEW MUSIC.

Top of the line radio never have problems with it I love it

This unit is a great example of an epic fail. The idea of a mobile HD radio is good. However, the function button layout and lame, limited character digital display make this a poor choice in today,s market. I returned this model and traded it for the less compact larger (also portable) Insignia model.

This is my first experience with HD radio but not my first with portable radios in general. In fact I've owned several portable Sony AM/FM portable radios over the years... all of which were great. However I have to say that the Insignia Radio is the very best FM radio I've ever had. The reception is phenominal! The keyboard is laid out with great thought and is very easy to use. I shouild point out that one must read the simple instructions that come with the device to learn how to operate it quickly because there are so many features. I am satisfied with the fact that it has 10 presets since in the Louisville area it fills all these and with HD+ it store in sub storage making the actual number of presets more than ten. I am extremely pleased with this radio and have had it for over three months and it works perfectly everytime. Thank you Best Buy for being the first to offer HD in this portable size!!!

This is a great portable option for HD Radio. First off, out of the box it is easy to charge, but everyone should read the manual to understand the slightly convoluted programming information (for presets, etc). Now, with radio, all anyone can do is review it for their particular market. I live in Tucson, so the reception I receive is pleasing overall, with only a few stations unavailable in certain parts of town. The player does a very good job using the wires from the headphones as an antenna, but in situations where a solid HD signal is unavailable, it will resort to normal fm quality which is obvious and confusing due to the fact that the HD symbol remains but in the lower right corner a "plus" is displayed. Also, it has 10 presets, but this is misleading. If you attempt to program the dash 2 or dash 3 signal, they will not save. In other words, 92.9 will save only, and you have to push menu then the up button to get to the 92.9-2 station. I know, Confusing! Also, the internal battery is neat, but I would prefer a AAA because I do not believe this battery is replaceable. I have connected it to a receiver and it sounds very good when turned to at least 13 (out of 15). With highly efficient headphones, a volume level of 8 or so is pleasing. Overall it will work assuming that your particular market is broadcasting at 100% in HD. You get what you pay for, and in this unit you get a lot!

What I Liked: Small Size. I used it outside whle working. The radio didn't switch stations accidentally on me after getting bumped. It was easy to adjust volume. I liked that it came with an armband except the armband needs stretchy material to work better. I liked that it has a more standard jack for charging, so I can take one USB cable and charge up several of my devices. I bought an adapter so I can plug it into the wall. I think the sound quality is pretty good but I'm only listening to talking programs. The battery lasted a lot longer than the MP3 player I was using. What I didn't like: *This radio didn't work at lower temperatures. At 40 degrees or below I had to put it inside my jacket or it would just make a terrible noise and not tune in any station. *The NPR HD2 station in my area isn't on all the time and I found it very difficult to tune in. HD1 had no issues but even though I'm in line of sight from the transmitting towers I had trouble tuning in HD2 unless I went to specific spots. After getting it tuned in it would stay on the station. *It was somewhat difficult to set the presets and then sometimes it would set a new preset instead of switching to the next station when I was pushing the button. *An MP3 player would be a bonus *Only a 90 day warranty *6 months into it and now I have no sound output. So it goes into the trash.

I really do not understand why this product is not being sold in a best buy retail store other then top people in the company wants to push satellite radio so they get kick backs from the subscription service. When the radio arrived, I could tell that the item had been opened and used. I did not understand why until I took a drive and found that if you get out away from big cities most if all FM stations have not converted over to the new HD format, yet. For example, up in Butte County, it would be a waste of money because I scanned for HD stations and there weren't any. The radio will pickup standard station broadcast but will not lock into HD because there isn't any up there. In Sacramento, there are a lot of HD stations [about 5]. The radio is nice I am really happy with the sound quality. I would buy a second one if the retail store sold it, but I am not going to waste my time ordering another one online. As far as the unit dieing after a three month, I have it only for a month so far and I'll let you know if it does. A cell phone charger [[see a Sprint store for a car/home adapter]] charges the HD radio. The connector on the unit that charges the HD radio is a mini-computer port interface and the connector can be purchased through digi-key [electronics parts seller] but the connector would need to be connected to a 5 volt DC power source [really should have come with a AC adapter-for another $5]. The battery life is really good [about 4-5 hours before HD starts fading in and out] and this radio is small and fits in the palm of your hand [it is really nice]. By the way, a 300 mAh hour charger works too. Over all I would hope that Insignia will keep on improving this unit and would put in HD/AM Radio in this thing while keeping the existing features. Would like to see firmware updates on this model. WiFi radio built in would be nice. Over all, I like it.

