The first unboxing and quick review of the brand new XHDATA D-608WB emergency radio

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This is my unboxing and first impressions of the XHDATA D-608WB. This is a brand new radio, it was released today (24 January 2024) on the XHDATA website. These are really only my very first impressions, I am seeing it for the first time, just like my viewers are.
It is a really sturdy little emergency radio, I love the look of it. Feels very solid and my initial test showed a lot of promise. Great on FM, terrific sound, good on SW (during the day) and MW seems to work fine. It has many interesting features, like an emergency charging port for phones and two light sources. Also Bluetooth and it can play music on SD cards.
I will make more videos in the coming days and weeks to really put this one through its paces. XHDATA has come up with some really great radios in the past few years, so I am very excited to see what they have done with this one.
XHDATA sent me this radio for evaluation, so I will also be sending them my feedback after proper testing.
You can buy the radio now (January 2024) for $28.99, directly from XHDATA. The regular price is $36.29. That seems very reasonable for a sturdy, attractive, very capable emergency radio.
You can buy it here: xhdata.com.cn/products/xhdata...
00:00 Something special, first unboxing!
00:42 Features
01:19 What is inside the box?
03:40 A closer look at the radio
08:01 FM band scan - great sound!
10:57 MW band scan
12:33 SW scan on the tiny whip antenna
15:40 SW scan with a 10 metre wire
18:30 My initial impression

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Опубликовано:

28 июн 2024

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Комментарии : 76

@richardmerriam7044 Месяц назад

I have a collection of about 20 or so radios, and this is in my top five. So many features, and I learned quickly to have at least one fully charged backup battery. A very versatile radio with many features! The SOS siren is ear splitting.

@swlistening Месяц назад

Hi Richard, I agree. This is a very good little radio, I sometimes think it is even more sensitive on shortwave than the D-808. I like its simplicity also, just a few very intuitive buttons. The other day I activated the SOS button by accident and it gave me quite a fright! It is very loud indeed.

@MattinLapland 5 месяцев назад

They are so small these days! I just got my Sony ICF 2001D back in use and the medium wave came alive at night with all sorts I couldn’t hear with other radios. It’s a hard portable radio to beat even in these modern times.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

I really envy you for that Sony ICF 2001D! A wonderful radio.

@DonzLockz 5 месяцев назад

Looks like a pretty good emergency radio. Nice bright colour, big led and good reception.👍

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Hey Don, yes, I think this is a nice little radio. I love the colour and the overall look! Also the big LED, that is very nice. And reception seems to be quite good. I have had some good night-time SW scans, I will make another video with those scans soon.

@ashusaini8 5 месяцев назад

Really nice radio. Thank you so much sir.👍

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

It's my pleasure Ashu. I agree with you, this is a very nice radio!

@KRAFTWERK2K6 10 дней назад

I got one too when it became available to buy here in germany too. I was curious when i saw it being announced and at first i was a bit bummed that it was aimed too much to the north american market, because of the weather band and probably the FM Band and AM frequency stepping. BUT it is actually multiregion as i saw and you can switch through all the different FM band modes for North America, Japan and the rest of the world. Weatherband of course remains silent here in Europe because there are no Weatherband transmitter stations over here. The amber / orange LCD light is fantastic and i wish the reading lamp LED would be warm white. The speaker is pretty good for a radio this small and it sounds fantastic on AM and Shortwave. On FM it still kinda sounds a little thin but i have heard way worse And i love that the stepping resolution lets you really nicely fine-tune frequencies depending on how slow or fast you rotate the encoder on the side. I wish this was standard on all DSP radios. So yeah, no matter where you live, this radio definitely works in every region. Just keep in mind that it does not seem to be weather resistant. So don't let it get wet ;) I also love that you are NOT risking hearing damage by accidentally pressing the SOS siren key and that it really ONLY makes noise if you hold the button. That's a really foolproof protection. Personally i don't need such a loud siren but hey.... it's good that it's there because you never know. And i love that it directly comes with a powerful 3000mAh battery that can be easily swapped. I have no idea how they manage to get this thing to be sold this cheap because it feels really well built and not too light.

