Retekess V112 & PR13 stereo pocket radios review & test 

hmm I may have to pick up that V112 I've been looking for a tiny portable radio playing device to carry with me out in the field. Thanks for the review. I like this kind of product review. not many people are going to take the time to review such an item but you do. SO that's why I've been subb'ed all these years.

Quite rare to find a mini portable radio that doesn't exclusively use the stupid autoscan-tuning (where you just have autoscan up and down with no way of manually tuning, making it impossible to tune into weaker stations because it just skips over those)

The AM performance of the V112 is darn near a revelation compared to almost anything else! I should at some point post my review of the same Retekess radio you first received.

I have a lot of old vintage technology because I worked for a company that sold it. I still have a traveling pocket alarm stereo FM radio with presets, made by Sony. It comes in its own fax leather case with a velvet lining. It sounded great with a good pair of phones or ear buds but it was far from intuitive and lost it's memory when you had to swap the batteries. You then have retune it and put your favourite station back into the memory presets. The sound quality is brilliant. I use it with a pair of £70 Bose earbuds. The volume control is a convention rotary type and a lot of the switches are analogue. The preset buttons are soft touch numbered 1 - 10 so no clicking sounds. Great stuff and still very usable.

Thank you. Just bought the v112 for the occasions where I'm out of my wifi bubble and would rather soak in the free radio waves than spend $$$ on phone data. My introduction to stereo was on a cheap FM portable radio, which I thought sounded great. Since then, I don't think I have ever bought just an FM portable radio. Nice to see a well made, good sounding, digital tuner in a small package. It does NOT bring me back to the days of my first stereo radio. Bump that thing and the analog tuning dial would loose the station. (And I loved it!)

Have used the V112 personally for many hours listening to sports commentary (on AM) while at the game. Cannot fault it. Loud, clear and easy to use. My family has now bought 3 more V112s across a few different brandnames of the same radio (from Aliexpress for around $12 USD delivered).

i have three v112s. really love this radio. i sleep with it next to my pillow and use panasonic earbuds. they've held up very well and the sound is great on both am and fm.

I have th4e Retekess TR602 and love it! It doubles as a Bluetooth stereo speaker, mp3 player and am/fm stereo has headphone jack and audio in jack. It is my go to radio now days. It has rechargeable and readily available Nokia batteries. I ordered 3 from China for back up in case of power outage. NOTE: this set has a lighted (RED) lcd and is very readable. It looks like a 8 bit LED but is a LCD panel I believe as it can scroll text as well as numbers.

Wow, FM sounds great when it's not got the compression and other processing nonsense that radio stations put it through.

EX-USSR now mostly uses FM range 88-108 mHz. So that's not an issue.

I just thought it was hilarious that VWestlife was going on about AM signal quality and, whilst listening to AM, a guest on the radio started to talk about AM signal quality @ 11:51. It made me chuckle! Thanks for the interesting video mate. :)

The V112 model sounds pretty good. For what it is it's not bad.

I love all the little jokes and commentary you put on the side. Amazing video as always.

Half expected him to at least take a look at the insides of both of them (especially because of the AM antenna situation on the V112) since they seem trivial to open... oh well

Seems alright overall, shame about the reversed channels on FM but decent enough for what it is. Saw an ad for the V112 on the net the other day, so cool coincidence you've just reviewed one. Not something I personally need but curiously interesting nonetheless!

The V112 is a common Chinese radio sold under many different brand names the most common of which is HanRongDa and usually called the hrd-103. You can get them for as little as $10 USD shipped from aliexpress and ebay.

I have one of those portable transmitters. I have a 300mW version and works decently for me although I don't have any RDS capability and on maximum power it does generate a bit of noise around itself. But from a distance it's not an issue.

Listening to the FM test, I think the stereo is reversed. *Edit:* lol, I should have watched the full video before commenting.