I too bought this the first day out. I like the size of this little guy. It's just right for me. The buttons are in a good spot, and fairly well spaced out between them for me. The sound out of this little guy was VERY good. Of course, if you use better headphones/speakers then the sound will be better. The case seems to pickup finger oils and its not that easy to get rid of them. The reception on this was difficult. At home in my house great, in my truck only at the windows. I tried this at the four different sites I work at and found it to need a clear line to the sky (but yet at home it was fine). I'm not sure why that is, more play is needed. For the $50 price tag this was great buy, one I support others in even though I usually don't support buying store brands like this.

For a device that costs $51 plus tax, reception is not as strong as it should be - unfortunately. Maybe, it's just my area of the country

Remarkably good quality rechargeable radio in a very small package and price. Excellent audio quality, good earbuds and armband included in the price. Easy to tune although, but as in all HD stations, you must wait for the station to "lock in" for a few seconds, and a strong signal is necessary to pull in the substations. I enjoyed listening to many new stations in HD, particularly Q2, the new WQXR classical music station in New York City. Since this little radio has a rechargeable battery, it requires daily recharging depending on how many hours of use, and if the power is completely drained, reset buttons must be reentered. Same is true of regular battery operated radios, but this one runs down every 10 hours or so of listening. A terrific gift for radio lovers, and unlike other small portable radios, since it has all of the extra HD stations.

This got next to no stations and I got no HD stations. Not good and I hardly ever use it.

I just bought this and immediately I was blown away. The battery in the unit had plenty of juice in it so I could listen to it right away. It came with a nice exercise arm band holder which is nice to help keep the radio from getting scratched. The screen shuts it's self off after a little bit of time so that it can save power. I could easily pre-set 10 stations which is nice because I can find the stations that I'd like to listen to faster. I don't have to pay for a monthly subscription for hd radio which is a plus. On some of the hd stations it tells me the name of station, artist, and song that's playing. Overall, I think this is a great gadget to have.

Radio did not do what I expected it to do.... we returned it to store

I wanted to add HD FM radio to the Yamaha mini system in my bedroom. There was very little extra room on my TV/stereo shelf and so I didn't want anything big and clunky. The Insignia HD portable works really well when hooked up to the Yamaha's auxiliary inputs via an ordinary Y-Cord adapter. It picks up all but the weakest HD stations without drifting in and out. And, best of all, when drift does rarely occur, and the radio is tuned to the -2 channel, it stays on that channel and does not go to the main -1 channel like my other HD radio. Also, unlike some HD radios, the Insignia does not run hot. And it has no unnecessary features, such as a clock. I purchased a Rocketfish 5 volt AC adapter for use with the radio, since my Yamaha system has no USB port to provide power. The radio is so small that it can be tucked in between two stereo components or perhaps on top. The radio's buttons are easy to press and the digital readout is very easy to read. I'm very satisfied with my purchase. I could have spent a lot more money and gotten the same or less performance.

This small player has a rechargeable battery, which is handy. It also has very clear sound signals. Right now, there are not as many stations as I'd hoped which are available in HD as I'd thought. I hope they add more soon. Still, if you need a small player to take to the office, this may be good. It's certainly the least expensive and only portable HD player I've seen in a while.

I bought this radio because favorite station in Cincinnati went HD only, that was back in Spring of 09, I missed the station, and was so fed up with what was left to me on regular FM I bought this and another HD radio for my car. Needless to say when I saw that I could get this portable deal for $50 I had to have it. I could not tell you how pleased I was to get my station back in crystal clear HD (which is not High Defenition by the way, Hybrid Digital, think of it as CD quality as opposed to radio quality) but also found a 2 other stations that played alternative music. I also love tthe fact that its commecial free, some stations have DJ's some don't, but the interuption is nominal or non existant regardless. The Radio itself performs admirably, the reception is usually pretty good, it does have its hit and miss spots, but that seems to be the nature of digital rather than the radio itself. The internal battery is great too, 15 hours is plenty to last me all week at work being used off and on. The earbuds aren't top of the line but you knew that already didn't you, and the armband is hit or miss, personally I threw it off to the side, fits just fine in my pocket. There are some aspects that could have been better: the button layout and user interface could have been a bit more intuitive and the volume button just feels akward, I had to check the manual to figure it out, but it does work fairly well once you figure it out, and the screen isn't the greatest. My biggest gripe about it however, is that the presets only save the HD1 stations, most of the time these are just digital versions of the analog stations, much of the draw of HD radio is the free extra stations, it's a shame that I have to switch to the station I want, wait for HD2 or HD3 to come up, then manually switch, it's by no means a deal breaker, but it is a nusance especially if you switch stations with any frequency like me. While it may sound like I griped quite a bit for someone who gave the product 4 out of 5 stars, I must say I truly enjoy this radio, in fact I am listening to it as I write this review. Considering its at a $50 price point and there are basically NO other alternatives for portable HD, the next step up is the Zune HD which starts as $220. If you are sick of FM, this is a great alternative, no commecials, no subscription fees, just music. Minor quibbles aside this is a great product for a great price.