@swlistening 9 дней назад

Thanks for your comment! You are right, this radio is definitely multi-region, despite coming with the US weather band. As you say, it has all the FM bands, also the 10 kHz or 9 kHz MW steps. I really like this radio, it feels strong and I like the look, it looks rugged. And, as you say, it does not feel light, it has some weight to it. It feels like something that you can take outside and not worry too much. Personally I quite like the sound on FM, but I know people have very different tastes when it comes to sound.

@KRAFTWERK2K6 9 дней назад

@@swlistening well it's certainly no sangean MMR-99 but that one costs 3x as much and doesn't have shortwave. But it still sounds fantastic for its size. I just wish the volume steps would be better. Step 1 and 2 are way too much apart volume wise. So it's either dead quiet or almost too loud when it should be just low volume. And sometimes i notice a bit of sound aliasing at volume step 8. But only there. It sounds like a Bitcrusher effect.

@swlistening 9 дней назад

@@KRAFTWERK2K6 I didn't know about the Sangean MR-99, looked it up now. Looks like a very nice radio! Do you use it for MW DXing?

@KRAFTWERK2K6 9 дней назад

@@swlistening Well i haven't really do a direct comparison with my main MW DXing radios like the XHDATA D-219 or the Tecsun R-909 and the PL-398MP but it is pretty sensitive. It even has the nice feature of switching between a few Bandwith settings so you can tickle the audio signal pretty clear and widen the frequency range, making it sound a lot more open. Something i wish would be standard on other DSP based radios too. I just hope Sangean adds Shortwave to the successor of the MMR-99. I gave them a few suggestions on sangeans youtube channel and they came forward saying they are taking suggestions and may even consider them for their products. So who knows.... Perhaps soon we might see a battle between the DSP Emergency Radios of XHDATA and Sangean.

@swlistening 9 дней назад

@@KRAFTWERK2K6 That will be an interesting battle! It would be great if Sangean could make some more shortwave radios.

@digitalmediafan 4 месяца назад

Very nice radio. I see it's £40 including delivery to tne UK but I spun the wheel and got a 30 % discount so had to buy it !

@swlistening 4 месяца назад

That's a great discount! I hope you will enjoy the radio, I am really enjoying mine!

@andysrandomness 5 месяцев назад

So far I am impressed with the sound and the build quality My final decision if I want to purchase this radio will be the quality of the AM Reception once Todderbert puts his review

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Hi Andy, yes, I think this radio was built very well, I like it. It feels strong. MW is also important for me, I will keep checking it on MW, but now, in summer, I will not really catch many good long-distance signals.

@NJF60 5 месяцев назад

Hi Andre, pretty cool radio. Tonight was very good clear traffic on USB 5550 New York Radio ATC.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thanks John!

@joewebertv 5 месяцев назад

Nice radio. Shipping cost $12 here in the U.S You’ll be paying around $40 total

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thanks, Joe, I think I will like this one. I know XHDATA often ships directly from warehouse in the US and Europe, for free, perhaps stock is still on the way there. As of now it seems to me like they are only listing the stock in China on their website.

@F4LDT-Alain 5 месяцев назад

That's what I was hoping for too, but nope, so far they only ship from China. No EU warehouse. Shipping is 9.95 euros to France. Usually the prices are higher for radios shipped from local warehouses anyway.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

@@F4LDT-Alain That's true, so the inflated price from local warehouse probably covers shipping anyway 🙂