I have an alternately branded v112, it has surprisingly decent am sensitivity and will pull distant stations reasonably well (very few local stations around here) compared with my old coby am/fm pocket radio. My only beef with the v112 & clones is the lack of a backlight, something I got used to with my previous coby pocket am/fm radio for those times you are just flipping stations in the dark trying to find something worthwhile to listen to and want to get back to a specific station.

16:44 Deliver to Beverly Hills 90210? Don't know what you've done, but love the little things that reveal your quiet sense of humour.

if you are looking for pocket size then its hard to beat the sony srf m95 or the srf m84 the former i still have in working order its Fm reception is absolutely superb in fringe areas and the local / dx switch really does a good job of filtering cross talk on local fm transmissions in city areas, the am reception is also excellent for the few remaining stations that broadcast in the uk, the model is many times smaller than the ones featured in your review, the am antenna inside is high quality from looking at how it is wound. I think i went through at least a dozen radios before i found this model that could successfully pick up my desired stations in a reliable and consistent way this being not having to angle the radio for the internal antenna to get optimal reception. Coupled with this is excellent battery life requiring only a single AAA battery which i tested with a premium brand battery and lost count after around 90 hours of listening, the cost of batteries has fallen significantly over the past few years but back when i purchased the unit battery cost was something of a consideration.

Curious to see a comparison of the new Retekess table radio to an older unit from the 80s and 90s

These radios look sweet and I'm glad that AM/FM (certainly FM) radios are still being sold in huge numbers. My Samsung mobile has an FM radio chip and so does my MP3 player, both record too although my MP3 player (Sansa clip) seems to have internal noise issues during recording. The only issue is, I'm in the UK. This means the type of programming I like is not usually found on AM or FM unless you are in certain areas like London. I prefer talk radio and on good old analogue radio we basically have BBC Radio 4 and my local BBC station (at certain times of the day). The two main stations I listen to most (Talkradio and LBC) are only on digital radio. I have a portable (like your realistic in size) digital radio I found on amazon. It has DAB and FM and also, and this is the reason I got it, records to micro sd card. It also acts as a bluetooth speaker for other devices. I found it very hard to locate a radio like this, that is new, supports DAB AND can record. So far it works very well. The screen is a bit weird but thats the only issue with it. It gets VERY loud (I think too loud for its small size lol) and runs on a single USB rechargable 18650 lithium cell, user replaceable behind a door! For those interested it looks exactly like a TECSUN ICR-100 but it has DAB and FM (no AM) and seems to be sold under many brands. Note that its not a TECSUN ICR-100, just uses the same case, buttons etc.

I really enjoy your reviews, you are always fair and unbiased which is refreshing to see!

Just bought on Ebay for $12.02, free shipping. Cheaper than Amazon I think. Switching to as many usb devices as possible. Thanks for your great review!

We will now pause for several seconds of fine music.

The 72 mhz band that this radio picks up is useful for assisted listening systems and language simultaneous interpreting. The specialized receivers designed for the purpose are monstrously expensive and often of mediocre quality (poor sensitivity and selectivity). I use these professionally and would be interested in trying one of these radios

I wonder if they using head phone as antenna like some radios do or like FM that some smart phones have just wondering .I really like them . great review

If you don't mind an analog tuner, a very tiny FM / AM radio with a built in speaker and very good AM performance is Panasonic RF-NA17R For all controls on the top edge - great for use in a shirt pocket, Panasonic's older model RF-032 provides very good reception performance.

Gotta love that Sunny Radio FM Station it's very good

I have one exactly like the gold one but mine is black and made by Flyoukki, it was a gift from my Mom she knows I collect little radios. I do think it is a nice little radio I use it often. I used a 35mm jack as an antenna and hooked it up to my speaker just to see if it would pull in anything, I was shocked by how many stations I was able to pick up that way, the radios are fun it reminds me of an mp3 player because of its size. When I take my walks or ride my bike Iuse it.

