Sangean PR-D5 Portable Radio with Digital Tuning and RDS
Review by SKDaddle : Packs a lot of features for a reasonable price!

I researched several brands and models looking for a radio with excellent AM reception as we live in the country and are remote from big city signals. This radio was touted to have all the features we were looking for and after opening the box and hooking it up, we were pleasantly surprised at just how much better it performed than our home entertainment desktop model. The am reception is as good as we could expect from even a top of the line radio costing much more, but this radio performs beautifully. We were equally impressed with the quality and volume of sound from its built in speakers, they provide ample volume and clarity even from a distance. The radio is sleek, beautifully designed, simple to operate, lightweight and functional. If there were to be a drawback or a downside, it wuld have to be that it has no carrying handle, but the back is designed with a comfortable lip that allows it not to slip from your fingers when you pick it up. We can deal with the loss of a standard handle, it clearly was designed with quality in mind. I would recommend this radio to anyone, and it is seldom that I am so overwhelmingly satisfied with an internet purchase. The purchase price was half of the radio we started to buy and I am convinced that it would have been hard pressed to compete with the features this little beauty gives us! This is one purchase that made my day!

Sangean PR-D5 Portable Radio with Digital Tuning and RDS
Review by Michael W. Silverbush "improved cook" : Stylish cleverly designed hi-perforing radio

I bought this radio for a senior citizen in a marginal reception area. It was an ideal choice. The strong AM antenna allowed clear reception of a station that other radios in the home could not bring in as well. It programs easily and has five preset buttons for each of the bands (AM & FM), much as a car radio. Although digitally tuned, a dial does the work, & below that is the volume dial. This proved easy for the 90 year old user of the unit. The radio has non slip feet and a very nice appearance, so it looks great & is not too big to fit on a small table. A nice bonus for me, when I visit, is that it has an AUX input, so I can attach my IPOD or CD portable. The FM reception is clean and the dual speakers were ideal to bring a little stereo sound into the room. The radio can easily be used as a bedside unit, as it's dial can light and can function as a clock radio complete with sleep mode in 15 minute increments. It is a bargain.

Sangean PR-D5 Portable Radio with Digital Tuning and RDS
Review by W. A. Hill "Tek Geek" : The PR-D5, an excellent portable radio.

As it is with many products these days, a bit more time taken in design and more attention to detail in the execution would have made this a 5-star product. First, just how portable is a unit this large (and heavy, with the 6 C batteries installed) without a shoulder strap? They do give you a grip rail on the back so you won't drop it carrying it from room to room, but it's not satisfactory for say, a camping or hiking trip. And speaking of batteries, Sangean did not put a foam pad on the inside of the battery hatch lid to help prevent the batteries from shifting around. That lack is not hard to rectify, but it did detract from my score for this unit. This just in: I wondered if there was any protection for the memory, etc. when it is time to change the batteries, so today (8/26/07) I ran some tests to find out. I pulled a battery for various periods up to one minute - the presets and other memories remained intact and the clock held too. A REAL MANUAL would tell you exactly how much time you have to putz around and get the new batteries in. It would also tell you that you MUST install batteries for the memories to be maintained for lengthy periods.
. As with the RCR-22 which I also reviewed today, the "manual" leaves much to be desired. For the units shipped to North America, Sangean could leave out all the languages except for English, Spanish and French, and use the freed-up pages for more thorough information. Simple things for the non-technical folks like whether you plug the AC adapter into the radio and then into the AC outlet or vice-versa would be useful (the first method is correct for nearly all AC adapters). And for the more technically literate buyer, what happens when you plug in the AC adapter? Does it disconnect the batteries entirely or just protect them with a diode? Apparently the batteries are protected by a diode as nothing happens (the radio keeps on playing and the clock tells the time) when you plug the AC adapter into the radio while the adapter is not plugged into an AC outlet. At least make complete info available from the web site, but noooo... My first Sangean, the ATS-803, AM/FM/Shortwave receiver came with a REAL MANUAL, but then it cost more than twice as much too. Unfortunately some sleazy barstid [sic] stole it from me.
. The controls are very easy to use and the reception is excellent (as noted by Universal Radio on their web site). As with many other Sangean models, the AM tuner and antenna system is not simply an afterthought. The speakers give a very good sound for their size and there is a headphone jack for those who want even better sound quality. I tried a pair of self-powered speakers (such as used with computers, etc.) with it to great effect. As Letterman is fond of saying: You can "blow the roof off the joint!"
. I listen to AM radio a lot, so I've looked more closely at that aspect of the PR-D5. This past evening I listened to WSB in Atlanta very clearly (I'm in a deep valley in the Finger Lakes of NY). I recall picking up Charlotte, N.C. and New Orleans too. The length of this unit (10-3/4") means you will need a good sized, free area on your night stand or table to rotate it for best reception and perhaps a way to elevate it too. Though a couple of my nearby AM stations are working on their transmitters/towers, I am still able to receive them at their current low power outputs.
. The other functions of clock, alarm, timers, etc. work as described, and since this unit lacks a direct-entry number pad, the presets are a necessity. I set them to my regulars and fortunately their frequencies are scattered pretty well across the band (from 570 to 1390) so they can serve as starting points for tuning other frequencies. I'd prefer that the available 10 presets could be used for either AM or FM band stations, but the five I have for AM are just adequate for my needs.
. A thorough manual would have gotten the PR-D5 a 9 point or 4.5 star rating from me. One can't ask for more pure radio performance from a unit in this price range. I don't think that anyone would be really disappointed with this radio. .bh.