@StratmanII 5 месяцев назад

I've seen a few emergency radios from Tecsun, but I think XHDATA's D-608WB has the neatest looking design. The company's decision to use, which I'm guessing the Skyworks' Si-4734 DSP chip is predictable. After all, XHDATA has been known to use DSP chips from Skyworks for years and I don't think I've seen an XHDATA/Sihuadon/Radiwow branded radio that doesn't use a Skyworks DSP chip. 🙂 The LCD display reminds me of the one from the D-109 though and I like the display bezel being surrounded by neat looking buttons. I predict that this will be a one-off and unique model from XHDATA. Since it's designed as an emergency radio, it makes sense to feature the NOAA VHF weather band and the SOS alarm (first seen on the D-109WB). Which in all probability, there won't be a non-North American market "D-608" model in the future - just the "one size fits all" D-608WB. If I'm not mistaken, the D-605WB is XHDATA's first radio to be shipped with the yellow colored, 3000 mAH 18650 lithium ion cell. A larger capacity battery would be the logical choice for an emergency radio. Thank you Andre for the entertaining introductory video! 📻👍 Do I need one of these? Probably no, but won't refuse a free sample from XHDATA! ☺

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

I also think it is very similar to the D-109, but with a better speaker. And, of course, the emergency functions, which I actually like. You know, with our loadshedding, having a radio with a torch and LED light is actually very nice. I tested the LED and it does light up my study sufficiently. I like the bigger battery also. I wouldn't actually even have considered this, the emergency radios we have here in South Africa are all quite poor. But this one is in a different class, so far I have been very impressed. I kind of like the look, and I like the simplicity, just a few buttons that do everything. I think it is a well-built radio, definitely feels very sturdy.

@ArnieDXer 5 месяцев назад

Hey André, you've got a very interesting radio indeed 😁 Well, I'm not really into emergency radios, but I love it how numerous ways it can be powered in. Especially the solar charger, although... I'm afraid that's the culprit of your noisy MW reception 😕 and the Tecsun loop won't help much either as the noise source would be near the loop or even inside it - that is the radio, and the noise source being part of it! 😆 Despite that, however, 16m seems to be doing well, although I'd better wait for your evening/nighttime testing to give a fair opinion on its overall SW performance. Nevertheless, it should be able to pick up one's locals fairly easily, if needed. I think you won't be DXing in an actual emergency, but rather search for whatever is (still) available in your area. And once you find something that does provide emergency information, you'd gotta stay with them 😅

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thanks Arnie, I wasn't actually into emergency radios until I got this one, but it's so much fun 🙂 It's like a Swiss army knife, can do a little bit of everything. The 16m band was OK in my opinion, but my night-time scans have been much better. I will add another video quite soon. I fear the noise on MW that you heard might have been my new ring light, I realised tonight while recording something else that the ring light is really noisy. So I won't be using it when I make SW or MW videos. I think you are right, if there is a real emergency you want to pick up some nearby stations to hear what's going on. But I would also like to hear about what is going on in the rest of the world in such a case, so I do think it should pick up some distant signals as well. Which it does seem to do. I have actually been surprised with some of my scans using only the whip antenna, it seems to pull in most of the usual stations that I pick up here.

@robintyson591 2 месяца назад

That looks like a really good deal. I love my D-109, but having the ability to solar charge, plus the hand crank, and the ability to charge a phone (for our loadshedding), and the torch and LED light I think adds a lot of value. Plus, of course, Bluetooth and the SD card as well. Does it 'skip forward' 15 seconds on a podcast on Bluetooth playback like the D-109? I love that feature on the D-109. Much better than my JBL Flip speaker which can't do that. Looks like a bigger (chunkier) tuning knob compared to the D-109? I see it also plays FLAC files!

@swlistening 2 месяца назад

Hi Robin, thanks for your comment. This is certainly a perfect radio for loadshedding! XHDATA delivers to South Africa within 2-3 weeks, so it's quite easy to get hold of one. I had to check the "skipping forward" now, as I haven't really taken note of that before. My D-109 and the D-608WB perform in exactly the same way, if I hold in the fast forward button, both of them seem to skip forward in roughly 10 second intervals when I am playing something on the micro SD card. The tuning dial is definitely nice and chunky, it is about double the thickness of the one on the D-109, so it sticks out more from the radio and is, therefore, easier to turn. The diameter is exactly the same though.

@robintyson591 2 месяца назад

@@swlistening It's such a useful function. I listen to podcasts in the bath, so the ability to skip through adverts remotely is wonderful, plus, if someone phoned me I can answer from my bath!