The audio @18:34 sounds quite good. I am watching this on my Dell computer connected via Toslink to a high quality Pioneer A/V receiver with Audio Technica studio monitor headphones. Very crisp with no detectable distortion or muddiness.

Great review as always! What’s the song playing on 99.1 at 8:13? It sounds so familiar but I’m not too sure. It almost sounds like Tears for Fears but not quite.

Wow such a comprehensive review!

Hello, regarding your v112 I have just received a mini radio like yours but mine is called oppower. It's displaying the time but there is nothing in the manual about how to change the time do you know how please?

I still listen to am radio dial mostly for major league baseball games.

Completely unrelated comment- Do you have user manual for the Pioneer CT W 616 DR ? I have just bought an almost new Pioneer CT W 606 DR , in original box but it didn't come with manual. The online copies are incomplete, last 4 or so pages are missing. It would be great if someone can upload complete manual on the internet.

Do you have a radio station online? Like through WinAmp?

I'm of two minds when it comes to rechargeable batteries that rely on USB connectors. On the one hand they can be made very tiny and compact, so it works great for tiny mp3 players you can use while running and stuff. On the other hand, the lithium batteries always seem to be unique and impossible to source if you need a replacement later on. The nice thing about AAA batteries is that they've been a standard for many years and probably will be for decades to come, and you can get AAA's at any drug store or convenience store.

Are there any good old portable radios that can run on battery, has a good battery life and receive NOAA on top of AM/FM? I know on amazon they have crank and solar radios that can do what I need but am dubious of their quality. Living in Florida without a portable radio during hurricane season is stupid and I need to fix it.

I'm not that much into radio's. Here in Denmark it's a nightmare when you by accident is exposed to broadcast's, because all they play is horrible crap over and over again, and when they don't play horrible "music", they talk shit. But this is a really cool video, that I had a great time watching. The hardware can't be blamed for what's on the air, and you present your awesome review in a really cosy way, which is downright therapeutic, when coming home from a serious shitty nightjob, and need to calm down before going to sleep. Thanks a lot mate. Keep the cool stuff coming.

There are still some stations on the OIRT band here in Eastern Europe (like, 3 or 4).

Hi could you tell me if the retekess v112 radio has good AM/FM reception when plugged into an external speaker instead of using headphones?

Question? does it have a speaker? Does it work without headphones?

What is the best "scan/reset" pocket radio?🌑

what’s the latency like?

Do these radios receive stereo on the OIRT band? There are different standards of stereo on OIRT and CCIR bands.

I was worried about the V112 not being stereo but I guess it does and doesn't tell you. It's the one I really wanted because it's tiny and good for emergencies if you need a little radio you can stick in a bag. Although I will still keep my Motorola phone with FM tuner as an "iPod touch". That had the added benefit of being able to plug in a 3.5mm antanna and using it as a decent sounding pocket radio. (Yes you can get antennas that are made specifically to plug into a phone)

do you still have your own station what dial is it on? I use 87.7 and 93.8 for mine.

They should do an european version with RDS & RT functions, it's very annoying to buy newer radios without this facilities due to origin of this radios, I've spent some money on Tecsun models and they did not have RDS or RT, but some months later, another chinese brand XHDATA possibly they again, they have RDS on screen... money matters in this

How well does it hold FM signals when you're out walking? Will you be able too pick up distant radio stations like a car radio?

a radio that can receive 60 megahertz!? I thought my SDR dongle was cool enough to do that! I may consider buying one of the portable radios later if I get the chance to.

I already use the radio in my walkman, but if i needed a portable radio, I'd probably go for the V112... the thing I don't really like is that it uses a lithium battery that has to be charged with a computer, but basically every portable device is plagued with that now, so it's just something people have come to expect.

If I have an 8-bit color source like DVD or Blu Ray, does outputting that signal at 10- bit enhance the 8-bit signal? or is there no difference? I have a TV screen that's 10 bit ready and I wanted to make my 8-bit content look near HDR10 (10 bit) quality.

