Avantree SP850 – Portable 3-in-1 FM Radio with Bluetooth Speaker & SD Card MP3 Player – Rechargeable Mini Radio with LED Display & Headphone Jack, Pocket Size with Handheld

This review is for the Avantree 3-in-1 portable FM radio with Bluetooth. I've had many speakers that stream music, bluetooth speakers and just FM radios in my continual search for an interruption-free portable music experience that I can use while I'm working. This radio comes as close to filling the bill as any other speaker I've had. It's a nice little unit. My first impressions when I unboxed it was that it was well packaged, in an eye-appealing box. The box you almost hate to get rid of, it's got little magnets that help the lid to close soundly. It's cool and all, but the radio is what I'm after, it was a bit smaller than what I thought it would be, which is not a bad thing. It's lightweight too, which might make you think it's cheap, but you will be surprised.I did have a problem with my first unit. When I turned it on, the LCD display would light up, but you saw nothing. That's kind of a problem with a speaker like this that is multifunction. I did figure out how to set the sources I wanted without actually seeing what was on the screen, that was nice, but I knew this was a defect I couldn't live with. I wrote the email address on the support card that came with the radio and got a response within a couple of hours. I was all set up to return the unit to Amazon, no questions asked. And for my inconvenience, they gave me a code to get $10 off if I wanted to reorder the unit, which I gladly did. I left this review at 5 stars because although I had a problem, one I believe would be rare with this radio, the customer service was top notch and ready to make me a satisfied customer. It's not that common anymore to get customer service worth a salt, so I appreciate that, in addition to the really cool radio!I'm glad because the unit I received worked perfectly in every way. The LCD display is quite handy and it's also got a battery saving feature that kills the light after a short period. I've found the battery life to be very adequate and has lived up to the 8 hour claim. The nice thing about this unit is that the battery is replaceable. And I do love the Micro SD slot. If you have a lot of old MP3 music on a hard drive, you never have to worry about not having music if you fill a 32 GB card with MP3 music, it will be a long time before you have to hear the same song twice!The radio itself is stylish looking and has a strap that can be removed. My initial thought was that I was going to toss that strap, but the first time I hung it near where I was welding, I immediately appreciated it. I weld and fabricate, so I create a great deal of ferrous shavings and dust, which wreak hell on speakers in general (the ferrous dust gets pulled into the speaker magnets and covers them to the point that the speaker no longer works or works with much distortion. I try to keep anything with a speaker away from my welding dust, so the strap is handier than I first thought.The radio sounds suprisingly robust and crystal clear for such a small device. It looks to me like there are actually 2 speakers, each on opposite sides. This seems to give it more bass. It's a good sound in all modes. The radio even has a built in equalizer with some preset modes, so that's fun to play with too and each one has a noticable difference in sound quality. The radio is equipped with a pleasant female voice that helps confirm menu choices. To me, it's a classy feature that sets this radio apart from others.It's got a good FM tuner. The radio has an autoscan mode which is a good way to start. Let it run through and save the best stations, then you can go through and delete the ones you don't want or like. You can go to any station quickly by hitting the corresponding buttons on top. 102.5 would be 1-0-2-5 on the top buttons. When it does the autoscan, it saves the 30 best reception channels. These are the channels that the radio will go to if you hit the forward or reverse buttons. If you hard press the same, it will do a scan from that point to the next station that gets reception, regardless of the autoscan saves.The bluetooth is real easy to connect to other bluetooth devices and has a good range. 20 feet is about where I start losing the signal and music starts to get choppy. If it's a clear line, maybe further, and if you go into other rooms, it kills bluetooth badly, so that's just something to keep in mind. There's nothing wrong with bluetooth on this little radio.The Micro SD is my favorite feature of this radio. I used to have the Creative Jukebox type of music players. I had a Grace digital streaming player and I've had bluetooth speakers. None of them had the Micro SD capability that this has. The Creative Jukebox really didn't need it, but the Grace relied on a good wifi signal, which I know my welding equipment sometimes messes with the wifi signal and bluetooth too. Days where it seems that's the case, it's nice to have the Micro SD feature. I found out quickly that it doesn't support Itunes music format, but does support MP3 all day long. It also works as a portable USB drive when you plug it in with the provided micro USB cable. When you use this mode, it automatically goes to USB cable mode when you turn it on.If you are looking for a stylish, versatile way to play music, this is unbeatable. I love it!!!!

Special note: I tested over 8 different models of bluetooth speakers with FM radio capability to find the best one to give to my wife for Mothers day in 2017. This one was my favorite and was the winner when I let my wife have her pick from the top four of the eight that I tested. I have not been compensated for this review. I wrote this entirely out of my own desire to recommend a great product.[Review updated 5/20/2018, roughly one year after purchase.Update: The speaker has performed admirably over the past year. It's been used primarily as an FM radio both indoors and outdoors. my residence is a suburb of Tucson so we are not far from local radio towers. We have never needed to plug anything into the speaker to get improved radio reception. All local stations come in crystal clear. I'm updating this review because recently the included battery died and I realized it's been a little over a year since I purchased this speaker. I took a look at Avantree's support website today to inquire about a warranty claim for the battery since a 2 year warranty is advertised and I was impressed. Their site really demonstrates that Avantree takes product support seriously. I feel it's worth mentioning this because I'm an IT guy by trade and I buy a lot of "cheap electronics from overseas" online and it's uncommon to see a decent support site behind a lesser-known brand. I was able to submit an online warranty claim but I didn't see where I could order additional replacement batteries directly from them. Nevertheless, based on what I have seen so far, I don't expect any issues with the warranty claim.]Pros:+ volume knob is also the power switch. No chance of starting the radio up to a loud sound.+ radio can be turned down quiet enough to be appropriate for workplace listening and be turned up loud enough for a warehouse.+ headphone and AUX jacks are clearly marked+ high quality build, fit and finish. Rubberized texture feels nice.+ product is well supported via the company website - https://support.avantree.com+ clear, easy to read digital display. The nicest display of all the radios this size that I tested.+ the preset buttons on the top let you type in a radio station or punch in a preset, best in class.+ pairing the bluetooth speaker is easy since it identifies itself as "Avantree SP850" as opposed to "BT speaker" like so many cheaper speakers do.+ the FM radio is a joy to use, very clear reception with no antenna needed+ carrying strap reaches over the volume knob - nice attention to detail+ uses a common, removable rechargable li-ion battery (BL-5C) which can be found lots of places, although not currently offered for sale by Avantree from what I can tell.+ does not lose memory or presets when battery is removed/swapped.+ playing back MP3 from a microSD card you can see the file name of the song in the display. I didn't notice if ID3 tags were supported.Cons:- The sound is not stereo but still very good.- receiving calls while phone is paired to this speaker can be a little confusing so practice with that before you get an unexpected call while paired.

[First Impressions]The Good: Overall, it's better than I expected. Compact. Simple, yet capable. Works as advertised. I appreciate the smooth power/volume knob. Sounds best with spoken media, like podcasts or e-books.The Bad: Nothing so far.The Ugly: The battery is cheap or weak, but works enough to continue using. The battery pack is easy to find and cheap; carry extras and swap if that's your thing. The sound is distorted at higher volumes, which seems to just be a cheap speaker. But if you don't want volume 11, it's fine. I bought this to quietly play 24/7 scriptures at home, so neither issue is a problem for me.