DEGEN DE1123 DSP AM/FM/SW Pocket Radio with 1GB MP3 Player & Recorder

Easy to use, adding station memories, click etc. Receives AM and FM well. Sounds great with impressive volume range. Love the lock feature, Toss it around or put in pockets, no worry about volume or stations getting changed. Quality feel. Bought for radio record feature but it's a great portable radio, player. Controls are intuitive. Battery cover is one thing you have to watch not to lose, it doesn't close very secure.

Ive read the other reviews here And I disagree with most of them. There is no doubt that this slim compact but solid feeling device could not well stand being dropped often but I find the build quality excellent and I like the basic black design. I love the crisp green backlight.Playback over the speaker, though lacking much bass is very clear and carries well. I can set it on my work bench and listen unencumbered by headphones. Inspite of its chinglish I found the manual fairly easy to understand for what I want to do. Fm reception is excellent for a portable this size and am is decent but doesnt compare to my eton e100. My only complaint is the short battery life but at least it holds the settings long enough to slip in new batteries (quickly) and it comes with rechargeable batteries and charger. To listen to radio, mp3 music files and emusic audiobooks it is a great unit with really no competition unless you want to spend quite a bit more money; I don't. I highly recommend it.

Great product

Very good AM and FM performance for its size and price range. SW performance is adequate but subject to interference from strong/local AM radio stations. Very sensitive with just its short whip antenna. Digital recording and playback features are just basic. Does not support scheduled, unattended digital recording. Speaker audio ok for size, audio generally fine with headphones. Some distortion at low levels in AM band. Computer connection not well documented in manual; worked properly with Windows XP; compatibility with other computer OS's not known. No numeric keypad or rotary tuning knob. Seems solid and well made. Its compact size is a key feature. If size is less important, there are other better performing radios in this price class, although none with digital recording/playback features.

I was looking for a device that could record a day's worth of AM radio programming in a digital format. This radio seemed to have the capabilities to do this. But as I discovered, it fell far short of expectations. The shortcomings of this radio are as follows; 1. If you wish to record a radio show, the maximum recording time is about 2 hours unless you manually stop the recording periodically and restart the recording on a new track. Doing this will give you another 2 hours of recording time before you have to repeat this process again. You can't just start recording radio programming and walk away for the day. You'll end up with only 2 hours of recorded radio programming. By the way, even if you could walk away for the day, the batteries would die after a few hours. 2. During playback of recorded material, if the radio is turned off (or the batteries go dead), the recording starts at the beginning of the track when the radio is turned back on. The fast forward is slow, so it can take some time to get back to the place that you left off in the recording. 3. This radio is power hungry in the record and playback mode. Unfortunately, it's powered by 3 AAA batteries instead of more robust AA batteries, so the batteries go dead long before a day of listening or recording is over. In my opinion, the short battery life is the biggest annoyance of this radio. I would have returned the radio for this shortcoming alone. 4. The audio speaker is one of the worst I've heard in recent years. It sounds very tinny and cheap. 5. The instructions are poorly translated from Chinese. They are challenging to understand. Because this radio is not intuitive, you must be able to understand the instructions to use it. 6. The tuning steps on AM (called MW on this radio) are set for foreign countries. You must manually set the tuning steps for the U.S. broadcast standard. If this isn't done, there are many AM stations that cannot be tuned in. If you don't understand what I'm talking about here, wait till you try to figure this out from the Chinglish instructions. 7. When the batteries go dead (which happens frequently) all the radios' settings go back to factory default, including the aforementioned tuning steps. Everything must be reset, very annoying. 8. The instructions say that the AC power supply is only for charging the batteries. It says that the AC power supply causes interference on the radio and so cannot be used in lieu of the short-lived batteries for recording radio programs. 9. The tuner of this radio covers the Short Wave radio spectrum. But the wimpy telescoping antenna is useless for receiving Short Wave bands. I was unable to receive any Short Wave radio signals. There is no provision for an external antenna. All in all, this radio represents a great idea that is very poorly executed. I give it one star. I am returning it to Amazon.

Recording time on a radio program was short. Charger was not working all the time. Manuel was somewhat confusing. For basic, short recording, very basic sound quality, you should be OK......but any more needed, keep looking

Not easy of use, the digital numbers stop works after 2 days. I do not recommend. Good idea bad construction and poor quality!

I was looking for a small mp3 player for walking. The Degen1123 has that plus am-fm-shortwave. Have not tried the recorder yet, but everything works fine and yes parts of the manuel is written in Chinenglish. Nice portable radio.

radio recording great ,play back excellence,to and from pc very easy ,very light&small to fit in pocket&lock switch make sure it stays on settings,very pleased.

Very disappointed with this radio. When I received the unit the loudspeaker was not working. Within weeks the function slider was also not working, rendering the radio inoperable. I would have returned it if it wasn't for the fact I had moved overseas. Think carefully before purchase, especially if you intend to travel with the unit.