Armour Home Electronics Q2 Internet Radio review

Once configured the radio connects to your network: a red light flashes to show it’s trying to connect and turns green when it connects before turning off. The radio then starts playing on the station that you’ve selected. Audio quality is very good and the Q2 Internet Radio produces a balanced mix sound. By that we mean that the sound is clear and detailed. While there’s not much bass, neither are the speakers too tinny. The hiss and fizz of internet radio is dealt with well; however, sound quality is dependent on the quality of the stream: the best stations give you 128Kbit/s streaming, which is around FM stereo quality; talk radio stations typically give you 32Kbit/s, which is fine for voice but music sounds a bit robotic. Volume is loud enough to fill a big room, and it’s good to see that there’s no distortion even at maximum.

The biggest drawback is that the single speaker means that you can’t get stereo sound, unless you plug in a pair of headphones. Given where the radio will be used it’s probably not a huge downside but you may want to look somewhere else if you want an internet radio that you’ll listen to a lot of music on.

A USB power adaptor plugs into the mini USB port and charges the internal battery. On a full charge there’s enough power for around 14-hours use: after around six hours an amber light flashes to tell you it’s a good idea to recharge; after around nine hours it flashes really quickly to remind you.

The Q2 Internet Radio is a really neat product. Four stations should be enough for most people to use, although it’s easy enough to update your stations when you want. It’s incredibly easy to use, while the long battery life means that you can use this radio anywhere in range of your wireless network, making it the ideal choice for general use, such as for DIY or gardening. It’s a little expensive, but for pure flexibility and ease of use it just about justifies it.