Roberts WM201 Review

Overall Rating

Absolutely fantastic sound for both music and spoken word, Great looks (very well put together), easy to connect and use.

As with any internet radio - it can be slow to change from one station to another. The brightness of the display - even on its dimmest setting - is just a little too bright for my tastes as a bedside radio.

I have used the Bush TR2015 internet radio for about 2 years. Internet radios are brilliant for accessing all of the BBC's listen again programmes (now called i Player) In fact we have 3 Bush TR2015 radios in the house.

When one of the Bush radios packed-up I took the opportunity to buy the Roberts WM201.

This radio is beautifully built and lovely to look at - everything enclosed in a piano-black (wooden ?) case. The display looks great - larger than I was used to on the Bush radio which means more information on the screen without having to wait for the information to scroll past. One drawback is that the display -even on the dimmest setting- is slightly too bright for comfort as a bedside radio.

I also liked the fact that the power lead did not have the horrible bulky transformer on the end which takes up so much space on the socket.

I was absolutely amazed by the sound quality - at top volume, there was no distortion and the sound was clean and crisp. This prompted me to connect the WM201 to stream music files from my computer. I am not a computer boffin and I managed to do this without even having to ask for help from my 17 year old son ! I did have to go into the microsoft media player and under the library tag, ensure that i had ticked the box allowing the files to be shared. I also had to get my firewall to accept the Roberts.

The sound from the Roberts is such a pleasure that it has now ruined the Bush radios for me - I shall certainly be buying a second to use in the drawing room. I had been considering an iPod docking station, but the Roberts does the job - So I can justify the cost of a second with the saving I'll make by not having to buy an iPod or docking station.

If you have never listened to internet Radio - make sure you do - the quality is as good (if not better than) Dab - It is the future of Radio !