@robintyson591 2 месяца назад

@@swlistening What I haven't seen yet is a test from zero battery power. In other words if you crank it for five minutes how long would that last. If you left it in sunlight for five hours how long would that last. Have you tried that yet? Drain the battery to zero and try those two tests.

@swlistening 2 месяца назад

@@robintyson591 Hi Robin, maybe one day when mine has run down I will try this. Should be a fun test!

@Ankjell 5 месяцев назад

Just bought it lol. Radio/flashlight for my camping/biking trips! ❤

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

I think it will be a great camping companion! I like that you can also charge your phone.

@KRAFTWERK2K6 10 дней назад

Just make sure it doesn't get wet. I don't think it has weather seals.

@beautifulysungsingh1849 5 месяцев назад

Good one 👍

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thank you and thanks for the visit!

@dx-dx-dx-dx 5 месяцев назад

dear Andre, thumbs up !

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thanks!

@anulearntech 5 месяцев назад

great unboxing video, I'm curious about the SOS button though....

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thanks! According to the manual the SOS button activates an alarm and the flashlight will start flashing. I haven't tested it yet, for fear of upsetting the neighbours 😀

@F4LDT-Alain 5 месяцев назад

Does it flash . . . - - - . . . ? 😁

@kwdavids1 5 месяцев назад

@@F4LDT-Alain Yes, the Siren alarm is extremely loud and the flashlight flashes red.

@F4LDT-Alain 5 месяцев назад

Quite interesting to watch your review of this somewhat atypical radio, thank you for this. I think I'll wait until you make an more in-depth review of its SW reception abilities to order it, if I ever do. This wasn't totally convincing. I'm not much into emergency radios, but as mentioned, for camping, even night outdoors SWL sessions, the light can come handy too. But well, my D-901 can do the job too. The vol+/vol- buttons actually are close to a deal breaker to me. I just hate this. Just put a regular potentiometer for heaven's sake. The combined solar panel/LED light is a clever thing. Just wondering how long it takes for a charge in the sun. I used to have a similar radio long ago, and that one would need to be left in the sun for more than a full day to get a full charge... Wondering about the "mic" hole. A microphone? for what? this radio doesn't have any kind of sound recording function, does it?

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thanks Alain, I agree with you, I am not 100% convinced yet about the SW capabilities. But, as we know, on another day (or night) it might perform quite differently, depending on the conditions. I will keep testing it extensively on SW. In fact, last night I did a quick comparison on Voice of Korea between this one and the D-109, and they were both pretty much the same. We'll see... I do think it might be a very nice camping radio, I love the shape and the look. It is small enough to carry around. The volume buttons are a bit of a bummer, I don't like that either. The mic is for phone calls, you can connect your phone and use it as a wireless speaker. It does not have a recording function. There are actually some very nice functions on the radio, which I will cover in more detail when I do my full review.

@F4LDT-Alain 5 месяцев назад

Today for some reason I took my D-109 out of its drawer for a quick band scan. And then I looked at it carefully, something looked really familiar. The LCD display... it's exactly the same as on the D-608 from your video. I think that this radio shares a lot with the D-109. Even the form factor seems close. I'd be willing to bet that they share most of their electronics.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

@@F4LDT-Alain Funny that you mention this, I actually just finished recording a video where I compare these two about an hour ago, and I made more or less the same comments in my video! I'm busy editing the video now, hopefully I will get it up later tonight. It was a long SW comparison, great reception tonight, so I compared the D-109 and the D-608 on some very interesting signals.

@qrpradiolistner7232 5 месяцев назад

Nice Receiver my riend... It seems to be very sensitive... 73.Giuseppe.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thanks Giuseppi! I am still testing it, but so far I really like it. It is very sensitive.

