Net Gain?
Now you may think, "three figures is a lot of cabbage for a radio that isn't even DAB, or stereo", which is reasonable. After a couple of months I considered it a solid upgrade to the kitchen DAB set, with better sound and much more versatility and choice. Net radio is just part of this equation.
Versatile and yet surprisingly unsung
For example, WFMU now makes its amazing archives available for download on an iPhone, with its iPhone app. So the Aux lead got quite a lot of use. So did network streaming, once UPnP was set up. It blended old linear radio favourites such as world service with net radio. Once you've gone net radio, I figure, you can't ever really go back.
Verdict
Home Music is a great example of Nokia using its design expertise and consumer understanding, to come up with unexpected and interesting. It's versatile and easy to use, and reminds you of many things Nokia has historically been quite good at. But will there ever be a version 2.0? Version 1.0 was well hidden. According to one Nokia source, the machine was buried alive, with only a couple of hundred sold over the past 18 months. But it's available, and with a priced at £139, I reckon it's an absolute steal. ®
More Wireless Music Player Reviews... |
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Nokia Home Music HD-1
COMMENTS
Networking
Humm UPnP and DLNA supported...are these two protocols OS supported by the nowadays Apple products? No!? So, why blaming Nokia for not supporting Apple products and not blaming Apple for lack of support for two widespread protocols, uh Mr Orlowski?
Backend support
A persistent issue I have with internet radio devices is their reliance on a web server somewhere to keep running and providing the routing information for each channel. Does this radio need to talk to Nokia to work properly? I guess they should be around for many years to come, but who knows if this service will be something they continue to value? Looks interesting though...
The cult of "i"
What a nightmare having to spend all that time reading an article when you could have been fiddling with your "i" devices which have a reputation for *hite sound quality.
£100 too much
So, no built in storage and it's basically just one of their £20 phones with a mono speaker, a few ports and no phone or battery. No iPod support is inexcusable at that price point (though it wouldn't be a major selling point for the device) and NO storage for podcasts or DAB (or even MW/LW)? No wonder it was buried alive.
That thing must cost practically nothing to make. Sell it for £30-£40 and they'd have a winner. They could even build some kind of marketplace around music sales to the device.... oh wait....
My coat's the one with the iPhone and N95 in the pockets. :-)
Reciva?
Good this it isn't Reciva internals. That would kill it utterly.
It might be OK for internet radio, but it's completely pants as a network media player. What would you think of a player that barfs if there's more than a few hundred tracks on your media server?