That realistic tape player takes me back

I had a Minisette 10 once, I bought it second hand, and sadly its built in loudspeaker did not work at all. The radio did work, but you had to use headphones with it? I eventually threw it out. Nice radio though, so attractive and so small. It was missing its battery cover too.

Funny name Retkess means filthy in hungarian 😂😂

13:41 I now remember than radio was given as a corporate gift from AWS to at least 3 people on the local classifieds, and now I know how bad that radio is! New logo: sg.carousell.com/p/236117533 Old logo: sg.carousell.com/p/185406464

Good video but Im left with the doubt, since this was made for jogging, how does the reception change (or not) depending on movement and running, coz Id like this for running but a lot of these radios have weak tuning and once the movement kicks in you're left with a lot of noise

*I wanted to hear whats down below 88mhz*

Was this video made before the internet?

The smaller V112 isn't bad. The deal breaker for me is the reversed stereo imaging. That's just unacceptable. It's almost as bad as earbuds I've bought that were wired out of phase.

14:28 for those people that have only one ear, or can only use one earbud at work. Some songs are agressively mixed in stereo, and you would miss out just listening to one channel.

The reversed channels could be fixed by rewiring the headphone jack (provided there is enough room inside for some small jumper wires), but that seems rather silly to do to fix a problem that should have never been a problem in the first place! ... I wonder if the firmware is hackable and could be fixed that way? Why does nothing support C-Quam anymore? Is it because it never really became mainstream? I assume that 30+-year-old tech would be a standard feature that could easily be implemented. I loved the C-Quam feature on the stock radio in my mom's '87 Pontiac, it gave AM stations really-close-to-FM fidelity.

I would be interested in a little unit to get Shortwave.

I prefer a pocket radio with 3.5 mm headphone jack and build in speaker.

Many handheld radios were also complete garbage if you want some DXing. Oddly enough, many phones seem to have quite decent radios, Android or not. The Nokia C3 has a very good FM tuner, only let down by not the best selectivity. But very resistant to overloading and various interference sources. It even has RDS, but it doesn't have the best detection. The manual tuning is also quite odd, you have to go into the options and separately adjust the decimal and integer part of the frequency. The Galaxy A40 has much better RDS decoding, but it isn't as resitant to intermodulation and has internal interference from the OLED display. It does support recording, though, which is very convenient. I remember some crappy NGM Android phone also had a decent FM tuner. And the FM stereo blending and audio filtering is actually a good feature for DXing if you want to get an estimate of the signal strength.

I used to have my Sony Walkman little pocket radio from the mid 2000’s, and I had it for years until I lost it a long time ago. It has AM, FM, TV and Weather bands. Unfortunately, the TV Band was discontinued after the June 2009 deadline where they shut down analog TV stations to digital. Only AM, FM and Weather are the other 3 left, but AM is not going away anytime soon. In the world of internet streaming and satellite radio, it would be the thing.

Would have liked to see more quantifiable reciever sensitivity, What about digital AM. How about battery life run time test ?

In the UK, it's possible that these old second hand portable radios will have Long Wave alongside FM and -AM- Medium Wave (you might even get shortwave!) Also, I wonder if any of those Retekess radios are sold in the UK under the Roberts brand or shop's own brands such as Bush, Alba or Polaroid? I wonder if they add DAB+ for the versions sold in the UK/Europe? They tend not to add LW to radios nowadays, but then radios with DAB tend to have no AM reception at all, they're just DAB and FM. I'm guessing the FM only PR13 will have DAB in Europe, it's a bit fancy for an FM only radio in Europe.

Do you have a preference between digital tuning controls and analog?

DOES PR-13 have no Squelch but static and try to tune to 81.7 FM.?

Built-in (non-replaceable) battery type of devices are usually the ones i avoid at all costs. If it doesn't run on easily available and replaceable AA or AAA batteries, i don't touch it. At least the re-chargeable battery cells should be easily replaceable. Like on a Tecsun GR-168 for example.