@kwdavids1 5 месяцев назад

You made a mistake. The FM band in the US is 88-108 (not an option on this radio). The FM band in Africa (Europe and Australia) is 87.5 - 108.. Also if you select 87.5 - 108 on this radio for Europe, you get the US settings for MW and you cannot actually tune 87.5 -- the band starts at 88.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Thanks for your comment. It is actually correct what I said and what the manual says, even though it's a bit quirky. If you are in the US and you select 87.5 to 108 on FM as the manual says, it turns MW to 10K steps, and FM on the radio itself is then 88 to 108. It is a bit strange though that the manual says you need to select 87.5 and then the radio turns to 88 when you switch it on. When you select 87 to 108 if your are in Europe or Africa, as they say in the manual and I said in the video, it will activate 9K MW steps and FM becomes 87 to 108 (so slightly off the actual band, but basically correct for Europe and Africa). It's a bit strange, but if you follow the manual's instructions you do get the correct bands and MW steps for your area.

@RJDA.Dakota 5 месяцев назад

@@swlisteningthat is because of the MeTv stations that are in some areas of USA. I also read that the band may be expanding to about 80 MHz or below. These “FrankenFMs”, are tolerated and even allowed especially in places like Chicago, and other large cities. I still have old MW radios that stop at 1600. Our MW was extended decades ago. The low VHF TV band has all but been abandoned.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

@@RJDA.Dakota Thank you, this is very interesting information. I think here in South Africa there is also no VHF TV band anymore. I don't watch much TV, but I know everything was migrated to digital last year. Analogue TV has been switched off pretty much everywhere in the country.

@RJDA.Dakota 5 месяцев назад

@@swlistening a far cry from what your country used to be. As I understand TV started out in the mid 1970s. Here in the USA, our earliest local television station started in 1947, some cities before that.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

@@RJDA.Dakota Yes, indeed! TV started very late here, in 1976.

@ronan3672 5 месяцев назад

Can this radio actually recharge the cell phone battery? Thanks.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

Hi Ronan, yes it can. It works kind of like a power bank, 3000 mAh battery. So if your radio is fully charged, it will provide about one full charge to the phone. But it's more like an emergency charge I think, just to get a bit of power for emergency call or to be connected to the mobile network for a while.

@joewebertv 5 месяцев назад

Which is better sounding in your opinion, this radio or the d-109WB?

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

That's a hard one to answer, I have only really tested this one very briefly. But I think the D-608 sounds better than the D-109. Really reminds me of the Tecsun ICR-110, which has a passive radiator speaker and sounds great. The manual identifies a "bass vibration plate air outlet" at the back of the D-608. I guess that helps with the sound, which is really very good on FM. On SW some people might find it a bit muffled.

@joewebertv 5 месяцев назад

@@swlistening I see. Thank you 😊

@kwdavids1 5 месяцев назад

The D-608 has far more powerful bass.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

@@kwdavids1 I agree, much better bass on the D-608!

@kwdavids1 5 месяцев назад

FM reception on mine is beyond terrible. Is yours poor as well?

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

That's quite interesting, on mine its is actually excellent. Picks up everything on FM in Johannesburg, and from surrounding areas. With no interference on the local signals. The distant one (50 km, 30 miles), came in stronger than on some of my other radios. My unboxing shows a quick FM scan, you will see there, it works really well on FM for me.

@kwdavids1 5 месяцев назад

@@swlistening I must have gotten a dud. Thanks for the info.

@swlistening 5 месяцев назад

@@kwdavids1 Sure. It is a bit of a bummer, with these DSP chips, FM always seems to be quite good. Yours must have some issue.

@DaszekGT Месяц назад

Mine was perfect but one day I touched the antenna and I felt small electro shock. Since then, the reception is 2-3x worse than d808, previously was comparable. Did you managed to repair it or did XHDATA support helped you?

@kwdavids1 Месяц назад

@@DaszekGT This is a radio XHDATA sent me for the purposes of helping them improve the manual. I contacted XHDATA about several issues including the dead FM. They asked me for a video that I supplied. I never heard back, but since I didn't pay for the radio, and I didn't like it anyway (no number buttons), I didn't follow up. It also gives false weather alerts, so it's useless as a weather radio too (the XHDATA D-109WB is the same way.) XHDATA replied to me by saying that they have no way to test WB operation in China.