Surprised to see that the V112 is on sale here in Germany on amazon.de for a whoppin‘ 16€ 😁 Seems like a nifty little device, might just buy one!

10:00 what if it's using jack cable for antenna

I could use those radio's when walking the lights go out looks awesome

In Poland OIRT stations were switched off in 2000, at least in theory - some continued to broadcast illegally until 2006. It's kind of a shame though, because it wiped out many nice vintage radios since AM is pretty much dead here

Love your videos, just-saying, since you like radio so much why don't you just buy yourself whatever is the best available in 2019 🤗

I was about to say the PR13 might make an okay emergency kit radio, but when it has swapped stereo, only FM, and not much a price difference when compared to the V112, then it's a no brainer to get the V112, and I would buy one had I not found a Roltan T50 a while back at the thrift store for $5 , that also has an SD card slot, and speaker.

I know it's not a solution, but if listening via ear buds* you could always put them the wrong way around; thus reversing the stereo problem, so it's then the correct way round. (* = This would also work when using speakers, simply physically place these the wrong way round also). A simple solution which would solve the problem without needing to spend anything to solve it. Just saying.

I'd pick one up, but my grandmother gave me her AM/FM/WB Walkman, and it has an incredibly strong & clear AM tuner Edit for the one person who cared: it has sadly died on me due to the carbon traces breaking, so nothing I can fix

ORIT FM is still used in Russia and the former USSR countries, such as Ukraine, and Bulgaria and is common for European FM DXers to get them. In Colombia and some Central American countries, the FM frequencies are even decimals for some reason. Mexican radio stations are border blasters. You should get the Tecsun PL-398BT radio with shortwave amd shout me out.

It looks just like the Hanrongda HRD-103 AM/FM Radio that they sell on ebay and Amazon!

Man I had this playing while I was working on something when that song started playing at 14:40 ish for some reason that song got stuck in my head and but I couldn't remember the name.

Teardowns Please!

How do you set the time?

Buying the hanrongda,my built in FM in MP3 player is bad battery easily drained and i dont want to use my smartphone either forr that plus i like to listen to some am station sometimes coz my big ass radio is getting bad also

How do you program the presets

Was that Barbara Feldon doing some voice work "getting acquainted with your new premium quality audio system"?

Retekess also made portable cassette player as I have that one but the problem is the cassette itself being having a fluctuation in playback so I have to change its tape motor to the other one which I salvaged from broken decade old radio cassette player. The cassette player also comes with some kind of direct USB cable which connects directly with the cassette player so people can use either smartphone charger or powerbank (only tape function can be used due to powerbank tend to turn off when very low power used). However, need to be careful when using USB power because this will make the battery going hotter when not used for a longer time with USB power stays on. On top of that, cassette playback with USB power on will noticing lesser motor noise than playback with battery power. Amazon link for Retekess cassette player: www.amazon.com/Retekess-Cassette-Portable-Recorder-Standard/dp/B07WNGQ8KR

The retekess company is like the new niorfnio I bought a niorfnio 15 watt fm transmitter on Amazon now it's rebranded as retekess

What’s that multiplex generator you’re using there?

I honestly just want a small portable radio with HD FM Because unlike the EU, we have a good implementation of digital radio.

I need a good radio that covers AM for my dad for his walks.

It's funny, AM sounds so similar to a telephone call. In fact, on a strong signal, it sounds better than a telephone call. So odd, such an old technology sounds better than the newer ones! I've always wondered, and perhaps you know, what consumes more power, AM or FM? I'd like to know for transmitting and receiving. :)

I have this one in the color red.The reception on the am and FM is crappy.

Rather morbid subjects on your radio stations at 09:43! lol

Oh, and how come America doesn't have DAB like in the UK and Europe?

Thanks!

22:00 I don't know what's wrong with the left and right it seems right to me but I can't tell my left from my right anyway. Dyslexic joke. LOL